Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

aphyr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 177 posts

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#161

Post by kevg123 »

potsandpans wrote: post #82
kevg123 wrote: post #22

I sent the entire series by Aphyr [1] to some friends. Two of them, independently, responded with a variant of, "TLDR, can you give a summary?" I chat with these friends a lot but I rarely send articles that I suggest they read and that I think are profound, so I expected them to read it. These are smart people that have a history of reading lots of books. They are both huge AI proponents now and use AI for nearly ev…

Or maybe they just don't want to read a long form analysis on something? I also enjoy the series. But sometimes my friends send me things and I'm like, "not gonna read all of that." Just because you're friends don't want to invest the same amount of time that you want to invest in your own personal enrichment doesn't mean they're getting stupid.

It's more of a meta point to me. I get that this series isn't landing for some people but the meta-observation is that given something of roughly equal substantiveness as before, these friends' motivations for long form content and discussion seem to have atrophied, perhaps largely due to the addition of the AI summary reality cipher to their lives.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#162

Post by slumberlust »

vyr wrote: post #19

have worked closely with customer support teams, can confirm that the goal of any technical improvements that go in front of CS agents is to reduce ticket volume, and thus costs. of course they measure retention and satisfaction but ticket volume is always the big one. chatbots were big for this long before LLMs existed. a fun side effect is that CS is also an early warning system for companies, so when you make it h…

Just look at the difference between Amazon and Chewy support. One actively obfuscates how to talk/chat with a human; the other has someone knowledgeable pick up after one telephony prompt.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#164

Post by Scholmo »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #33
davidclark wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>LLM when it came out, was perfect as an interface between a system and a normal human. Statements like this make me feel like I live in a different universe with a different implementation of LLMs than other internet commenters.

You're on a forum with a disproportionate number of people who are trying to profit from AI and have an interest in promoting that it's a worthwhile time and resource investment. It is a different universe than other places outside this bubble. And it's a one day old account.

As mentioned in my other comment, I just spend too much time on hn so thats why its a new account.

I do not profit from AI but I think the cat is out of the bag. We have companies like google who has so much money, R&D in AI is just something they can afford.

We then have other companies like Microsoft who have to do AI because Google is doing it.

And then we have whole countries who fight the AI race. USA vs. China (and in theory EU but Mistral is not making waves eh?).

So for now, the progress is staggering fast and I do believe whatever critisism people have, you need to spend relevant time following and keeping up with AI to take the right action in time. Decisions regarding long term investment, using AI tools properly instead of getting fired or even funding your own small company and filling a niche.

From a pure nerd pov: Its crazy! Srsly i can generate images and videos and i can talk to a computer and i can generate songs and .... I mean I wished to be alive when Linus asked on a mailing list about people being interested in Linux but this is now something im alive for.

And it solves plenty of problems for me i haven't had any good solutions. Especially the quality of parsing random texsts into semantic json.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#165

Post by api »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #118
bigfudge wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what you will get in the US. It’s not clear a functioning democracy would produce the same outcome.

I think it’s pretty for hard for democracies not to cater to the most base desires.

As opposed to? What makes the ego and base desires of an aristocracy superior?

It’s hard for humans not to get bogged down in base desires, period, because of the dopamine system.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#166

Post by SoftTalker »

georgemcbay wrote: post #142
SoftTalker wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like our whole world more and more circulates around manipulation Hate to break it to you but it's always been this way, and it was easier in the past when information was so much more expensive to distribute.

> it was easier in the past when information was so much more expensive to distribute. As a 52 year old my life experience disagrees. It is much easier now because information flows both ways and "They" have a lot of information on you (and everyone else) and can use that information to manipulate you with algorithmic ragebait, and to extract maximum rents (in all aspects of commerce, not just literal rents) from you…

I agree that algorithms tune what you see, it's easier now to give people what they are predisposed to respond to. But back when everyone got their news from Walter Cronkite he had much more power to shape the narrative. Everyone was seeing the same thing, at the same time, and they didn't have easy access to a dozen other points of view from around the world.

You can still do that today, you can confine yourself to the CNN or the Breitbart view of the world, but that's not your only option. You have way more opportunity to be well informed now.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#167

Post by calvinmorrison »

bdangubic wrote: post #124
calvinmorrison wrote: post #122

We are inseparable from technology. Technology which we cannot opt out of to live in a society. We do not get to pick and chose what types of technology we engage in. Dr. K predicted this decades ago and he was right.

we are 100% separable from technology and we can “opt out” everything we want to opt out, every technology use is by choice and convenience and not necessity. my Dad does not have a mobile or internet and is doing just fine, the only “technology” that exists in his life in TV and a landline. so absolutely 100% of the technology you engage with is by your own choice and absolutely nothing else

absolutely not. Look at how roads and driving have shaped our entire lives in America. If by opting out you mean you can live alone in a hut, yes sure. If you want to participate meaningfully in society, no.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#168

Post by pixl97 »

ElectronCharge wrote: post #94
pixl97 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and that's why we all died in a nuclear war.....

The disincentives to nuclear war are glaringly obvious enough that even politicians (and their masters) get it. AI isn't like that. One problem is that it's rather generally misunderstood at this point. "AI" is not "intelligence". It's intelligence-adjacent, and something like LLMs is part of our psyche...the subconscious facility that allows us to form sentences without really thinking about it. At any rate, I have…

I mean, not really. The only reason we've not died in a nuclear war is building nuclear bombs is very very difficult and expensive. If suddenly it became quick and easy to get nukes, we'd flash fry pretty quick when any and every suicidal nut with convictions got their hands on one.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#169

Post by M95D »

esafak wrote: post #141
M95D wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when are (human) managers accountable?

You've never seen a manager get fired or decide to "spend more time with their family" ?

No, not really. I only saw them promoted or quitting for an even better management job.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess – Part 5: Annoyances

#170

Post by groundzeros2015 »

api wrote: post #165
groundzeros2015 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s pretty for hard for democracies not to cater to the most base desires.

As opposed to? What makes the ego and base desires of an aristocracy superior? It’s hard for humans not to get bogged down in base desires, period, because of the dopamine system.

> As opposed to?

A government which can choose to protect values which are unpopular in the short term.

> What makes the ego and base desires of an aristocracy superior?

Their awareness of higher values and goals. For example how technology might impact the population.

I would recommend Aristotle’s politics for an overview of the strengths and weakness of various government types.

Post reply on HN