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It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

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Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#81

Post by jrflo »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #73
jrflo wrote: post #51

You forgot the first goalpost: the Turing test.

Even that line's very debatable though. Passing always under every circumstance? No. Passing specific tests to the point that the internet is now full of "Is that content AI generated or not" debates? Yes

I think this is a good example of the moving goalposts. The Turing test is not "AI is indistinguishable from human writing 100% of the time", it's whether it is possible at all for a system can be designed where a person can be fooled into thinking they're talking to a human when they're actually talking to a computer in a turn-based text exchange. It is a "there exits..." problem rather than a "for all..." problem.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#83

Post by matheusmoreira »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #15
an0malous wrote: post #4

You should add a parallel timeline of how many times AI CEOs have claimed their next model is too dangerous to release, AGI is months away, or some white collar job will be obsolete within 6 months. I don’t know anyone in the tech industry who thinks AGI will never happen or that software engineering and white collar jobs can’t be automated. We all read sci fi, you’re not some unique visionary for anticipating AI. Th…

Understandably, the frustration is also around "what happens then?" Everyone is wondering about what happens if (when?) it finally comes true We really have to figure out what comes next for your average person. I think the reason no one wants to talk about this is because the answers aren't great. The average person not going to be living a great life in all likelihood, once we have no access to capital anymore

Either we achieve a post scarcity society, or we become a permanent underclass if not soylent. Those are the only outcomes I believe are possible.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#84

Post by Ukv »

ofjcihen wrote: post #70
Ukv wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The intention is something like “so humans are as bad as AI” when the original question boils down to something like “why would I replace humans with AI?” If AI really is at human level quality/error rate (I don't think it is for general tasks, but there are some areas where it is), then the answer is typically cost and speed/capacity.

Have outputs from engineers traditionally been measured in cost and speed? Remember, we aren’t just talking about the product you create. While you would measure deliverables by cost and speed are we ignoring something else? Something that could potentially be more important than either of those metrics?

> Have outputs from engineers traditionally been measured in cost and speed?

Yes. How long it'll take and how much it'll cost are going to be among pretty much any customer's first questions.

They're not the only considerations, and could potentially be outweighed by other concerns even when quality is the same, but I think they are the main drives of AI adoption in industry. If error rate is the same, a $1/hr (amortized) camera and machine vision model capable of checking 300ft of material for defects per minute will likely be preferred to a $10/hr human QA capable of checking 30ft per minute, for instance.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#85

Post by randallsquared »

johnfn wrote: post #52

The thing that annoys me most about this obviously AI-generated article is: "The quotes in orange boxes are real and checkable." No they aren't - you AI generated them, just like you generated the rest of the page.

I did notice that the "quotes" weren't linked as I would have expected with that "you can check" language, but after searching for the exact phrases, it does look like they're vague paraphrasing, not actual quotes. Sigh.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#86

Post by suddenlybananas »

jrflo wrote: post #81
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even that line's very debatable though. Passing always under every circumstance? No. Passing specific tests to the point that the internet is now full of "Is that content AI generated or not" debates? Yes

I think this is a good example of the moving goalposts. The Turing test is not "AI is indistinguishable from human writing 100% of the time", it's whether it is possible at all for a system can be designed where a person can be fooled into thinking they're talking to a human when they're actually talking to a computer in a turn-based text exchange. It is a "there exits..." problem rather than a "for all..." problem.

If it's a there exists problem, then it was solved by ELIZA in the 60s.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#87

Post by [deleted] »

cwbuilds wrote: post #3

I think this is true of "AGI" too. AI is already better than us at a bunch of things, and worse at a few. The list of things it's better than us at increases every month. In 5 years, people will still be saying "Well, I can still ride a unicycle blindfolded better than a robot so it's not AGI." AGI is such a meaningless term and puts too much importance on human-level intelligence.

[deleted]

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#88

Post by codechicago277 »

overgard wrote: post #23
cwbuilds wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't think they're mutually exclusive. You can have something smarter than you which you use as a tool. My point was that there's nothing objectively special about our level of intelligence, so it shouldn't be used as a benchmark.

> You can have something smarter than you which you use as a tool. That sounds like how tech CEO's treat their employees! Kidding aside, I think the notion that you could control something (legitimately) smarter than you is a pretty risky proposition. (Fortunately one that I think is actually far off)

In how many companies or countries is the smartest person in charge? Raw intelligence is just one of many factors that affect a person’s abilities.

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#89

Post by overgard »

cwbuilds wrote: post #74
overgard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can have something smarter than you which you use as a tool. That sounds like how tech CEO's treat their employees! Kidding aside, I think the notion that you could control something (legitimately) smarter than you is a pretty risky proposition. (Fortunately one that I think is actually far off)

I'm able to control my coding agent even though it writes code better and faster than I can.

The ultimate goal of this technology is to replace people -- if it's a tool and corporations still need to employ people to use the tool, then the valuations make no sense. So ultimately, you're going to need to hand the car keys to these agents more and more: here's access to production (we fired the devops people), here's access to all our internal messages and IP, here's all our source code (we fired the engineers).

While I think the discussions around alignment sound more like science fiction than science, it also hasn't been "solved", and the only "control" you have over what the agent does is by gating access. Even if you think the AI itself is aligned, handing complete control of your entire enterprise and all your data to a private unaccountable for-profit enterprise should give you a lot of pause.

The idea that you can create entire jobs where humans just act as reviewers or gate keepers seems very unlikely to me, just knowing human psychology. If the AI is right 99% of the time, and catastrophically wrong %1 of the time, but I've been condition to always hit "accept" because it's usually right, there's very little chance I'm going to catch that 1%. "yes, continue with the database migration". "yes, continue with the database migration." x 1000. (At button click 500, the user stopped reading). "yes, go ahead and delete the database. Shit, wait!!!"

Re: It Still Can't Do My Job: Four Years of Moving Goalposts (2022–2026)

#90

Post by sambapa »

jrflo wrote: post #81
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even that line's very debatable though. Passing always under every circumstance? No. Passing specific tests to the point that the internet is now full of "Is that content AI generated or not" debates? Yes

I think this is a good example of the moving goalposts. The Turing test is not "AI is indistinguishable from human writing 100% of the time", it's whether it is possible at all for a system can be designed where a person can be fooled into thinking they're talking to a human when they're actually talking to a computer in a turn-based text exchange. It is a "there exits..." problem rather than a "for all..." problem.

That's not a Turing test
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