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Slop Terrifies Me

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Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#31

Post by Tade0 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #7
andrewstuart wrote: post #4

I use AI/LLMs hard for my programming. They allow me to do work I could never have done before. But there’s no chance at all of an LLM one shotting anything that I aim to build. Every single step in the process is an intensely human grind trying to understand the LLM and coax it to make the thing I have in mind. The people who are panicking aren’t using this stuff in depth. If they were, then they would have no anxie…

This has been my experience. I tend to use chats, in a synchronous, single-threaded manner, as opposed to agents, in an asynchronous way. That’s because I think of the LLM as a “know-it-all smartass personal assistant”; not an “employee replacement.” I just enjoy writing my own software. If I have a tool that will help me to lubricate the tight bits, I’ll use it.

Same. I hit Tab a lot because even though the system doesn't actually understand what it's doing, it's really good at following patterns. Takes off the mental load of checking syntax.

Occasionally of course it's way off, in which case I have to tell it to stfu ("snooze").

Also it's great at presenting someone else's knowledge, as it doesn't actually know facts - just what token should come after a sequence of others. The other day I just pasted an error message from a system that I wasn't familiar with and it explained in detail what the problem was and how to solve it - brilliant, just what I wanted.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#32

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

Tade0 wrote: post #31
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been my experience. I tend to use chats, in a synchronous, single-threaded manner, as opposed to agents, in an asynchronous way. That’s because I think of the LLM as a “know-it-all smartass personal assistant”; not an “employee replacement.” I just enjoy writing my own software. If I have a tool that will help me to lubricate the tight bits, I’ll use it.

Same. I hit Tab a lot because even though the system doesn't actually understand what it's doing, it's really good at following patterns. Takes off the mental load of checking syntax. Occasionally of course it's way off, in which case I have to tell it to stfu ("snooze"). Also it's great at presenting someone else's knowledge, as it doesn't actually know facts - just what token should come after a sequence of others.…

> The other day I just pasted an error message from a system that I wasn't familiar with and it explained in detail what the problem was and how to solve it

That’s probably the single most valuable aspect, for me.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#33

Post by gib444 »

satisfice wrote: post #26
lm2s wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that’s why they are on the race to building the very advanced robots. To prevent the violence towards them.

That is exactly the motivation. The problem with being a billionaire is you still have to associate with poor people. But imagine a world where your wealth completely insulates you from the resentful poor.

How does a billionaire have to associate with poor people? They can live in a complete bubble: house in the hills, driven by a chauffeur, private jets, private islands for holidays etc...?

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#35

Post by roxolotl »

LLM are an embodiment of the Pareto principle. Turns out that if you can get an 80% solution in 1% of the time no one gives a shit about the remaining 20%. I agree that’s terrifying. The existential AI risk crowd is afraid we’ll produce gods to destroy us. The reality is we’ve instead exposed a major weakness in our culture where we’ve trained ourselves to care nothing about quality but instead to maximize consumption.

This isn’t news really. Content farms already existed. Amusing Ourselves to Death was written in 1985. Critiques of the culture exist way before that. But the reality of seeing the end game of such a culture laid bare in the waste of the data center buildout is shocking and repulsive.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#36

Post by KurSix »

beardyw wrote: post #10

I think this is far too nuanced. I am terrified by what the civilization we have known will become. People living in less advanced economies will do OK, but the rest of us not so much. We stand on the brink of a world where some wealthy people will get more wealthy, but very many will struggle without work or prospects. A society where a large percent have no income is unsustainable in the short term, and ultimately…

People in power won't act out of foresight or ethics. They'll act when the cost of not acting exceeds the cost of doing something messy and imperfect

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#37

Post by drzaiusx11 »

kubb wrote: post #19
beardyw wrote: post #10

I think this is far too nuanced. I am terrified by what the civilization we have known will become. People living in less advanced economies will do OK, but the rest of us not so much. We stand on the brink of a world where some wealthy people will get more wealthy, but very many will struggle without work or prospects. A society where a large percent have no income is unsustainable in the short term, and ultimately…

I wonder, will the rich start hiring elaborate casts of servants including butlers, footmen, lady's maids, and so on, since they'll be the only ones with the income?

As far as I can tell, the rich have never stopped employing elaborate casts of servants; these servants just go by different titles now: private chef, personal assistant, nanny, fashion consultant, etc.

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#38

Post by KurSix »

roxolotl wrote: post #35

LLM are an embodiment of the Pareto principle. Turns out that if you can get an 80% solution in 1% of the time no one gives a shit about the remaining 20%. I agree that’s terrifying. The existential AI risk crowd is afraid we’ll produce gods to destroy us. The reality is we’ve instead exposed a major weakness in our culture where we’ve trained ourselves to care nothing about quality but instead to maximize consumptio…

The data center buildout feels obscene when framed this way. Not because computation is evil, but because we're burning planetary-scale resources to accelerate a culture that already struggles to articulate why quality matters at all

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#39

Post by aspaviento »

gib444 wrote: post #33
satisfice wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly the motivation. The problem with being a billionaire is you still have to associate with poor people. But imagine a world where your wealth completely insulates you from the resentful poor.

How does a billionaire have to associate with poor people? They can live in a complete bubble: house in the hills, driven by a chauffeur, private jets, private islands for holidays etc...?

The people who cook for them, the people who clean for them, the ones who take care of their kids, the one who sell them stuff or serve them in restaurants...

Re: Slop Terrifies Me

#40

Post by KurSix »

hereme888 wrote: post #13

"terrified".... overused word. As a man I literally can't relate. I get terrified when I see a shark next to me in the ocean. I get impatient when code is hard to debug.

We're pretty good at naming fear when it has a physical trigger. We're much worse at naming the unease that comes from watching something you care about get quietly hollowed out over time. That doesn't make it melodrama, just a different category of discomfort.
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