81–90 of 249 posts
Every few years a new technology goes mainstream and quickly changes the world around us rather fundamentally. I’ve lived through the web in 1995. Google in 2000. Web 2.0 in 2005. Smartphones in 2009. Now it’s generative AI in 2023. Every time, there’s an argument about whether it’s the end of the world or a total nothingburger. Every time, industry leaders are knocked off their perch. Every time, there are surprise…
You've also lived through many technologies that failed to achieve mainstream adoption despite demonstrating comparable levels of hype.
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I'd say that would depend on one's point of view in a couple of key respects: - Are we just discussing the first-world middle class? Obviously if we extend our scope to all of humanity there have been remarkable jumps in standards of living. - Does the idea of 'standard of living' include only access to goods, services, and information or also intangibles like access to safety and (more pertinently to this particular…
> my sense of security in said standard of living has taken a nosedive While it's hard to say, that might be the news you read, rather than reality.
Every few years a new technology goes mainstream and quickly changes the world around us rather fundamentally. I’ve lived through the web in 1995. Google in 2000. Web 2.0 in 2005. Smartphones in 2009. Now it’s generative AI in 2023. Every time, there’s an argument about whether it’s the end of the world or a total nothingburger. Every time, industry leaders are knocked off their perch. Every time, there are surprise…
Jobs and Berners-Lee didn’t think there was at least a 10% chance of the iPhone or Web ending civilization, like half of AI researchers do.
Like the author said, it’s different this time.
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You've also lived through many technologies that failed to achieve mainstream adoption despite demonstrating comparable levels of hype.
I'm constantly resisting the urge to write "MongoDB is webscale" whenever these threads show up. For the uninitiated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1636198 . The original video is gone but it lives on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b2F-DItXtZs .
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You can use ChatGPT without feeding a clients personal data to it. You can ask hypothetical questions about a certain situation. Like in coding, you don't have to copy paste in source code be able to get some useful feedback on how to proceed.
This requires care as it may only require a few details or other metadata like when/where one asked to narrow down who they're talking about. Considering ChatGPT leaks and hallucinations I would hope folks in law and medicine are being very careful.
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the firm's compliance officers will be demanding that the services are completely blocked and that any use whatsoever is a disciplinary offence (in their view: removing the risk almost entirely)
In my firm, it is the contrary. We are advised to remove any personal data in our queries and double check the output. We are encouraged to use chatgpt/bing on a daily basis to learn it. Our firm is also planning to purchase an LLM that will work locally.
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I'd say that would depend on one's point of view in a couple of key respects: - Are we just discussing the first-world middle class? Obviously if we extend our scope to all of humanity there have been remarkable jumps in standards of living. - Does the idea of 'standard of living' include only access to goods, services, and information or also intangibles like access to safety and (more pertinently to this particular…
> my sense of security in said standard of living has taken a nosedive While it's hard to say, that might be the news you read, rather than reality.
There's also that I am a disabled American and we're generally not in great spots. As an American, your ability to have things like housing is directly tied to your ability to be economically productive, and as someone with MS, I have to roll the dice each morning on whether or not I will be able to work. I don't know how long my career can last which creates a lot of stress. But then that's also true for all Americans: How many of us could survive our main/only earner getting cancer? That's the sort of stability I mean: The ability to be wiped out by things outside of your control is higher (which is partially down to society deciding everything is an individual problem and if a tornado flattens your house that sounds like a you problem) and we're moving towards a lower-trust society and the community bonds that were existent but frayed in the 90s (see Bowling Alone) are pretty torched now. Who and what can you rely on?
Which is more relevant if you consider that a lot of Americans have medical conditions and that things like the move from a single-income to dual-income household as the standard means that losing one adult can cripple a household financially. I'm also basing this on things like my peers' ability to do things like pay for child care since mid-30s are prime 'give all your money to daycare' years.
I also was in school during 2008, so I entered college under the 'get a degree and you'll be fine' years and exited it into the bloodbath of the Great Recession. There are many realities and my personal one is less secure than it was and this is true for many Americans.
Geez another article on the AI Spookiness? How many is that this month now? Most of these articles border on science fiction and involve a lot of projection. While I am concerned in some ways with AI, particularly in mass surveillance and public manipulation via bots, what else can we do other than be reactive to _real_ AI applications when _deployed_? Then we start to discuss proper policy towards AI. Until we see s…
It's a secular religion. The whole thing scans very much the like the man who ambushed me in a public bathhouse a few weeks ago to tell me about how skeptical he was about Jesus his whole life, right up until the moment he found Jesus. And proceeded to expound on it at great length, while I avoided eye contact, fidgeted, stared in the opposite direction, etc.. At some point you have to just get up and walk to the oth…
Every few years a new technology goes mainstream and quickly changes the world around us rather fundamentally. I’ve lived through the web in 1995. Google in 2000. Web 2.0 in 2005. Smartphones in 2009. Now it’s generative AI in 2023. Every time, there’s an argument about whether it’s the end of the world or a total nothingburger. Every time, industry leaders are knocked off their perch. Every time, there are surprise…
Anybody else feel like smartphones were overall net negative? I like cell phones they fit a particular need that I think most people would agree is a net good. But smart phones? I don't fucking want to see any of this stuff on my phone its just like cigarettes, feels nice but in the long run just makes you feel sicker. And people would say ok just don't get one but I sort of feel like its not just a me thing, most pe…