What can we as humans do to defeat the AI?
Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
31–40 of 116 posts
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#32I feel (hah!) that we've reached a point where instead of focusing on objective things that the LLM-based systems can do, we are wasting energy and "ink" on how they make us feel. And how others using them make us feel. And how Hollywood-style stories about "AI" make us feel. And how people commenting on these things make us feel. And so on. IMO it's best to focus on objective things that the systems can do today, wi…
IDK, my impression of the self driving car discussion 5 years ago were more akin to: "let us start designing AI only roads, get ready for no human drivers - they won't exist in 5 years! AI only cars will be so great, it will solve traffic congestion, pollution, noise, traffic deaths, and think of all the free time while you are lounging around in your commute!" Seemed like a conversation dominated by people gearing up for that VC money. Meanwhile, actual solutions for any of those problems seem to be languishing.. My perspective; was a lot of distraction away from real solutions, lead by a tech-maximalist group that had a LOT to gain by hype.
> I feel (hah!) that we've reached a point where instead of focusing on objective things that the LLM-based systems can do, we are wasting energy and "ink" on how they make us feel.
> best to focus on objective things that the systems can do today, with maybe a look forward so we can prepare for things they'll be able to do "tomorrow".
These two together.. Reminds me of this type of sentiment that seems somewhat common here: 'I feel that AI is growing exponentially, therefore we should stop learning to code - because AI will start writing all code soon!'
I think this points to where a lot of skepticism comes from. From the perspective of: the AI barely does a fraction of what is claimed, has grown even less a fraction of what is claimed, yet these 'feelings' that AI will change everything is driving tons of false predictions. IMO, those feelings are driving VC money to damn MBAs that are plastering AI on everything because they are chasing money.
There is an irony here though too, skepticism simply is a lack of belief without evidence. Belief without evidence is irrational. The skeptics are the ones simply asking for evidence, not feelings.
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#33It's hard for me to take all of this seriously because I sat and listened to how Google Search was going to ruin everyone's mind and without the skill of manual research we'd all be turned into imbeciles.
Back then we didn't have this particular modern meme of "extremely dangerous" for something like a syntactically inaccurate file so I suppose no one said it was "extremely dangerous" for people to copy-paste code from searches. SQL injection was fairly novel at the time but as that came up people would mock copy-paste scripters rather than act as if man's extinction was at hand from a vibe-coded single-page app that tells you which Pokemon you are.
Yes, yes, it's different now. But it was different then too. Search engines changed the stuff you could find from carefully curated Usenet channels to any rando with a blog. I suppose if we had modern sensibilities we'd say that was "extremely dangerous" too.
I've been writing code for decades, and it's true that I've seen nothing like this technology. It's true that it's a game changer and that with slightly different rates of change could have already lead to human extinction. But that doesn't mean that I have to lay any more credence to the guys who have, since time immemorial, said "this new thing makes something easier; it will make us worse because we do not slog as much".
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#34> My dopamine comes not from tweaking someone (something) else’s code to make something barely work. My dopamine comes from the fact that I solved some intricate, non-trivial problem.
If that’s your thing that’s perfectly fine and I can understand how LLMs take away this fun challenge from you.
But for many - myself included - it’s not necessarily the process itself that’s rewarding - it’s the outcome. I love creating things that work and are useful. The particular process that was used to create the thing is secondary to me, and if I discover a tool that will enable me to skip some steps to achieve the outcome I will pick it any time of the day over doing things manually.
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#35The elephant in the room here is that, like so many issues, AI has become political for some people. In this case your "AI skeptic friends" are your "defund the police" and "abolish ICE" friends. For 95% of people AI is just a new technology to be loved and feared.
There are some real technical debates to be had about the capabilities of LLMs and agents but that's not what's driving this "AI skepticism" at all. The "AI skeptics" decided AI is bad in advance and then came up with reasons, the weakest of which is the claim that it's all or mostly hype.
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#36I feel like this article makes the same tired point I see every time a new technology comes alone: "but if we don't know how to shoe our own horses any more because we got cars, soon nobody will know how to shoe horses!" Yeah. And that's OK. Because nobody will need to shoe horses any more! If I forget how to write tests, what's the problem? It means that I never need to write tests any more. If I do need to write te…
I agree with this, it reminds me of how most people don't need to write assembly anymore, but it still helps with certain projects to have that understanding of what's going on.
