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ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

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Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#131

Post by wiseowise »

lm28469 wrote: post #114
wiseowise wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/when-... https://www.today.com/money/are-smartphones-making-us-lazy-t... Etc., etc.

I don't think you can "fear" something you consider a gimmick. Also good fucking luck arguing smartphones don't have massive negative effects. If LLMs were even 50% as good as they're pretending to be we'd see huge productivity increase across the board, we simply don't, and it's been almost 3 years since chatgpt was released now. Where is the productivity increase ? Where is the extra wealth generated ?

> If LLMs were even 50% as good as they're pretending to be we'd see huge productivity increase across the board, we simply don't, and it's been almost 3 years since chatgpt was released now. Where is the productivity increase ? Where is the extra wealth generated ?

I certainly did. You won’t see any of it, because I use it to work less, not more.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#132

Post by mgrant24601 »

lm28469 wrote: post #109
wiseowise wrote: post #42

AI is gimmick, smartphones are gimmick, computers are gimmick, automation is gimmick, books are gimmick, only %MY_ENLIGHTMENT% is not. Seriously, I understand saying something lime this about crypto or whatever meme of the day, but even current LLMs are literal magic. Instead of reading 10 pages of empty water and wasting my time, ChatGPT can summarize this as > Malesic argues that AI hype—especially in education—is…

> Instead of reading 10 pages of empty water and wasting my time, ChatGPT can summarize this as Definitely worth investing billions and wasting insane amount of energy... idk how people merge the "this is a revolution!" and "it kinda summed up a 10 pages pdf that I couldn't bother to read in the first place" without noticing the insane amount of mental gymnastic you have to go through to reconcile these two ideas. No…

> Not even mentioning the millions of new LLM generated pages that are now polluting the web

yes because before 2022 the internet was a pristine landscape, unmarred by trash and nonsense.

look in all seriousness there are valid critiques of LLMs/AI (environmental, excessive short term optimism, intentional and unintentional misuse).

but pretending that this isn't a revolutionary change is profoundly blind. 'AI' can't do everything CIOs would like to promise their CEOs it can do, and it certainly can't do everything that non-IT executives think it might be able to do, but there is absolutely no doubt that it is already capable of saving MASSIVE amounts of time in multiple areas, some of the best of these are:

* Research

* Editing

* Translation

* Code generation

All of these require the user to not turn off their brain (which is a real risk with LLMs) to properly use AI, but assuming you are capable of using your brain they can save a great deal of time.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#133

Post by azemetre »

keiferski wrote: post #120
lm28469 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the vast majority of people LLMs are deep in gimmick territory, it's the funny thing you use to generate your Ghibli style profile image or the HR email you can't bother writing. If you not part of a very small subset of tech enthusiasts or companies directly profiting from it it really isn't that big of a deal

No, not really. This stuff is being used everywhere, from universities to offices around the world. It’s far more than a gimmick.

Having something shoved in your face because you bought the snake oil is definitely one take.

If you talk to workers being forced to use these tools you come away with a different conclusion.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#134

Post by palmotea »

lm28469 wrote: post #111
keiferski wrote: post #27

These “AI is a gimmick that does nothing” articles mostly just communicate to me that most people lack imagination. I have gotten so much value out of AI (specifically ChatGPT and Midjourney) that it’s hard to imagine that a few years ago this was not even remotely possible. The difference, it seems, is that I’ve been looking at these tools and thinking how I can use them in creative ways to accomplish a goal - and n…

> These “AI is a gimmick that does nothing” articles mostly just communicate to me that most people lack imagination. Either that or different people have different views on life, tech, &c. If you're not going through life as some sort of minmax rpg not using LLM to "optimise" every single aspects of your life is perfectly fine. I don't need a LLM to summarise an article, I want to read it during my 15 min coffee tim…

>> These “AI is a gimmick that does nothing” articles mostly just communicate to me that most people lack imagination.

> Either that or different people have different views on life, tech, &c.

Most definitely. When stable diffusion came out, I recall AI enthusiasts gushing and saying things like it was "creating the most beautiful art they've ever seen," which just made me scratch my head and wonder what they were smoking.

> If you're not going through life as some sort of minmax rpg not using LLM to "optimise" every single aspects of your life is perfectly fine. I don't need a LLM to summarise an article, I want to read it during my 15 min coffee time in the morning.

Exactly. Some people want to actually understand stuff, in their own minds, and some people seem to be fine teetering on top of an output machine they don't really understand.

On that summarization thing specifically, pre-LLM there were services that did that (my manager subscribed me to one once), and it never clicked with me. Why would I waste my time consuming such shallow stuff? I never felt it had any impact, it felt like fluff to make it feel like you were learning something when you weren't. Which is ironic, because the people who seem enthusiastic about that stuff are under the false impression that everything is like three bullet points wrapped in fluff.

> I don't need an LLM to tell me how my text should be rewritten to look like the statistical average of a good text...

Especially since I roll my eyes at ChatGPT-ese.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#135

Post by karmakaze »

The context is AI in education. It argues that AI in education is a gimmick and true learning requires time, care, and the presence of humans who are willing to do difficult work together.

I don't dispute what learning requires, but I also don't exclude AI in that picture. What we have is almost a 'Young Lady's Primer' from "The Diamond Age". All we have to do is ask the right questions. If anything education should be teaching how to use the new tools well.

