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The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

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Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#161

Post by handfuloflight »

bsenftner wrote: post #152
o11c wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "unpredictability", we mean that AIs will return completely different results if a single word is changed to a close synonym, or an adverb or prepositional phrase is moved to a semantically identical location, etc. Very often this simple change will move you from "get the correct answer 90% of the time" (about the best that AIs can do) to "get the correct answer Whenever people talk about "prompt engineering", the…

What you're describing is specifically the subtle nature of LLMs I'm pointing at; that changing of a single word to a close synonym is meaningful. Why and how they are meaningful gets pushback from the developer community, they somehow do not see this as being a topic, a point of engineering proficiency. It is, but requires an understanding of how LLMs encode and retrieve data. The reason changing one word in a promp…

Words are power, and specifically, specific words are power.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#162

Post by relaxing »

brookst wrote: post #105
relaxing wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, everyone wanted the internet. It was massively hyped and the uptake was widespread and rapid. Obviously saying “everyone” is hyperbole. There were luddites and skeptics about it just like with electricity and telephones. Nevertheless the dotcom boom is what every new industry hopes to be.

I was there. There was massive skepticism, endless jokes about internet-enabled toasters and the uselessness and undesirability of connecting everything to the internet, people bemoaning the loss of critical skills like using library card catalogs, all the same stuff we see today. In 20 years AI will be pervasive and nobody will remember being one of the luddites.

I was there too. You’re forgetting internet addiction, pornography, stranger danger, hacking and cybercrime, etc.

Whether the opposition was massive or not, in proportion to the enthusiasm and optimism about the globally connected information superhighway, isn’t something I can quantify, so I’ll bow out of the conversation.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#163

Post by ItsBob »

dataflow wrote: post #143
jen729w wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m at the point where a significant part of me wishes they hadn’t been invented. We sat yesterday and watched a table of 4 lads drinking beer each just watch their phones. At the slightest gap in conversation, out they came. They’re ruining human interaction. (The phone, not the beer-drinking lad.)

Is the problem really the phone , or everything but the actual phoning capability? Mobile phones were a thing twenty years ago and I didn't recall them being pulled out at the slightest gap in the conversation. I feel like the notifications and internet access caused the change, not the phone (or SMS for that matter).

Interesting you should say that. I found a Substack post earlier today along those lines [0].

I almost never take my phone with me, especially when with my wife and son, as they always have theirs with them, although with elderly parents not in the best of health I really should take it more.

But it's something I see a lot these days, in fact, the latest Vodafone ad in the uk has a bunch of lads sitting outside a pub and one is laughing at something on his phone. There's also a betting ad where the guy is making bets on his phone (presumably) while in a restaurant with others!

I find this normalized behaviour somewhat concerning for the future.

[0] - https://abysspostcard.substack.com/p/party-like-it-is-1975

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#164

Post by handfuloflight »

20k wrote: post #90
bsenftner wrote: post #71

It's like talking into a void. The issue with AI is that it is too subtle, too easy to get acceptable junk answers and too subtle for the majority to realize we've made a universal crib sheet, software developers included, perhaps one of the worst populations due to their extremely weak communications as a community. To be repeatedly successful with AI, one has to exert mental effort to prompt AI effectively, but pre…

The issue is that you have to put in more effort to solve a problem using AI, than to just solve it yourself If I have to do extensive subtle prompt engineering and use a lot of mental effort to solve my problem... I'll just solve the problem instead. Programming is a mental discipline - I don't need help typing, and if using an AI means putting in more brainpower, its fundamentally failed at improving my ability to…

This overlooks a new category of developer who operates in natural language, not in syntax.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#165

Post by relaxing »

hodgesrm wrote: post #146
jen729w wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m at the point where a significant part of me wishes they hadn’t been invented. We sat yesterday and watched a table of 4 lads drinking beer each just watch their phones. At the slightest gap in conversation, out they came. They’re ruining human interaction. (The phone, not the beer-drinking lad.)