So some people do develop that deeper understanding, when it's helpful, and they go on to build great things. I don't see why this will be different with AI. Some will rely too much on AI and possibly create slop, and others will learn more deeply and get better results. This is not a new phenomenon.
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#37I feel like this article makes the same tired point I see every time a new technology comes alone: "but if we don't know how to shoe our own horses any more because we got cars, soon nobody will know how to shoe horses!" Yeah. And that's OK. Because nobody will need to shoe horses any more! If I forget how to write tests, what's the problem? It means that I never need to write tests any more. If I do need to write te…
I agree with this, it reminds me of how most people don't need to write assembly anymore, but it still helps with certain projects to have that understanding of what's going on. So some people do develop that deeper understanding, when it's helpful, and they go on to build great things. I don't see why this will be different with AI. Some will rely too much on AI and possibly create slop, and others will learn more d…
Indeed it's not a new phenomenon, so why are we fretting about it? The people who were going to understand (assembly|any code) will understand it, and go on to build great things, and everyone else will do what we've always done.
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#38I feel like this article makes the same tired point I see every time a new technology comes alone: "but if we don't know how to shoe our own horses any more because we got cars, soon nobody will know how to shoe horses!" Yeah. And that's OK. Because nobody will need to shoe horses any more! If I forget how to write tests, what's the problem? It means that I never need to write tests any more. If I do need to write te…
You are both right. You won't need the skills. The problem is that you will want to eat and have housing.
Maybe we get UBI. But if Jeff Bezos and some friends own all of the production. What would they do with your UBI dollars? Where can he spend them? He can make his own yachts and soldiers.
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#39To all the people that are confused by "skeptics":
Yes, LLMs are powerful tools
Yes, LLMs can be useful
I'm an ML[0] researcher. Of course I love these machines! And you know what? I really fucking want to build some god damn AGI.
Maybe all you hype people are all right and LLMs will get us there. If you're right, you got all the money you could ask for and then several times more. You got some of the biggest companies in the world dumping billions in, competing, with huge infrastructures, and dumping money into a few dozen startups who are trying to do the same. If scale is all you need, then you're going to get there even without another 7 trillion dollars. I'm not saying "Don't fund LLM research" nor am I saying "Don't fund scaling research". Please do fund those things.
But be honest, money isn't your bottleneck.
Hell, what if you're right but other ways are faster?! We miss those opportunities and lose the race? For what?! If more efficient opportunities are out there (and I really do believe there are), who do you think is going to find it? It's literally betting on ITER[1] and giving essentially nothing to other fusion attempts. Except ITER is a international effort and we're a hell of a lot more confident it'll work.
But what if you're wrong? Why stop people like me from looking at other avenues? Why put all your eggs in one basket? Why dismiss us when we point out issues? We're engineers here, we fucking love to point out issues! IT IS OUR JOB! Because you must find issues if you're going to fix them. We could have hedged our bets a little and pivot fast, hopefully seamlessly enough that it doesn't even look like a hiccup. Nobody in this side of this is asking for half as much as what the next hip new LLM startup is. I don't know if it is even a penny on the dollar!
Are you really gonna bet that the golden goose is always going to be laying golden eggs? Are you really going to make a situation where if it stops you just go broke?
IDK, it just all seems needlessly risky to me. Maybe I just don't get it because I'm not a high stakes gambler.
[0] Funny... only a few years ago the litmus test was "If someone says 'AI' they're selling you something. If they say 'ML' they're probably not"
Re: Re: My AI skeptic friends are all nuts
#40I feel like this article makes the same tired point I see every time a new technology comes alone: "but if we don't know how to shoe our own horses any more because we got cars, soon nobody will know how to shoe horses!" Yeah. And that's OK. Because nobody will need to shoe horses any more! If I forget how to write tests, what's the problem? It means that I never need to write tests any more. If I do need to write te…
I agree with this, it reminds me of how most people don't need to write assembly anymore, but it still helps with certain projects to have that understanding of what's going on. So some people do develop that deeper understanding, when it's helpful, and they go on to build great things. I don't see why this will be different with AI. Some will rely too much on AI and possibly create slop, and others will learn more d…
This stops to make sense as soon as the prompter can be automated. Who is going to pay for your artisanal software? Who will afford it?