Funny how it also refutes that AI use is inevitable. The only debate I've heard is when not if.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#136

Post by runjake »

The vast majority of people aren’t very skilled in using LLMs, an emerging and rapidly evolving technology.

This does not make AI a gimmick.

Meanwhile, many of us use it on a daily basis and have a long list of ways it’s revolutionized our work and productivity and even lives. Excuse me while I eye roll at yet another article.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#137

Post by azemetre »

professor_v wrote: post #80
keiferski wrote: post #27

These “AI is a gimmick that does nothing” articles mostly just communicate to me that most people lack imagination. I have gotten so much value out of AI (specifically ChatGPT and Midjourney) that it’s hard to imagine that a few years ago this was not even remotely possible. The difference, it seems, is that I’ve been looking at these tools and thinking how I can use them in creative ways to accomplish a goal - and n…

Your examples are both quite gimmicky and not a fundamental value shift.

Really interesting how the poster gets very defensive when rightfully called out on it too.

We’re going to see similar emotional outbursts in the future. Probably going to need new strategies to convince people why they are wrong. Even harder when the parrot says they’re actually right.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#138

Post by aaronbaugher »

-__---____-ZXyw wrote: post #117
badmintonbaseba wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly use it as a replacement of a search engine and exploration, mostly for subjects that I'm learning from scratch, and I don't have a good grasp of the official documentation and good keywords yet. It competes with searching for guides in traditional search engines, but that's easy to beat with today's SEO infested web. Its quality seems to vary wildly between various subjects, but annoyingly it presents itself…

I hate the confident obsequious waffling. The cultural origins of the tool is evident. If you aren't already, I suggest making sure to not forget, every 3-5 prompts, to throw in: "no waffling", "no flattery", "no obsequious garbage", etc. You can make it as salty as you like. If the AI says "Have fun!", or "Let's get coding!", you know you need to get the whip out haha. Also, "3 sentences max on ...", "1 sentence exp…

At one point I asked Grok, "I've heard that AIs are programmed to please the user, which could lead to prioritizing what the user wants to hear over telling the truth. Are you doing that?" It said it wasn't, and gave examples of where in its answers to me it had given objective answers (as it saw them) and then followed them up with encouragement. Fair enough. So I told it to always prioritize giving me an objective viewpoint, and after that, it started breaking answers up with an "objective facts" section and then an "opinion" sort of section.

But I've noticed recently it's started slipping back into more "That's a great idea" and "You've got this" cheerleading, so I'm going to have to tell it to knock that out again. It will definitely lean into confirmation bias if that's what you're looking for, and you don't explicitly tell it not to worry about how you'll feel about the answer.

I find it useful for bouncing ideas off of, while keeping in mind that I'm really bouncing them off myself and sort of a hive mind made up of what's been said in certain mainstream sectors of the Internet. I'm less creative than average, so I get more ideas that way than I'd get from just journaling, so that's worth something.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#139

Post by keiferski »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #124
keiferski wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said that people making blanket statements about LLMs being gimmicks need to be more creative. Then I listed a couple examples of how I find them useful, with the key point being that I don’t expect perfection. This isn’t that complicated. Someone wrote an article saying X is a gimmick and made a weak argument. I said no, in my experience that isn’t the case, and here are a few examples. Your patronizing tone is pr…

> I said that people making blanket statements about LLMs being gimmicks need to be more creative. Then I listed a couple examples of how I find them useful, with the key point being that I don’t expect perfection. I just want to point out that this is precisely how they described your perspective. It’s hard to see how you find their tone patronizing given they’re just explaining their point of view. It’s worth notin…

If someone was trying to have the least charitable interpretation possible, then sure, the words I wrote could be interpreted as some sort of bragging about my own genius and brilliance.

For everyone else, they obviously understood I was critiquing the article and showing how I found some genuine value in AI tools by thinking a little outside the box. I.e., they aren't gimmicks.

The other poster's comments are full of a smarmy, holier-than-thou attitude of insisting that I didn't read the article, that I'm just posting this comment to brag about my creative brilliance, and that "only idiots see value in AI - but you're not an idiot, of course."

This kind of writing is by someone that's trying to be clever, not have an honest conversation.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#140

Post by wazoox »

Yiin wrote: post #95
wazoox wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but yesterday I was working on NFS server tuning on Linux, a typically quite difficult thing to find relevant info about through search engines. I asked Claude 3.5 to suggest some kernel settings or compile-time tweaks, and it provided me with entirely made up answers about kernel variables that don't exist, and makefile options that don't exist. So maybe another LLM would have fared better, but still, so far…

I mean you answered yourself why it didn't work, if there is no useful data in its training corpus, it would be a miracle if it could correctly guess unknown information.

The data is certainly available, both in Linux kernel source and LKML history. The answers looked perfect at first glance; anyone without prior knowledge of kernel compilation and patching would have probably be impressed by the technical details in the answer. That's the typical LLM failure mode : it provides an answer when search engines fail you (because they provide you only the most basic, generic NFS-related forum posts while I was looking for strong technical information in a high-performance environment), but this answer isn't much better (even after pointing out the error), but would fool most people....
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