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Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

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Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#31

Post by orwin »

LightHugger wrote: post #28
orwin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Therapy, medical diagnosis Please no. I agree with the rest (imnproved workflow too), but leave social tasks to humans.

It is very hard to get good medical diagnosis. Doctors are overworked and can barely spend more than 10 minutes thinking about you. People with long complex medical histories get completely fucked over, so basically these social tasks already are not being performed properly by humans because the humans doing it are stretched way too thin. AI is going to quickly surpass the quality of medical diagnosis by doctors, at…

> AI is going to quickly surpass the quality of medical diagnosis by doctors

High doubts. We're still talking about GPTs? The 'transformer' part will be an issue. I use it the enterprise version _a lot_, but one thing you really can't use it for is finding a bug, and considering how Transformers work, that's not a surprise.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#32

Post by DougN7 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #12

I’ve been developing software professionally for over 20 years now, and ChatGPT/GH Copilot are the biggest productivity enhancers I’ve seen since code completion. Earlier today, I used ChatGPT to help me bang out a Ruby script to clone a repository, extract its documentation, and add those docs to another site that will serve as a centralized documentation source for a collection of projects. I know Ruby and have bee…

I’d say 50% of the time CoPilot suggests things that are not helpful, 40% of the time it saves me some typing, and 10% of the time it reads my mind and fills out a large section of code for me perfectly (using all my idioms, naming, code “accent”, etc). That 10% is spooky - I’m witnessing literal magic. This isn’t going away.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#33

Post by indigosun »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #12

I’ve been developing software professionally for over 20 years now, and ChatGPT/GH Copilot are the biggest productivity enhancers I’ve seen since code completion. Earlier today, I used ChatGPT to help me bang out a Ruby script to clone a repository, extract its documentation, and add those docs to another site that will serve as a centralized documentation source for a collection of projects. I know Ruby and have bee…

> biggest productivity enhancers I’ve seen since code completion

I’m still productive without ever having pursued any code completion features, and I think one aspect of your productivity you are leaving out is “is your bump in productivity equal to, or preferably favorable to, its costs?”.

What Rube Goldberg type of a mechanism of misery has to happen to help you complete your code?

Such as the blatant disregard for creatives’ licensing stipulations, tech companies building nuclear reactors, the political elevation of the scumbags who run these companies, et al?

~“I saved 10 keystrokes, and it only cost my grandchildren their clean drinking water.”

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#34

Post by _heimdall »

thousandautumns wrote: post #20
_heimdall wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What benefits have we gained from generative AI (really ML) that currently outweigh the cost of researching developing, and running them? Or do we stick with an expected value based on what generative AI may be able to do and the next step technologies that come after it? The article is making pretty clear arguments for costs of generative AI, and raising the author's opinion that it isn't worth it. Just claiming it…

Last November, DeepMind released the results of a generative AI model that created theoretical molecular structures for over 2 million undiscovered synthetic materials. Within days, materials science researchers were able to confirm 700 of them. The sheer number of these new potential materials discovered is greater than has been created in the rest of human history combined. These are materials that can be used in m…

It will be interesting to see how many of those, if any, pan out to have a meaningful use at scale. If I remember right, those 700 or so were synthesized in a lab but I don't think we know much beyond that.

We'll see if any of them end up being viable as far as manufacturing and material availability go, and whether they're better replacements for existing tech like batteries. The hope is that we'll have Jarvis inventing a new material for Iron Man's suit, but we could always end up with an endless pile of technically feasible but functionally useless materials.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#35

Post by lbrito »

theobreuerweil wrote: post #7
lbrito wrote: post #5

Many zeitgeist things are a waste of time and money, like electric vehicles. Generative AI is definitely not one of them.

Out of interest, why are electric vehicles a waste of time and money in your opinion?

Because they are a red herring.

With EVs the focus becomes how wonderful they are because they do not burn fossil fuels in their engines. Great, but what about what all the other issues (including non renewable issues in the rest of the supply chain involved in building the EV)? They're greenwashed away - no need to discuss public transit and densification. EVs will fix everything and we don't need to change our life on any significant way.

