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Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

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Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#111
post #109
post #56

"AI" (or rather language models) will change the world. But in a very different way. They aren't (and won't become) AGI. They aren't (and won't) replace software engineers (but maybe help them to write better software, or more realistically churn out even more bad software). And they aren't and won't become ultra-wise oracles that can solve any task you throw at them. But they are an interface between the real world…

> Here are a few services that might get by without a web browser or app soon: > 1. online banking ??! You've got a system of unpredictable reliability and you're going to let it handle money? Online banking has always been extremely conservative, sometimes for good reason.

Some banking still runs on COBOL, probably.

Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but a lot of smart people seem to think they won't. A lot of smart people _always_ seem to think won't fizzle out.

Where have they been wrong?

You're kidding, right?

Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#114
post #80

It certainly feels like the AI bubble is popping. Code completion is a great use, some writing tools are nice, I love chatGPT for information lookup (while knowing that it hallucinates), ChatGPT/whatever is great for generating icons and some images, and it’s much better at writing in corpo than I am. But…Nvidia as the most valuable company in the world? $1B valuations for freshly minted companies? Radical changes to…

I see things at a slightly different angle than you. Yes, there's a bubble. Those things you list, I find it very easy to believe they add up to at least 3% productivity boost globally. A single tech doing this in one year (or even 18 months) before we really understand how to best apply it, is a radical change all by itself, even if we don't use it to speed up future growth. The world economy is $109 trillion; 3% of…

> Code completion is a great use, some writing tools are nice, I love chatGPT for information lookup (while knowing that it hallucinates), ChatGPT/whatever is great for generating icons and some images, and it’s much better at writing in corpo than I am.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that these things provide value anywhere close to 3% of GDP, that estimate is orders of magnitude too high.

3% is the entire economic output of the UK or India. The global agriculture industry is only like 4.5%.

Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but a lot of smart people seem to think they won't. A lot of smart people _always_ seem to think won't fizzle out.

Where have they been wrong?

Depends on your definition of "fizzle out". If you mean "not dominate the future, but be relegated to merely a niche tech", then:

Ruby on Rails. Modula-2. Every JavaScript framework since ever. Supersonic passenger flight. Space tourism. Emitter-coupled logic. Gallium arsenide (still has my vote for a name for a speed-metal band). Musk's Boring Company. I'm sure I could go on with some more thought.

Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#117

It certainly feels like the AI bubble is popping. Code completion is a great use, some writing tools are nice, I love chatGPT for information lookup (while knowing that it hallucinates), ChatGPT/whatever is great for generating icons and some images, and it’s much better at writing in corpo than I am. But…Nvidia as the most valuable company in the world? $1B valuations for freshly minted companies? Radical changes to…

> It certainly feels like the AI bubble is popping. Objectively, no it doesn't. Even if you think it's a bubble, then the bubble is just growing. There are zero signs of anything popping yet. Company valuations are only increasing. > Nvidia as the most valuable company in the world? It makes sense when you look at the financials. It's like back in 1800's when railroads were the new thing, and imagine there were only…

> Objectively, no it doesn't. Even if you think it's a bubble, then the bubble is just growing. There are zero signs of anything popping yet.

Ever seen a bubble pop? It doesn't contract and then pop, usually. A hole develops, and almost immediately no more bubble. If you watch very closely, you might see signs of the end a fraction of a second before it vanishes.

Like, this is why these phenomena are called bubbles; they grow and grow and grow, and then bang.

> It's like back in 1800's when railroads were the new thing, and imagine there were only one company that knew how to make locomotives, while everything else had multiple suppliers.

I, er, feel obliged to mention that that was a particularly notorious bubble. And, like, yes, if you're selling shovels in a gold rush, that's a good place to be, no question of that. But it doesn't say anything in particular about the long-term viability of the gold rush.

Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of railroads went bust -- it was a time of extreme speculation. All that matters is that people think the industry will turn out to be profitable and sustainable overall, once we figure out which products and features work and which don't. There's no reason whatsoever to think AI doesn't fall in that category.

I'm not a railroad expert but I think AI involves much more speculation. They knew what a locomotive could do and what problem it solved. We can't really say that with AI.

A locomotive was an _input_. Like a GPU, arguably. They _didn't_ really know what a railway could do, at the time; a lot of speculative railway projects were terribly ill-conceived and could never have made economic sense (or in extreme cases, worked at all, at least with the tech available; the first attempt at a Channel Tunnel was in the late 19th century, for instance).

Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#119
post #49
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Intelligence doesn't use OpenAI at all. Siri and writing tools can tap into ChatGPT to compose text, e.g. create a story but that requires approval from the user. Claiming that all Apple did was "hastily shoved together selection of OpenAI API calls" is a misrepresentation of what Apple showed.

I think you disagree with yourself? How is Apple AI not using ChatGPT if Siri uses ChatGPT? You said it yourself. Heck, Apple said it themselves. The fact that there is a prompt asking for permission doesn't change that. Maybe some parts of the AI in iPhone don't use ChatGPT but others do, as advertised. > Apple Intelligence doesn't use OpenAI at all. Siri and writing tools can tap into ChatGPT to compose text, e.g.…

Apple Intelligence is run on-device and on Apple's Private Cloud Compute, it does not use OpenAI. Apple also allows ChatGPT (and later other models) to be called directly from Siri and writing tools, in cases where Apple Intellgence can't solve the task. That is for example for when some text should be composed, like a story or recipe. Nothing about this contradicts with what I have written previously.

Re: Even Apple cannot explain why we need AI in our lives

#120
post #19

It certainly feels like the AI bubble is popping. Code completion is a great use, some writing tools are nice, I love chatGPT for information lookup (while knowing that it hallucinates), ChatGPT/whatever is great for generating icons and some images, and it’s much better at writing in corpo than I am. But…Nvidia as the most valuable company in the world? $1B valuations for freshly minted companies? Radical changes to…

If it is a pop how can Big Tech walk it back? Am I overreacting here or have companies like Google and Microsoft pimped out their reputations in an irreversible fashion?

I mean, see, say, Google+, or that Facebook metaverse thing, or the various Windows Phones, or IBM's adventures in the blockchain. Companies get over-excited about the latest trend and do silly stuff all the time. People generally more or less forget.
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