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ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

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Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#141

Post by ukuina »

keiferski wrote: post #139
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #124

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. 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 o…

Both of you have valid critiques. It seems LLMs are both creative AND insufficiently creative, depending on the intended use-case. Probably the hallmark of an advanced, yet-to-be-understood paradigm?

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#142

Post by Tade0 »

terhechte wrote: post #35
danlitt wrote: post #6

It is refreshing to see I am not the only person who cannot get LLMs to say anything valuable. I have tried several times, but the cycle "You're right to question this. I actually didn't do anything you asked for. Here is some more garbage!" gets really old really fast. It makes me wonder whether everyone else is kidding themselves, or if I'm just holding it wrong.

Can you give some examples where it didn't work for you? I'm curious because I derive a lot of value from it and my guess is that we're trying very different things with it.

Not OP, but here's one instance over which I already had an internet fistfight with a person swearing by LLMs[0], meaning it should serve as a decent example:

> Suppose I'm standing on Earth and suddenly gravity stopped affecting me. What would be my trajectory? Specifically what would be my distance from Earth over time?

https://chatgpt.com/c/682edff8-c540-8010-acaa-8d9b5c26733d

It gives the "small distance approximation" in the examples, even if I ask for the solution after two hours, which at 879km is already quite off the correct ~820km.

An approximation that is better in the order of seconds to hours is pretty simple:

  s(t) = sqrt((R^2 + (Vt)^2)) - R
And it's even plotted in the chart, but again - numbers are off.

[0] Their results were giving wildly incorrect numbers at less than 100 seconds already, which was what originally prompted me to respond - they didn't even match the formula.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#143

Post by r00sty »

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…

In a more perfect world where we were just discussing the merits of the tech, I would be more inclined to agree. But I have to impress that the entire point of the tech is to do everything.

AI receives so much funding and support from the wealthy because they believe that they can use it to replace humans and reduce labor costs. I strongly suspect that AI being available to us at all is merely a plot to get us to train and troubleshoot the tech for them so it can more perfectly imitate us. Then, eventually, when the tech is "good enough" it will rapidly become too expensive for normal people to use and thus become inaccessible.

Companies are already mass-firing their staff in favor of AI agents even though those agents don't even do a good job. Imagine how it will be when they do.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#144

Post by -__---____-ZXyw »

keiferski wrote: post #139
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #124

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. 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 o…

I was going to leave it there, as you suggested earlier, as I felt you were unable or unwilling to engage with my points, instead focusing on trivialities, tone policing, etc.

The futility is already apparent, but I'll make the same point again a third time, even though you've already shown a commitment to not understanding.

> 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 logic this sentence hinges on is that you using the tools and getting "genuine value" out of them proves that the tools are not gimmicks. This is nonsensical.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#145

Post by nh23423fefe »

r00sty wrote: post #143
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…

In a more perfect world where we were just discussing the merits of the tech, I would be more inclined to agree. But I have to impress that the entire point of the tech is to do everything. AI receives so much funding and support from the wealthy because they believe that they can use it to replace humans and reduce labor costs. I strongly suspect that AI being available to us at all is merely a plot to get us to tra…

Oh you strongly suspect a global cabal of wealthy elites are manipulating the world? What does your unsupported musings about global power have to do with AI use cases?

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#146

Post by hintymad »

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…

Most people are not motivated to continuously learn or dive deep or explore the boundary of knowledge. As a result, it's very likely AI will amplify or deepen the current skip gaps and create more. People who are good at learning and can deeply understand foundational concepts will be able to leverage AI to learn more, learn deeper, and solve harder problems on demand. People who resist learning will use AI as a cheating tool, eventually bringing themselves into a pickle.

Case in point, a PIAAC report back in 2013 said that only 9% of the US adults were considered proficient in math and complex reasoning. And the questions used by PIAAC were arguably just high-school level. Anecdotally, how many people have heard their professors or high-school teachers complain that most students couldn't even really grasp linear equations or distributed property (students can remember rules and pass high-school test, but many of them would be hopeless if they were to pass national entrance exams in other countries).

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#147

Post by th0ma5 »

terhechte wrote: post #35
danlitt wrote: post #6

It is refreshing to see I am not the only person who cannot get LLMs to say anything valuable. I have tried several times, but the cycle "You're right to question this. I actually didn't do anything you asked for. Here is some more garbage!" gets really old really fast. It makes me wonder whether everyone else is kidding themselves, or if I'm just holding it wrong.

Can you give some examples where it didn't work for you? I'm curious because I derive a lot of value from it and my guess is that we're trying very different things with it.

Every single thing that I am interested in my computer doing has not been done before by anyone that I know of nor do I think anyone besides myself would care.

I keep reading all of this glazing like in the rest of the thread and it's really frustrating because you get this fatigue with all the bs coming out of them that makes you not want to use them at all. The more you try to get it to fix the output the more it uses unrelated tokens.

In just the last 24 hours I've seen multiple models:

- Put C++ code structures in Python - Synthesize non existent functions, libraries, features of programming languages - Whole features of video file formats and associated ffmpeg flags that aren't applicable to imagery.

I also think you're not going to get any good answers to this question and a lot of pro AI people are going to be left unsatisfied because when you get into this spot every single thing that it does is wrong in some new way that cannot be easily categorized.

It is literally the limit of the representation of information in a digital way.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#148

Post by ljsprague »

cess11 wrote: post #47
ddxv wrote: post #3

I personally feel like some of the AI hype is driven by it's ability to create flashy demos which become dead end projects. It's so easy to spin up an example "write me a sample chat app" or whatever and be amazed how quickly and fully it realizes this idea, but it does kinda beg the question, now what? I think in the same way that image generation is akin to clipart (wildly useful, but lacking in depth and meaning)…

"It's so easy to spin up an example "write me a sample chat app" or whatever and be amazed how quickly and fully it realizes this idea, but it does kinda beg the question, now what?" Which we already had, it's just a 'git clone https://github.com/whatevs/huh ' away, or doing one of millions of tutorials on whatever topic. Pretty much everyone who can build something out of Elixir/Phoenix has a chat app, an e-commerce…

LLMs are easier to use than git.

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#149

Post by cess11 »

ljsprague wrote: post #148
cess11 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's so easy to spin up an example "write me a sample chat app" or whatever and be amazed how quickly and fully it realizes this idea, but it does kinda beg the question, now what?" Which we already had, it's just a 'git clone https://github.com/whatevs/huh ' away, or doing one of millions of tutorials on whatever topic. Pretty much everyone who can build something out of Elixir/Phoenix has a chat app, an e-commerce…

LLMs are easier to use than git.

Why do you think that?

Re: ChatGPT Is a Gimmick

#150

Post by TiredOfLife »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #58
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…

Turns out that AI is not good at summarising things: https://futurism.com/ai-chatbots-summarizing-research

There was this widely discussed paper about how using ai generated data for training will be the death of llms that was published about a week before all llms switched to using ai generated data for training and becoming twice as good as before
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