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Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

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Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#141

Post by parker_mountain »

JamesAdir wrote: post #136
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #119

Wow - this is just wild. I've seen lots of arguments around "AI won't take everyone's job, it will just open up new areas for new jobs." Even if you take that with the benefit of the doubt (which I don't really think is warranted): 1. You don't need to take everyone's job. You just need to take a shitload of people's jobs. I think a lot of our current sociological problems, problems associated with wealth inequality,…

You are a founder of a startup. A notable VC wants to invest millions of dollars but insists that the contract will be in their language which is Finnish. Would you trust GPT to translate the contract or reach out to a professional human translator? We've got Google translate from 2006, and there are still millions of translators at work all around the world. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss those jobs.

I don't think it's so simple.

A few counter-notes

- Google translate and its ilk have already significantly cut down the number of translators required for multinational companies. Google translate in 2006 is also a bad example, it really only got excellent in the past few years.

- I would trust GPT to write the first draft, and then hire a translator to check it. That goes from many billable hours to one, or two. That is a material loss of work for said translator.

- High profile translations, as your example is, are a sharp minority of existing translator jobs.

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#142

Post by izacus »

belter wrote: post #78

A whole thread on AI experts discussing how AI is making them obsolete...back to gardening...

This fad too shall pass. And the tech will end up where it always does: helping some, changing some but nowhere near as much as the gold rush profiteers would make you believe.

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#143

Post by mxkopy »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #119

Wow - this is just wild. I've seen lots of arguments around "AI won't take everyone's job, it will just open up new areas for new jobs." Even if you take that with the benefit of the doubt (which I don't really think is warranted): 1. You don't need to take everyone's job. You just need to take a shitload of people's jobs. I think a lot of our current sociological problems, problems associated with wealth inequality,…

What should happen is a thorough investigation of our assumptions about economics and see if they hold true. 20-30 years ago saying "just get a robot to do it" would've been met with great cynicism, but now it's not that unthinkable. Especially once we apply what we learn to robotics - at that point doing things at scale is just playing an RTS

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#144

Post by q845712 »

JamesAdir wrote: post #136
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #119

Wow - this is just wild. I've seen lots of arguments around "AI won't take everyone's job, it will just open up new areas for new jobs." Even if you take that with the benefit of the doubt (which I don't really think is warranted): 1. You don't need to take everyone's job. You just need to take a shitload of people's jobs. I think a lot of our current sociological problems, problems associated with wealth inequality,…

You are a founder of a startup. A notable VC wants to invest millions of dollars but insists that the contract will be in their language which is Finnish. Would you trust GPT to translate the contract or reach out to a professional human translator? We've got Google translate from 2006, and there are still millions of translators at work all around the world. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss those jobs.

I was just using bing translate last night, and it was literally making up english words that do not exist - I tried to google for them to see if it was just some archaic word, and it was complete fabrication. So I dunno how many years are left before we all trust machine translation unflinchingly, but I agree today's not the day.

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#145

Post by throwayyy479087 »

org3 wrote: post #126
mashygpig wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's a new trend happening these days. Upon releasing new non-fiction books to the general public, authors are simultaneously offering an LLM-based chatbot box where you can ask the book any question. Can you link to an example?

https://portal.konjer.xyz/

Some of the responses I've had so far to this are remarkable. Kind of scary.

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#146

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

JamesAdir wrote: post #136
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #119

Wow - this is just wild. I've seen lots of arguments around "AI won't take everyone's job, it will just open up new areas for new jobs." Even if you take that with the benefit of the doubt (which I don't really think is warranted): 1. You don't need to take everyone's job. You just need to take a shitload of people's jobs. I think a lot of our current sociological problems, problems associated with wealth inequality,…

You are a founder of a startup. A notable VC wants to invest millions of dollars but insists that the contract will be in their language which is Finnish. Would you trust GPT to translate the contract or reach out to a professional human translator? We've got Google translate from 2006, and there are still millions of translators at work all around the world. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss those jobs.

