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The Rise of Whatever

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Re: The Rise of Whatever

#511

Post by johnnyanmac »

KaiserPro wrote: post #200
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…

Up until recently, I could, if I wanted to have a living doing VFX. I could, if I wanted to, craft new worlds, and get paid for it. In two years, that won't be the case. Its the same for virtually all other Arts based job. An economy that currently support say 100% of the people now, will at most be able to support 10-30% in a few years time. > It's ridiculous to think drawing will become a lost art because of LLM/Di…

>Sure _rich_ people will be able to do all the arts they want. Everyone else won't

I miss when rich people spent their time appealing to other rich people with art instead of screwing over all of society.

Well, they always did the latter. But they had their circuses as well. Now it's just cold, hard corporatism.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#512

Post by johnnyanmac »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #437
KaiserPro wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> doesn't deter curious people looking for a hobby. curious rich people.

I've met a few master blacksmiths who do fair/con circuits, these are often guys who did stuff in their garage while working a regular job until they were able to build a customer base and online presence.

Is that our inspiration? to lose all social stability traveling on the road, treating their hard worked craft as a circus attraction.

And all as a side gig, too. for a craft their forefathers spent entire careers honing. Is that really how a craftman masters their craft?

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#513

Post by johnnyanmac »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #390
intrasight wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first thing is we don't understand it. Perhaps you do not understand it, but many software engineers do understand. Of the human brain we can still say that we don't understand it.

Why do we keep getting people who say we understand LLMs. Let me put it plainly. If we understood LLMs we would understand why hallucinations happen and we would subsequently be able to control and stop hallucinations from happening. But we can’t. We can’t control the LLM because of lack of understanding. All the code is available on a computer for us to modify every single parameter. We have full access and we can’t…

I mean, I thought "we" did understand why they happen. It's a design decision to always provide an answer because an LLM never wants to say "I do not know". It might sometimes say "I cannot answer that" for compliance reasons, but never "I don't know".

This design decision is inherent to American culture and waht they consider as a "trustworthy person". Always having an answer is better than admitting a lack of knowledge.

I don't know the technical details behind incomplete information, but I feel I know the meta reasoning behind it.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#514

Post by johnnyanmac »

madmask wrote: post #450
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…

The point is what value can the common man reasonably provide in the free market to support a family when most of white collar work is also automated? The industrial revolution automated a lot of blue collars, AI is starting to seriously automate white collars to the point less people are needed. They are automating the mind, there’s not much else to compete with to provide value. Which color people should pivot to?

>Which color people should pivot to?

At this rate: red.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#515

Post by johnnyanmac »

autumnstwilight wrote: post #60
gyomu wrote: post #10

Broadly agreed with all the points outlined in there. But for me the biggest issue with all this — that I don't see covered in here, or maybe just a little bit in passing — is what all of this is doing to beginners, and the learning pipeline. > There are people I once respected who, apparently, don’t actually enjoy doing the thing. They would like to describe what they want and receive Whatever — some beige sludge th…

I learned Japanese by painstakingly translating interviews and blog posts from my favorite artist 15+ years ago, dictionary in hand. I also live and work in Japan now. Today I can click a button under the artist's tweets and get an instant translation that looks coherent (and often is, though it can also be quite wrong maybe 1/10 times). In terms of the artist being accessible to overseas fans it's a great improvemen…

I'd say a 10% error rate is quite drastic for spoken communication. Can you imagine if you lost 10% of the context for the comments here on HN?

I don't know, I feel like one of the worst things to do on the internet is to miscommunicate. And that can be hard enough with 2 native speakers (I just had a response completly blow up on me because they assumedly took my comment the wrong way).

>but I do wonder if I had grown up with this, would I have had any motivation to learn?