Think like an engineer to solve the problem. You could start by adjusting the beer-to-lad ratio and see where that gets you.

In US colleges there is a game known as “Edward Fortyhands” which would solve the problem quite well.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#166

Post by watwut »

brookst wrote: post #105
relaxing wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, everyone wanted the internet. It was massively hyped and the uptake was widespread and rapid. Obviously saying “everyone” is hyperbole. There were luddites and skeptics about it just like with electricity and telephones. Nevertheless the dotcom boom is what every new industry hopes to be.

I was there. There was massive skepticism, endless jokes about internet-enabled toasters and the uselessness and undesirability of connecting everything to the internet, people bemoaning the loss of critical skills like using library card catalogs, all the same stuff we see today. In 20 years AI will be pervasive and nobody will remember being one of the luddites.

Toasters in fact dot need internet and jokes about them are entirely valid. Quite a lot of devices that dont need internet have useless internet slapped on them.

Internet of things was largely BS.

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#167

Post by AstroBen »

jzb wrote: post #150
AstroBen wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these things are genuinely so universally hated won't they just be.. capitalism'd out of existence? People will stop engaging with them and better products will win What book store will stock AI slop that no-one wants to buy?

No, because “better products” won’t exist. That’s the complaint: every company is rushing to throw AI into their stuff, and/or use it to replace humans. They’re not trying to satisfy customers: they’re answering shareholders. Our system is no longer about offering the best products, it’s about having the market share to force people to do business with you or maybe two other equally bad companies that constantly look…

> it’s about having the market share to force people to do business with you

The answer to this is regulation. See: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apple-updates-app-...

Outside of a monopoly the best way to extract more money from people is to offer a better product. If AI is being forced and people do hate it, they'll move towards products that don't do that

What happened to Windows Recall being enabled by default? Surely it was in Microsoft's best interest to force it on people. But no, they reversed it after a huge backlash. You see this again and again

Of your examples, ISPs are the only one I can see that's hated without other options. Most people are quite happy with Windows/Mac/Android/iOS/Mint Mobile/Smart-TV-With-No-Internet-Access

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#168

Post by t0bia_s »

roxolotl wrote: post #125
brookst wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not spot on. Buying and using all of these products is a choice. The last is especially egregious. I don’t want poorly-written (by my standards) books cluttering up bookstores, but all my life I’ve walked into bookstores and found my favorite genres have lots of books I’m not interested in. Do I have some kind of right to have stores only stock products that I want? The whole thing is just so damn entitled . If…

The Onion has a great response to this from 2009: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lMChO0qNbkY Of course you can opt out. People live in the backwoods of Alaska. But if you want to live a semi normal life there is no option. And absolutely people should feel entitled to a normal life.

Normal life means collectivism and conformity behaviour?

Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#169

Post by mpalmer »

Xss3 wrote: post #158
CuriouslyC wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a huge AI supporter, and use it extensively for coding, writing and most of my decision making processes, and I agree with you. The AI features in non-AI-first apps tend to be awkward bolt-ons, poorly thought out and using low quality models to save money. I don't want shitty bolt-ons, I want to be able to give chatgtp/claude/gemini frontier models the ability to access my application data and make api calls for…

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Re: The force-feeding of AI features on an unwilling public

#170

Post by AstroBen »

jeauxlb wrote: post #149
AstroBen wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these things are genuinely so universally hated won't they just be.. capitalism'd out of existence? People will stop engaging with them and better products will win What book store will stock AI slop that no-one wants to buy?

You might be conflating capitalism (owning things like factories) with consumerism (buying things like widgets). If all of the factory owners discover a type of widget to sell that can incidentally drive down wages the more units they move, it's unlikely for consumers to be provided much choice in their future widgets.

The lowest cost (either purchase price, or to produce) products don't create a monopoly

$30 blenders that break in 3 months haven't bankrupted Vitamix

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