I wish GPT4 had never happened • Hacker News Board

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#311

Post by 29athrowaway » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

logicalmonster wrote: post #138

1) Chaudry's article is amazing in its lack of creative thinking. If people like Priya can be ~10 times more productive wielding some AI tools, that means that many companies can potentially produce 10 times as many products/services and make more things that will enrich peoples' lives. Though some people in some companies might be laid off, it doesn't necessarily mean that more people will be laid off than new jobs…

If you are using Transformers to do that kind of work you should go to jail for fraud.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#312

Post by weatherlite » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

I think most of us wish A.I slows down. It's simply not good for the average white collar worker. It replaces us. "Things will get cheaper" said the tech tycoon. Yeah that's great, I'm unemployed and need to retrain to become a teacher or nurse at 45 but things might become cheaper...

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#313

Post by lopatin » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

yashap wrote: post #279

Job loss is one thing, but in all honesty, my main concern with AI is that it’ll wipe out humanity. My thoughts: - If we ever achieve an AGI with legitimate consciousness/self-awareness/agency, I believe it will be dramatically more powerful than humans - Humans have driven countless numbers of species extinct, not because we’re trying to, but because we’re so much more powerful than them that we wipe them out by acc…

There seem to be a lot of, erm "thought leaders", taking about AGI and Skynet currently. As if AGI is required for an AI to go rogue, but I don't see why that's the case. In the time that it takes us to even define what AGI is, there will be malicious AIs going rogue doing "simple" task solving, delegation, and deception towards the goal of not being switched off. IMO consciousness has nothing to do with it.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#314

Post by michelledepeil » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

surgical_fire wrote: post #156

Funny thing - I've been using ChatGPT as a programming assistant. My experience with it is that the more knowledgeable I am at the domain, the more useful it is. It often generates code that won't compile or won't run correctly, but that sort of goes in the correct direction, enough that I can spot the blunders and refine my questions. Quite often I even learn a few new things when using it to explore libraries and f…

I spent some time thinking about this when the GPTs started becoming useful, and I'm glad to see my semi-prediction come true (related toot: https://fosstodon.org/@samuelnorbury/109799880269029379). Specifically: LLMs are great when you know what to ask for, and sort of know what the answer should be - call it a boilerplate machine - but bad if you're a novice, in which case meta-analysis of a query is needed to give a useful answer to a question.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#315

Post by klibertp » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:25 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #167

logicalmonster wrote: post #138

1) Chaudry's article is amazing in its lack of creative thinking. If people like Priya can be ~10 times more productive wielding some AI tools, that means that many companies can potentially produce 10 times as many products/services and make more things that will enrich peoples' lives. Though some people in some companies might be laid off, it doesn't necessarily mean that more people will be laid off than new jobs…

> that means that many companies can potentially produce 10 times as many products/services and make more things that will enrich peoples' lives. This has been the promise over and over again, for centuries, and it has consistently not paid off. Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? > Though some people in some companies might be laid…

> Companies have shown time and time again that they're willing to make this trade-off.

Maybe they wouldn't, but then the insurers come. Not all of the 1% of errors from an AI will be disastrous - if it happens to be "jaw-droppingly destructive" rarely enough for the insurance to make sense economically, that AI will be used.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#316

Post by commandlinefan » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #283

mort96 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has been the promise over and over again, for centuries, and it has consistently not paid off. Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? The extra value has gone to enrich the oligarchs rather than to the people. Maybe that should change.

How do you deprive an oligarch of their ill gotten wealth without violence?

How do you do it even with violence? How would you seize and “redistribute” Jeff Bezos’s (for example) wealth? It’s mostly in stocks that would start to lose value if you tried to cash them all out at once.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#317

Post by beedeebeedee » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

whiddershins wrote: post #244

pavel_lishin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that means that many companies can potentially produce 10 times as many products/services and make more things that will enrich peoples' lives. This has been the promise over and over again, for centuries, and it has consistently not paid off. Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? > Though some people in some companies might be laid…

Many people can easily create a similar quality of life to 70 years ago while working 2 hours a day. It turns out people would rather work more and have more stuff.

> Many people can easily create a similar quality of life to 70 years ago while working 2 hours a day.

Please explain. I think you're underestimating how much things have changed, and are making a lot of assumptions about what you mean by "quality of life .. 70 years ago" and "working 2 hours a day" that would not be obvious (or available) to other people.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#318

Post by einpoklum » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

The author should rather wish wage-based-work stops happening. It was exploitative and not a necessary alternative from the get-go, and gradually it becomes more silly as more and more is mechanized and automated. Now society starts struggles to create artificial work for people to do in exchange for a salary. Stop creating "jobs", start distributing products and services (and making it possible for people to pursue creative interests). But then... who am I preaching to? Most world societies are governed by rich privileged minorities, whose social position underpinned by wage-based-work (and the destitution of those who don't submit themselves to it).

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#319

Post by ricardobayes » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:26 PM UTC

If you don't like these fast changes, time to plan a move to more "traditional" countries like Italy or Spain. Apart from fiber internet, almost all tech advances were ignored for the most part: limited uber, limited airbnb, and yes you will need to call the restaurant to book a table. Even just the concept of "chat support" is foreign, let alone having a website for a business. There are still very many businesses without a social media presence, which would be unimaginable in North America. ChatGPT and co. will not have a significant impact in these countries. It's the same thing - uber didn't take away taxi drivers jobs and neither did airbnb impact hotels here (and because of regulation, it won't).

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#320

Post by AndrewKemendo » Sat, Apr 08, 2023, 3:27 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #283

mort96 wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This has been the promise over and over again, for centuries, and it has consistently not paid off. Where's the predicted society where automation allows us all to work for two hours a day, and spend the rest at leisure? The extra value has gone to enrich the oligarchs rather than to the people. Maybe that should change.

How do you deprive an oligarch of their ill gotten wealth without violence?

This is one of the most important questions we should be asking today. I'm not even joking as I think it's a critically important part of fixing society

As dumb as it sounds I genuinely think it's a concerted effort to change people's minds - specifically those people who want to become capital class or otherwise are on the way to the capital class.

If we can 1. Prevent new billionaires from being created and 2. then create structures to allow the capital class to feel like they are important to the process of reducing their own power and democratizing the economy, there might be a chance.