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The Rise of Whatever

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Re: The Rise of Whatever

#371

Post by CuriouslyC »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #61
raincole wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will write lengthy and convoluted explanation on why LLM isn't like calculator or microwave oven or other technology before. (Like OP's article) But it really is. Humans have been looking for easier and lazier ways to do things since the dawn of civilization. Tech never ever prevents people who really want to hone their skills from doing so. World record of 100m sprint kept improving even since car was invente…

>LLM isn't like calculator or microwave oven or other technology before. (Like OP's article) But it really is. I would not buy a calculator that hallucinated wrong answers part of the time. Or a microwave oven that told you it grilled the chicken but it didn't and you have to die from Salmonella poisoning.

I would buy a calculator that could help me break down the problem and show my work though, that's the hardest part. I can always double check the numbers, and I would get partial credit for a miscalculation with the right process, but if I can't figure out how to represent the problem mathematically, I'm cooked.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#373

Post by prmph »

hyper57 wrote: post #233
thombles wrote: post #113

Speaking as a grump who recently chilled out, put reservations on hold and gave Claude a crack... it turns out that the anti-AI crowd (which still includes me in many regards) gets a lot wrong about the experience of using it, as demonstrated in TFA. You don't get reams of wishy-washy code unless you ask for it. If you're an experienced developer who Knows What They Want then you can wield it like a scalpel. None of…

> You don't get reams of wishy-washy code unless you ask for it. I've found that they get pretty wishy-washy when you correct them. As an example, yesterday I was working on porting a function from the open-source CUE4Parse project from C# to Python (for a hobby project), and the LLM (Gemini 2.5 Pro) suggested the following translation of a C# method: @staticmethod def from_name(name: str) -> 'FPackageId': # C# Encod…

Exactly.

But, to make a comparison here with Claude Code, I was initially impressed with Geminis ability to hold a keep a conversation on track, but it rarely gets the hint when I express annoyance with its output. Claude has an uncanny ability to guess what I find wrong with its output (even when I just respond with WTF!) and will try to fix it often in actually useful ways, Gemini just keeps repeating its last output after acknowledging my annoyance.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#374

Post by CuriouslyC »

tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #324
scrollaway wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My girlfriend is a ceramist. She makes porcelain pieces ( https://malinamore.art/ ) that are sold for hundreds or even thousands of euros. Why would someone buy a plate off her, when they could get one from IKEA for 1.50 eur? Yet ceramics is not a dead art. Beats me?

there will always be a market for exceptional artists, but what about the other 80-90% of people that used to be able to make a living and now can't anymore? What are they going to do? And without the possibility of a particular profession leading to gainful employment, very few people will even start it, making the funnel smaller and smaller until even exceptional artists won't be able to emerge at all.

We still have amazing master blacksmiths who've reached the pinnacle of the craft despite no economic demand for their skills, so clearly the lack of a market doesn't deter curious people looking for a hobby.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#375

Post by Tijdreiziger »

andrepd wrote: post #308
franciscop wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am learning Japanese (again) now and it's such a stark improvement vs when I first tried. When I don't understand something, LLMs explain it perfectly well, and with a bit of prompting they give me the right practice bits I need for my level. For a specific example, when 2 grammar points seem to mean the same thing, teachers here in Japan would either not explain the difference, or make a confusing explanation in J…

> When I don't understand something, LLMs explain it perfectly well But my man, how do you know if it explains perfectly well or is just generating plausible-sounding slop? You're learning, so by definition you don't know!

Yeah, my experience with AI and Japanese is quite the opposite. I used to use the Drops app for learning vocabulary, until they added genAI explanations, because the explanations were just wrong half the time! I had to uninstall the app!

Similarly, I used the Busuu app for a while. One of its features is that you can speak or type sentences, and ask native speakers to give feedback. But of course, you have to wait for the feedback (especially with time zone differences), so they added genAI feedback.

Like, what’s the point of this? It’s like that old joke: “We have purposely trained him wrong, as a joke”!

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#376

Post by bruce511 »

ako wrote: post #290
bruce511 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have equated a basic income with equality. That's a misunderstanding. I'm not suggesting equality or communism. I'm suggesting a bottom threshold where you get enough even if you don't work. Actually Norway gets most of that from investments, not oil. They did sell oil, but invested that income into other things. The sovereign wealth fund now pays out to all citizens in a sustainable way. Equally your understandi…

In live in europe, so understand some of it, part of my family comes from eastern europe, so have also seen that form of communism in the past. Living on welfare in the Netherlands is not a good life, and definitely not something we should accept for the majority of the people. Being retired on only a state pension is a bad life, you need to save for retirement to have a good life. And saving takes time, that's why y…

I am not saying that the reality exists.