They are a way to continue going down the wrong path and feel good about it.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#36

Post by aaronbrethorst »

indigosun wrote: post #33
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #12

I’ve been developing software professionally for over 20 years now, and ChatGPT/GH Copilot are the biggest productivity enhancers I’ve seen since code completion. Earlier today, I used ChatGPT to help me bang out a Ruby script to clone a repository, extract its documentation, and add those docs to another site that will serve as a centralized documentation source for a collection of projects. I know Ruby and have bee…

> biggest productivity enhancers I’ve seen since code completion I’m still productive without ever having pursued any code completion features, and I think one aspect of your productivity you are leaving out is “is your bump in productivity equal to, or preferably favorable to, its costs?”. What Rube Goldberg type of a mechanism of misery has to happen to help you complete your code? Such as the blatant disregard for…

tech companies building nuclear reactors

I hope they build lots of them. The alternative is that they use fossil gas which continues to heat up our atmosphere. Nuclear fission is certainly not problem-free (Hanford, three mile island, Chernobyl, etc), but it’s a whole lot better than pushing us past 2°C.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#37

Post by indigosun »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #36
indigosun wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> biggest productivity enhancers I’ve seen since code completion I’m still productive without ever having pursued any code completion features, and I think one aspect of your productivity you are leaving out is “is your bump in productivity equal to, or preferably favorable to, its costs?”. What Rube Goldberg type of a mechanism of misery has to happen to help you complete your code? Such as the blatant disregard for…

tech companies building nuclear reactors I hope they build lots of them. The alternative is that they use fossil gas which continues to heat up our atmosphere. Nuclear fission is certainly not problem-free (Hanford, three mile island, Chernobyl, etc), but it’s a whole lot better than pushing us past 2°C.

For clarity, I am pro nuclear power.

That said, I do worry specifically about tech companies interested in building nuclear power plants.

If it’s solely to fuel the silicon fire that is contemporary machine learning it’s a harrowing concept.

If it’s to both do that, and power the grid, then doubly so.

The consolidation of power in these few tech companies is already at concerning levels before handing them control of municipal energy.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#38

Post by ben_w »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #36
indigosun wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> biggest productivity enhancers I’ve seen since code completion I’m still productive without ever having pursued any code completion features, and I think one aspect of your productivity you are leaving out is “is your bump in productivity equal to, or preferably favorable to, its costs?”. What Rube Goldberg type of a mechanism of misery has to happen to help you complete your code? Such as the blatant disregard for…

tech companies building nuclear reactors I hope they build lots of them. The alternative is that they use fossil gas which continues to heat up our atmosphere. Nuclear fission is certainly not problem-free (Hanford, three mile island, Chernobyl, etc), but it’s a whole lot better than pushing us past 2°C.

Nuclear and fossil are two alternatives, but renewables are a way to get rich while saving the planet.

More than one way to deal with night/winter too.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#39

Post by ben_w »

orwin wrote: post #31
LightHugger wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very hard to get good medical diagnosis. Doctors are overworked and can barely spend more than 10 minutes thinking about you. People with long complex medical histories get completely fucked over, so basically these social tasks already are not being performed properly by humans because the humans doing it are stretched way too thin. AI is going to quickly surpass the quality of medical diagnosis by doctors, at…

> AI is going to quickly surpass the quality of medical diagnosis by doctors High doubts. We're still talking about GPTs? The 'transformer' part will be an issue. I use it the enterprise version _a lot_, but one thing you really can't use it for is finding a bug, and considering how Transformers work, that's not a surprise.

Mmm.

ChatGPT finds about half of the bugs in the code it creates when the issue is described, which is more than I expected and still low enough for my job security.

Given the history of AI is written in examples of "machines can't ever… oh wait one did that must mean this never needed intelligence", I don't rule out any specific breakthrough on any particular time scale.

Re: Generative artificial intelligence is simply a waste of our time and money

#40

Post by aaronbrethorst »

ben_w wrote: post #38
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tech companies building nuclear reactors I hope they build lots of them. The alternative is that they use fossil gas which continues to heat up our atmosphere. Nuclear fission is certainly not problem-free (Hanford, three mile island, Chernobyl, etc), but it’s a whole lot better than pushing us past 2°C.

Nuclear and fossil are two alternatives, but renewables are a way to get rich while saving the planet. More than one way to deal with night/winter too.

I highly recommend listening to this conversation with Jigar Shah, the head of the DOE's Loan Programs Office on this very subject. https://www.volts.wtf/p/nuclear-perhaps
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