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AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

economist.com

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Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#271

Post by tim333 »

aredox wrote: post #32

The potentially "explosive" part of AI was that it could be self-improving. Using AI to improve AI, or AI improving itself in an exponential growth until it becomes super-human. This is what the "Singularity" and AI "revolution" is based on. But in the end, despite saying AI has PhD-level intelligence, the truth is that even AI companies can't get AI to help them improve faster. Anything slower than exponential is pr…

Explosions rely on having a lot of energy producing material that can suddenly go off. Even if AI starts self improving it's going to be limited by the amount of energy it can get from the power grid which is kind of maxed out at the moment. It may be exponential growth like weeds growing, ie. gradually and subject to human control, rather than like TNT detonating.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#272

Post by johnnienaked »

Bendy wrote: post #238
johnnienaked wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cult of efficiency will end in the only perfectly efficient world--one without us.

I’m fed up of hearing that nonsense, no it won’t. Efficiency is a human-defined measure of observed outcomes versus desired outcomes. This is subject to change as much as we are. If we do optimize ourselves to death, it’ll be because it’s what we ultimately want to happen. That may be true for some people but certainly not everyone.

The equilibrium of ecology, without human interference, could be considered perfect efficiency. It's only when we get in there with our theories about mass production and consumption that we muss it up. We seem to forget that our well-being isn't self-determined, but dependent on the environment. But, like George Carlin said, "the Earth isn't going anywhere...WE ARE!"

It's quite telling how much faith you put in humanity though, you sound fully bought in.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#273

Post by tim333 »

empath75 wrote: post #87

https://books.google.com/books?id=-fG_NOxltlEC&pg=PA25&dq=Co... Computer's Aren't Pulling Their Weight (1991) There were _so many_ articles in the late 80s and early 90s about how computers were a big waste of money. And again in the late 90s, about how the internet was a waste of money. We aren't going to know the true consequences of AI until kids that are in high school now enter the work force. The vast majority…

You could argue that in terms of human wellbeing, computers and the internet didn't make that much difference. People did ok in the 1960s.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#274

Post by tim333 »

fsloth wrote: post #104
pessimizer wrote: post #37

I've come to the conclusion that it is a normal, extremely useful, dramatic improvement over web 1.0. It's going to 1) obsolete search engines powered by marketing and SEO, and give us paid search engines whose selling points are how comprehensive they are, how predictable their queries work (I miss the "grep for the web" they were back when they were useful), and how comprehensive their information sources are. 2) E…

"everybody can move to a Linux desktop now" People use whatever UI comes with their computer. I don't think that's going to change.

That theory was tried when Walmart sold Linux computers but it didn't work. People returned them because they couldn't run their usual software - Excel and the like.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#275

Post by tim333 »

ktallett wrote: post #3

What do they mean what if? It is similarly based to something that has existed for around 4 decades. It of course is at a higher standard of efficiency and able to search through and combine more data but it isn't new. It is just a normal technology and this was why myself and many others were shocked at the initial hype.

The unusual feature of AI now as opposed to the last 4 decades is that it is approaching human intelligence. Assuming that progress continues, exceeding human intelligence will have different economic consequences to being a fair bit worse as was the case mostly.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#276

Post by tim333 »

AI might follow the path of a normal technology like the motor car which was fairly normal in itself but which had a dramatic effect on the rival solution of horses used for transport. It may have an unusual effect on humans because we are like the horses in this analogy.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#277

Post by jackphilson »

measurablefunc wrote: post #132
jrave wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe you misread the post you‘re answering to here or are you suspecting sarcasm? the poster commended your usage of the footnote with the gemini convo as far as i can tell?

Laid it on a little too thick to be sincere & more generally I don't comment on internet forums to be complimented on my response style. Address the substance of my arguments or just save yourself the keystrokes.

It was a compliment and I was hoping to nudge the behavior of other HN comments.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#278

Post by aeternum »

akomtu wrote: post #178
aeternum wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI actually seems far less alien than steam engines, trains, submarines, flight, and space travel. People weren't sure if human bodies could handle moving at >50mph.

All those steam engines, trains and submarines were steps toward what we are seeing now. AI is the logical culmination and the purpose of technology.

People said similar things about the internet: never before has all human knowledge been available in one place (they forgot about libraries apparently).

I think it's more likely that AI is just a further concentration of human knowledge. It makes it even more accessible but will AI actually add to it?

Why doesn't the logical culmination of technology require quantum computers?

Or the merging of human and machine brains?

Or a solar system-scale particle accelerator?

Or whatever the next technology is that we aren't even aware of yet?

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#279

Post by tuatoru »

tim333 wrote: post #276

AI might follow the path of a normal technology like the motor car which was fairly normal in itself but which had a dramatic effect on the rival solution of horses used for transport. It may have an unusual effect on humans because we are like the horses in this analogy.

The authors themselves use the analogy of electric motors, which changed factories. But also gave us washing machines, refigerators, and vacuum cleaners, changing society. And skyscrapers, because elevators, changing cities.

Ai may be more like electricity than just electric motors. It gave us Hollywood and air travel. (Before electricity, aluminum as as expensive as platinum.)

As economists they are wedded to the idea that human wants are infinite, so as they things we do now are taken over, we will find other things to do: maybe wardrobe consultant, or interior designer, or lifestyle coach - things which only th rich can afford now, and which require a human touch. Maybe.

Re: AI might yet follow the path of previous technological revolutions

#280

Post by mmargenot »

kragen wrote: post #260
spicyusername wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the moment, LLM products are like Microsoft Office, they primarily serve as a tool to help solve other problems more efficiently. They do not themselves solve problems directly. Nobody would ask, "What new Office-based products have been created lately?", but that doesn't mean that Office products aren't a permanent, and critical, foundation of all white collar work. I suspect it will be the same with LLMs as they…

Where are the other problems that are being solved more efficiently? If there's an "explosive change" in that, we should be able to see some shrapnel. Let's take one component of Microsoft Office. Microsoft Word is seen as a tool for people to write nicely formatted documents, such as books. Reports produced with Microsoft Word are easy to find, and I've even read books written in it. Comparing reports written before…

I do agree that there's a lot of garbage and navel-gazing that is directly downstream from the creation of LLMs. Because it's easier to task and evaluate an LLM [or network of LLMs] with generation of code, most of these products end up directly related to the production of software. The professional production of software has definitely changed, but sticky impact outside of the tech sector is still brewing.

I think there is a lot of potential, outside of the direct generation of software but still maybe software-adjacent, for products that make use of AI agents. It's hard to "generate" real world impact or expertise in an AI system, but if you can encapsulate that into a function that an AI can use, there's a lot of room to run. It's hard to get the feedback loop to verify this and most of these early products will likely die out, but as I mentioned, agents are still new on the timeline.

As an example of something that I mean that is software-adjacent, have a look at Square AI, specifically the "ask anything" parts: https://squareup.com/us/en/ai

I worked on this and I think that it's genuinely a good product. An arbitrary seller on the Square platform _can_ do aggregation, dashboarding, and analytics for their business, but that takes time and energy, and if you're running a business it can be hard to find that time. Putting an agent system in the backend that has access to your data, can aggregate and build modular plotting widgets for you, and can execute whenever you ask it a question is something that objectively saves a seller's time. You could have made such a thing without modern LLMs, but it would be substantially more expensive in terms of engineering research, time, and effort to put together a POC and bring it production, making it a non-starter before [let's say] two years ago.

AI here is fundamental to the product functioning, but the outcome is a human being saving time while making decisions about their business. It is a useful product that uses AI as a means to a productive end, which, to me, should be the goal of such technologies.

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