I'm saying that the blind acceptance of the status quo does not allow for that status to be questioned.

You see the welfare amounts, or retirement amounts as limited. Well then, what would it take to increase them? How could a society increase productivity such that more could be produced in less time?

Are some of our mindsets preventing us from seeing alternatives?

Given that society has reinvented itself many times through history, are more reinvention possible?

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#377

Post by bruce511 »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #298
bruce511 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not sure why you are being downvoted. You make a reasonable argument. I would contest some of your points though. Firstly, not every country votes, not all that vote have 2 viable parties, so that's a flaw in your argument. Equally most elections produce a winner. That winner can, and does, get stuff done. The US is paralyzed because it takes 60% to win the senate, which hasn't happened for a while. So US election…

Just to be clear, I'm not a US citizen. But I know people whose preference would be something like Ron Paul > Bernie Sanders > Trump > Kamala, which might sound utterly bizarre until you realize that there are multiple factors at play and "we want tax cuts for the rich" is not one of them.

When you vote for a guy who plans to raise prices, when you vote for a guy who already tried to remove Healthcare, when you vote for a guy who gives tax breaks to the rich, when you vote for a guy who is a grifter, then don't complain when you get what you voted for.

People are welcome to whatever preference they like. Democracy let's them choose. But US democracy is deliberately planned to prefer the "no one wins" scenario. That's not the democracy most of the world uses.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#378

Post by sfn42 »

kqr wrote: post #353
zpeti wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use a GPS? That sometimes gets the route wrong, but overall gets you to where you want to go in less traffic than if you didn't use it? And occasionally really delights you with new routes? (thanks Rory Sutherland for this analogy)

Wait, do people generally use GPS routes to go places? I find GPS to be great to locate myself when I can't figure it out from landmarks, but I very rarely use it to select a route – I can just look at the map in the same app and figure out a route on my own.

I can't remember a whole route just from looking at the map once. Also maps generally don't show whether streets are one way and things like that.

I just type the address into Google maps, or place a pin manually, then hit the start button. It'll tell me every step of the way. Keep right at the fork. In a hundred meters, turn left. Turn left. Take the second exit in the roundabout. Your destination is a hundred meters ahead on the right.

It's great and it works almost flawlessly. Even better if you have a passenger able to keep an eye on it for those times when it isn't flawless.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#379

Post by CuriouslyC »

thankyoufriend wrote: post #48
bruce511 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, LLMs are just the most recent step in a long road of doing the same thing. At any point of progress in history you can look backwards and forwards and the world is different. Before tractors a man with an ox could plough x field in y time. After tractors he can plough much larger areas. The nature of farming changes. (Fewer people needed to farm more land. ) The car arrives, horses leave. Computers arrive…

The difference between GenAI and your examples is a theft component. They stole our data - your data - and used it to build a machine that diverts wealth to the rich. The only equitable way for GenAI to move forward is if we all own a share of it, since it would not exist in its current form without our data. GenAI should be a Universal Basic Asset.

There isn't any more theft in this than in artists copying the styles and techniques of popular artists to improve their craft.

This is 100% just the mechanization of a cultural refinement process that has been going on since the dawn of civilization.

I agree with you regarding how the bounty of GenAI is distributed. The value of these GenAI systems is derived far more from the culture they consume than the craft involved in building them. The problem isn't theft of data, but a capitalist culture that normalizes distribution of benefit in society towards those that are already well off. If the income of those billionaires and the profits of their corporations were more equitably taxed, it would solve a larger class of problems, of which this problem is an instance.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#380

Post by sfn42 »

eesmith wrote: post #166
zpeti wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you use a GPS? That sometimes gets the route wrong, but overall gets you to where you want to go in less traffic than if you didn't use it? And occasionally really delights you with new routes? (thanks Rory Sutherland for this analogy)

Rarely. I feel lost when I use GPS to get places. Alec Watson of Technology Connections points out that GPS routing defaults to minimizing time, even when that may not the most logical way to get somewhere. His commentary, which starts at https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA?t=1804 , is an example of his larger argument about the complacency of letting automation do things for you. His example is a Google Maps routing which…

If you drive into a lake or anything like that it's your own fault not the GPS. It doesn't control the car it just tells you directions. And if you know the area well enough to make judgements like the other things you mentioned, you don't need gps. Gps is specifically for when you don't know where to go.

I use it all the time, pretty much zero issues.

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