Live data from Hacker News

The Age of AI has begun

gatesnotes.com

221–228 of 228 posts

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#221
post #144

I guess one of my own issues with AI, is seeing how the tools we already have, have been twisted by greedy, ruthless people (many of whom are on this very venue). I was one of the people that started off in tech with dreams of a digital Nirvana. I ignored the "negative naysayers," and sallied forth, with an open heart, and hope for the future. I'm really quite disappointed in what we've done with these marvelous tool…

>I think we'll be seeing AI-driven scammers, calling and messaging us, almost incessantly, I think we'll be seeing AI-generated political manipulation, like fake videos and audio, of politicians and public figures, I think we'll be seeing AI-driven promotional campaigns, and almost undetectably subtle media manipulation, like corporations seeding news stories with their talking points. I also think that we'll be seei…

It's a question of scale.

Back in the day, a three-letter agency could send a person to spy on your 24/7. They couldn't do that for everyone. Now, mass surveillance is possible.

Back in the day, you had to send a letter in the mail or have a person calling someone to run a scam operation, and that had a cost to it. Email started changing that, but remained impersonal, non-interactive. Generative ML changes that.

Back in the day, traveling across the US took months or even years. Now, you can fly across in a few hours, or drive across in a few days. You're behaving as if that didn't change things.

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#222
My primary concern with recent advances in AI is the imbalance it will create. Most optimistic views on AI come from people already employed by the major players (OpenAI, Microsoft, Nvidia, etc.), and one their main arguments is that while they acknowledge AI will displace numerous jobs, it will also generate superior ones. However, the main problem arises when these "better" jobs replace the lost ones, but are performed by fewer individuals. One developer will be capable of accomplishing the work of at least three, and the same applies to lawyers, analysts, and so on.

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#223
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've seen things like it spitting out incorrect code that looks correct. I would think that would set you up for failure if you tried to use this unreliable highly confident teacher to learn the fundamentals of anything. Maybe you can create some art but I guess that depends on how good you prompt, so its probably easier to iterate quickly with an artist you hired on fiver.

Don't forget that this thing is way cheaper than a human. Of course I'd prefer to hire a real language tutor or a real artist on Fiverr, but for many use-cases (e.g. my first 3 months learning a new language) I am happy for something 98% as good for 1% of the price. Not everything is a binary where the tutor/helper/artist needs to be absolutely perfect else it's completely useless. There are low stakes use cases wher…

If you can't afford the tutor, then its not really a tradeoff between chatgpt and the tutor. Its a tradoff between chatgpt and some other way to spend your time to learn a language. I suspect you'd probably advance faster through your first three months of a language spending the same chunks of time with a language learning book from the library than with chatgpt, which might very well be teaching you how to conjugate a verb in latin instead of spanish or some other error the model makes.

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#224

I guess one of my own issues with AI, is seeing how the tools we already have, have been twisted by greedy, ruthless people (many of whom are on this very venue). I was one of the people that started off in tech with dreams of a digital Nirvana. I ignored the "negative naysayers," and sallied forth, with an open heart, and hope for the future. I'm really quite disappointed in what we've done with these marvelous tool…

We are at a unique inflection point: one where manipulation is basically transparent if you can see all the information at once. This has never been true in the past (except for small communities where everyone knew everyone else’s business) and it basically annihilates the very thing that manipulation needs: shadow.

Personally, I’m looking forward to an AI that can immediately answer the questions “is this a scam?” and “what are the facts underpinning this?”.

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#225
post #217
post #77

I just had my first assistance from ChatGPT today, courtesy of a "junior" (I would prefer "less-experienced") engineer. He wanted to click a web button as part of his work on improving our steam engine (ok, calibration system) so I worked out the URL for the button and the appropriate curl incantation to trigger it. Gave him the URL and suggest he twiddled some python to do it. About an hour later he came back, told…

> Probably they will not achieve the same level of connection (mostly because they will lack a human body to make expressions, at least at the beginning). What is ego-surfing?

Searching the internet for information about yourself personally. It was very flattering what it said about me (and in fact was mostly wrong) so I tried it on some co-workers as well and they also found it flattering but inaccurate.

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#226

I guess one of my own issues with AI, is seeing how the tools we already have, have been twisted by greedy, ruthless people (many of whom are on this very venue). I was one of the people that started off in tech with dreams of a digital Nirvana. I ignored the "negative naysayers," and sallied forth, with an open heart, and hope for the future. I'm really quite disappointed in what we've done with these marvelous tool…

I know what you mean, my life has unfolded in a similar way.

What I have realized is that until we evolve our hearts and minds, no amount of technology will solve our collective existential crisis.

With that said, I am still young (33), live in Maui, and am still hungry and foolish to try new and bold things. :)

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#227

> Philanthropy is my full-time job these days, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how—in addition to helping people be more productive—AI can reduce some of the world’s worst inequities. Globally, the worst inequity is in health: 5 million children under the age of 5 die every year. One great first step Open AI can take towards this is by actually making their models open. As long as the models are intentionally kept…

Before this happens AI will be utilized to better navigate billing at hospitals to maximize the profits.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FW3iOswWQAA933O?format=jpg&name=...

Re: The Age of AI has begun

#228
post #78

> In my lifetime, I’ve seen two demonstrations of technology that struck me as revolutionary. > The first time was in 1980, when I was introduced to a graphical user interface > The second big surprise came just last year. I’d been meeting with the team from OpenAI I guess it's not surprising since Microsoft was late to the game with IE, but it's interesting he never mentions "the internet" in this list.

Besides the hamster dance there was no one moment when the internet showed us its potential. Rather it was gradual.

That's only because there was no Internet to spread through to everyone quickly.
Post reply on HN