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AI and the Automation of Work

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Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#31

Post by flangola7 »

mdale wrote: post #6

I think the "sparks of AIG" presentations are compelling. It does feel like there are a just a few remaining big problems away from AGI level capabilities where it was more futuristic unclear projections in the past. If the issues as synthetic data conversations like alpha go but for LLMs; setting much longer token contexts (or dramatically cheaper training on custom data sets) And scaling via software and hardware a…

It utterly befuddles me that so many people still can't (or refuse to) sense what's coming. Be it bad or good the magnitude of what is now unfolding is beyond everything that homo sapiens have ever witnessed. Unless we think that MI advancement will miraculously stall and never improve beyond current capabilities, I cannot conceive of future, even a near future, that we recognize as real.

>I think then we have some big waves that will wash over any observations we could make at this point in time.

This is spot on. Exactly as how we didn't know what the internet would be, the wiser amongst us realized it was a new and strange era. "An alien lifeform. Unimaginable, both amazing and terrifying." - Bowie. MI will far eclipse the internet.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#32

Post by satisfice »

No one who claims to automate testing ever seems to have a sophisticated understanding of testing. I suspect the urge people have for automating anything comes not from the love and skill they possess for that activity, but rather for the imagined fruits of it.

Software testing is easy to fake, which means it’s particularly easy to claim automation accomplished.

Therefore, all these people thinking they are going to automate what I do when I test? No. You have no idea what I do. But what you can do it convince ignorant managers to buy fake software testing. That’s the real danger.

Imagine if a company came around claiming to have revolutionized blood testing with radical tech, labeling its competitors slow and obsolete. The sober and responsible players in that industry may experience real damage before people figure out that Theranos is a fraud.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#33

Post by jtmoulia »

climatologist wrote: post #30
pulvinar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious as to your source, or particular examples, since they (or at least GPT-4) seem to me to be rather decent at planning. E.g., for writing code.

Ask it to write a backtracking sudoku solver with coroutines and/or fibers and let me know how it performs in your language of choice. We are nowhere near generally intelligent software systems.

I was curious where GPT-4 would come up short on the problem and I was surprised -- it seemed to solve it pretty well whether or not using coroutines. (I dropped both solns into a python interpreter and both appeared to solve the problem.)

There could def be bugs I missed tho.

https://chat.openai.com/share/ef77507e-cb75-4112-97f1-a16cfc...

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#34

Post by climatologist »

jtmoulia wrote: post #33
climatologist wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask it to write a backtracking sudoku solver with coroutines and/or fibers and let me know how it performs in your language of choice. We are nowhere near generally intelligent software systems.

I was curious where GPT-4 would come up short on the problem and I was surprised -- it seemed to solve it pretty well whether or not using coroutines. (I dropped both solns into a python interpreter and both appeared to solve the problem.) There could def be bugs I missed tho. https://chat.openai.com/share/ef77507e-cb75-4112-97f1-a16cfc...

That's a good attempt but the coroutine solution is incorrect. See if you can figure out why and how to improve it. You can also ask it to propagate constraints and see what happens.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#35

Post by calderwoodra »

> But if it becomes cheaper to use a machine to make, say, a pair of shoes, then the shoes are cheaper, more people can buy shoes and they have more money to spend on other things besides, and we discover new things we need or want, and new jobs.

This sounds really similar to trickle down economics.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#36

Post by sillysaurusx »

satisfice wrote: post #32

No one who claims to automate testing ever seems to have a sophisticated understanding of testing. I suspect the urge people have for automating anything comes not from the love and skill they possess for that activity, but rather for the imagined fruits of it. Software testing is easy to fake, which means it’s particularly easy to claim automation accomplished. Therefore, all these people thinking they are going to…

Someone could’ve made the same arguments about automating horse-drawn carriages. Even the safety arguments would fit: going faster would be much more dangerous.

I think it’s a good idea to keep an open mind and see what happens. You might be right, but if you’re wrong, you’d be better served to be ready for it.

Which seems more likely: that it’s impossible to automate testing with AI, or that it might be possible?

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#39

Post by shepherdjerred »

satisfice wrote: post #32

No one who claims to automate testing ever seems to have a sophisticated understanding of testing. I suspect the urge people have for automating anything comes not from the love and skill they possess for that activity, but rather for the imagined fruits of it. Software testing is easy to fake, which means it’s particularly easy to claim automation accomplished. Therefore, all these people thinking they are going to…

What's the gap between a Co-pilot written test and a human-written test? Are tests written by co-pilot better than no tests?

Developers generally hate writing tests, so I suspect more and more unit tests will be generated. I've worked with someone who does this and it seems insane to me, although I never got to see the generated tests they were referring to, so I can't give specifics.

Re: AI and the Automation of Work

#40

Post by kuchenbecker »

famouswaffles wrote: post #12
loveparade wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a good analogy. A better analogy is the multiple previous AI hype cycles. They played out similarly. They brought some truly new capabilities that are used in production, just like LLMs will become a widely used tool, but failed to live up to the AGI hype even though everyone was convinced we're just a step away back in the 80s already and in a few years machine will do all our work. The only re…

>The only reason people don't see this is because they weren't around back then. It's not going to be different this time. There are people who've been around who think it's going to be different this time. Look it's fine if you don't. Maybe you'll be right and they'll be wrong but this "anyone who disagrees is ignorant" rhetoric is uncalled for. You shouldn't need to result to ad hominems.

Agreed, I see this automating 20-30% of my work in the next 10 years. Then, I'll spend that time on the unending pile of work that's not completed.

I see a major issue for people entering the industry in a decade because ChatGPT/Copilot I can get 10 mediocre answers and verify them in the time it takes a junior eng to respond to PR comments.

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