Machine translation has come a long way where I can at least get the general feel of say, a translated article. It is still far from the point where I feel like I can read a machine translated article and not have it come off as clunky. That last 10% or so is just uncanny enough for it to impact my reading experience.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#516

Post by johnnyanmac »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #375
andrepd wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 fo…

Sounds like the other user tolerates the flaws and works around them, while you don't and expect to not be fact checking every statement. I guess people's approaches to this can be very wide.

I am more on your side, personally. When learning, I do not want to spend half my time scrutinizing the teacher. At least not on the objective fundamentals. If the fundamentals are broken, how do I trust anything built on top?

And that's the scary thing: LLM's don't "build on top", they more or less do the equivalent of running around the globe first and come back with an answer.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#517

Post by johnnyanmac »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #474
thankyoufriend wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Today you can go buy and be an owner in AI by buying the AI company stocks. You are enabled by the system that we have..

you can, perhaps. I am 2 years laid off and am trying to pay rent. All according to plan, I suppose.

Also, no. I would not invest in this hype bubble. We're definitely getting an AI crash within the next 5-7 yeras, a la the dotcom crash. I prefer safer stocks if I have the choice.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#518

Post by johnnyanmac »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #501
thankyoufriend wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that not everybody has the means to invest in stocks, right? Artists are so commonly poor, that there's even a trope called the "starving artist." I have noticed a distinct lack of empathy in the broader discussion about GenAI's impact on the working class. The argument is always made that this isn't new, that people have to retrain when new technology displaces them. Ok, sure. But the speed of this displ…

In a capitalist system - there's no other answer. In a more socialist context, UBI is an answer. In a more communist context, taking over all labs for the people is an answer. In a dictatorial context, banning AI is an answer. What are you recommending?

I'll take socialism.

More subtly, I'll modity the dictorial context to require payment to any sources an AI uses, and strong enforcement of infringements on AI. The core problem with capitalistic society is that money tends to bubble up to the top and then stay there. The goal of regulation should partly be to make sure that money is incentivized to be not stay up top in stocks.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#519

Post by johnnyanmac »

sirwhinesalot wrote: post #94
bruce511 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the idealism but your argument has some flaws. Firstly the "theft component" isn't exactly new. There have always been rich and poor. Secondly everyone is standing on the shoulders of giants. The Beatles were influenced by the works of others. Paul and John learned to write by mimicking other writers. That code you right is the pinicle of endless work dine by others. By Ada Lovelace, and Charles Babbage,…

I think your last point is very reductionist. Nearly every country ends up in a voting situation where only 2 parties can realistically win. A diverse parlament results in paralysis and the fall of government (happened in my home country multiple times). The two parties that end up viable tend to be financed quite heavily by said wealthy, including being proped by the media said wealthy control. The more right wing s…

> Nearly every country ends up in a voting situation where only 2 parties can realistically win.

Not necessarily. That's a result of first past the post, not of voting in general. ranked choice voting solves a lot of this extremism 2 party system. The dominant parties need to at least pretend to appel enough to moderatism that a 3rd party isn't outvoting both of them.

>Many people understand this and it is barely part of the consideration in their vote. The last election in the US was a social battle, not really an economic one.

So the right wingers never really cared about inflation, egg prices, and the job market. I wish I could pretend to be shocked at this point.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#520

Post by johnnyanmac »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #379
thankyoufriend wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 inv…

>Than in artists copying the styles and techniques of popular artists to improve their craft.

We have not achieved GAI yet, so comparing the human mind to what's ultimately a robotic database is one ultimately made on a flimsy premise. AI isn't generating a style anymore than a user bashing 3 templates together.

Even when we hit GAI, we have different issues. a brain can't perfectly recite a song they hear. It will not objectively interpret the same soundwaves from brain to brain. It will not react the same way from brain to brain due to different experiences and perspectives. What GAI develops into may or may not take all these into account.

>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.

Sure. We can also make sure they pay the artists being copied frmo while we tax them more too. Let's not dismiss theft by casting off the theft as magic. This isn't Now you see me...

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