I think you are vastly underestimating how Google Translate, Bing Translate and others compare to GPT-4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#147

Post by themaninthedark »

siva7 wrote: post #83
MomoXenosaga wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less bullshit jobs. Society needs doctors, nurses, plumbers and teachers not tech bros.

You do realise those tech "bros" are what enables doctors, nurses, plumbers and teachers to have a better work-life?

I am not sure I can agree.

Doctors and nurses now spend more time entering data than talking to patients.

Teachers now spend more time entering grades into online systems and fielding messages from parents.

Not sure how tech is helping or hurting plumbers except for the standard GPS tracking that bosses use to follow them around.

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#148

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

q845712 wrote: post #144
JamesAdir wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a founder of a startup. A notable VC wants to invest millions of dollars but insists that the contract will be in their language which is Finnish. Would you trust GPT to translate the contract or reach out to a professional human translator? We've got Google translate from 2006, and there are still millions of translators at work all around the world. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss those jobs.

I was just using bing translate last night, and it was literally making up english words that do not exist - I tried to google for them to see if it was just some archaic word, and it was complete fabrication. So I dunno how many years are left before we all trust machine translation unflinchingly, but I agree today's not the day.

Try it on GPT-4, not Google or Bing Translate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35180715

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#149

Post by xp84 »

csa wrote: post #135
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #119

Wow - this is just wild. I've seen lots of arguments around "AI won't take everyone's job, it will just open up new areas for new jobs." Even if you take that with the benefit of the doubt (which I don't really think is warranted): 1. You don't need to take everyone's job. You just need to take a shitload of people's jobs. I think a lot of our current sociological problems, problems associated with wealth inequality,…

> I think a lot of our current sociological problems, problems associated with wealth inequality, etc., I see where you’re coming from, but is this really the main source of the inequality? Based on numbers relating to workers’ diminishing share of profits, it seems to be that the capital class has been able to take a bigger piece of the profit pie without sharing. In the past, companies have shared profits more wide…

I think you and the one you're replying to are both very right.

Yes, more of this money is going, instead of middle-class workers, straight to the capital class who own the "machines" that do the work people used to do. Except instead of it being a factory that makes industrial machines owned by some wealthy industrialist, the machines are things like Google and AWS and the owners are the small number of people with significant stock holdings.

It's really striking though that a person graduating high school in say, 1970, could easily pick from a number of career choices even without doing college or even learning an in-demand trade, like plumbing, welding, etc. Factory work still existed and had a natural career progression that wasn't basically minimum wage, and the same went for retail. Sure, McDonalds burger flippers didn't expect then to own the restaurant in 10 years, but you could take lots of retail or clerical jobs, advance through hard work and support a family on those wages. Those are the days that are super gone and I totally agree with you both that something has changed for the worse for everyone who's not already wealthy.

Re: Anyone else witnessing a panic inside NLP orgs of big tech companies?

#150

Post by pxc »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #119

Wow - this is just wild. I've seen lots of arguments around "AI won't take everyone's job, it will just open up new areas for new jobs." Even if you take that with the benefit of the doubt (which I don't really think is warranted): 1. You don't need to take everyone's job. You just need to take a shitload of people's jobs. I think a lot of our current sociological problems, problems associated with wealth inequality,…

> I mean, does anyone think that things like human translators, medical transcriptionists, court reporters, etc. will exist as jobs at all in 10-20 years? Maybe 1-2 years? It's fine to say "great, that can free up people for other thing", but given our current economic systems, how are these people supposed to eat?

And it doesn't mean that the replacements will be much better, or even as good as the Humana they replace. They will probably suck in ways that will become familiar and predictable, and at the same time irritating and inescapable. Think of the outsourced, automated voice systems at your doctor's office, self-checkout at the grocery store, those touchscreen kiosks at McDonalds, etc.

I already find myself wanting to scream

> GIVE ME A FUCKING HUMAN BEING

every now and then. That's only going to get worse.

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