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I'm Tired of Talking to AI

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Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I am bracing for the downvotes.. What about when the llm is smarter than the person? Sometimes I get material that is so bad I wish they had had AI do it. Then it would be poor to mediocre. There was an episode of the podcast “Question Everything “ where they talked about how LLM s can sometimes talk people out of conspiracy theories by patiently refuting the arguments with facts. There have been academic studies…

I thought it was pretty well-established that conspiracists aren't deterred with facts, and that their commitments to the conspiracy theory are essentially emotional and/or in-group identitarian?

You should definitely listen to this podcast which is an interview with a Professor of Psychology at Columbia. He also thought what you thought-- that you can't convince a Q-Anon type-- and they were actually testing something else. When they found out that 25% of people who believed conspiracy theories actually changed their mind after three exchanges with an LLM.

They repeated the test and the results were replicable. (But still only about 25%, but that is something.)

This made me think: I grew up in a world where there was a flawed but consensus view of the world, its problems, institutions motivations. This came from a common mass media. Maybe getting our answers from AI will lead us to a new (inevitably flawed or even bad) consensus. Weird.

Source: https://play.cdnstream1.com/s/kcrw/question-everything/can-a...

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So Silicon Valley's big-head is based on an actual stereotype?

Yeah, except that Big Head was, as far as I understood, just sleepwalking or floating through life. He more or less wholly lacked that unquenchable thirst for money that motivates MBA frat boys to yell at balding beta cucks to type the code faster before AI replaces them...

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#864

I'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt here. It reminds me of the Google search phenomenon others have mentioned, which culminated in the joke website "let me google that for you." But, I don't think the cause is necessarily that people are dumb or lazy. Both are factors, but another big one is that people are overwhelmed at work. Another question coming in may not be viewed as an opportunity to learn or h…

[dead]

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#865

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes yelling fuck shit piss bitch cunt fuck ass whore etc works. They have them setup to detect swear words to figure out when youre pissed off and need to talk to a human lmao

Xfinity/Comcast automated support has swear word detection. I eventually picked up on this after the 4th or 5th time they sent out a non-technical 'technician' in response to my concerns over SNR causing connection instability. (Me: "here is a comprehensive analysis of modem logs over the past 7 days and clear indication of the cause"; Xfinity: "Let's turn off the wifi router for 30s! It didn't work the last 50 times…

That honestly is just the worst when it happens. It sucks for both the rep on the phone and you since it's just a waste of both of your time (though at least they get paid for it).

Had a similar back and forth over multiple days where I spent hours on the phone with them. On the third day they finally sent me to a different call center with someone in the US that was authorized to go off script and actually solve my problem. Took five minutes.

I just don't understand how it makes sense. Considering just how much these companies limit the utility of customer service, it's no wonder they want to switch to LLMs. It's likely no worse than the service they are already providing 99% of the time.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#866

>But even when I talk to people, they forward my questions to AI and send me the AI’s answer. This is the killer issue. It's so profoundly saddenning, it feels like watching an adult being asked a question and calling mom to answer for them. There is something deeply disturbing in it that makes me feel I'm not talking to a self sufficient entity.

That's when you realize you're not important enough to talk to a human.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#867
post #836
post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just yesterday I had to attend internal "office hours" of an expert team to get a question answered - I had done extensive research of my own, both manual and using AI leveraging internal resources. What did the "expert" do when they couldn't answer my question right away? They said "let me ask {insert AI tool}". I cut them off stating that this is an insult to my intelligence. I am in the office hours for expert adv…

Wait, you're upset because they used AI to answer a question they weren't expecting, and couldn't answer? Yet, you used AI as part of your upfront research? What would you have preferred? They could have just said, "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that, please let me get back to you" but instead they tried to get an answer for you. I'm not sure what the problem is?

I think it's perfectly fine for the author to use AI in their research process, and it sounds like they weren't relying on it exclusively.

So they've already asked AI its opinion on the topic. They're explicitly reaching out to an expert because they've exhausted their ability to move forward on their own (even with AI).

If the expert just asking the same question to the AI and returning the answer directly - that's what OP has just done, and it actually is a waste of time. They're looking for insight, not just another quick response from an LLM.

I would imagine that letting the expert know ahead of time so they can research an answer (perhaps with the assistance of AI) would be a good pattern. But it has to be guided by the expert's knowledge - that's the whole point. Using AI is fine, and probably even good if it's being guided by a wise hand, but it isn't sufficient on its own, and bouncing answers directly back from an AI with no refinement is not useful, and dare I say it is somewhat insulting.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#869

I dont even ask people questions anymore. I'm tired of the sneer and the "Did you ask Claude?" responses. I had a manager say "I'm here to help in any way I can", and then every way I brought up was "We expect a Senior to be able to answer that themselves" or "Did you ask claude"... thanks for the help, so much for teamwork.

Turning people down when they ask questions is such a short-sighted perspective. When you answer, you can tailor it to them, you can give extra context, you can elaborate, you can dive into specific nuances. Long-term it will be very likely a positive thing as the person will trust you more, they will be comfortable asking more questions and the knowledge might actually help them to contribute in the future.

Ironically, the ability of LLMs to give contextually appropriate answers seemingly applicable to your exact situation is seen to be the major selling point of "AI" by its boosters.

Not endorsing, don't shoot messenger.

Re: I'm Tired of Talking to AI

#870

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was pretty well-established that conspiracists aren't deterred with facts, and that their commitments to the conspiracy theory are essentially emotional and/or in-group identitarian?

You should definitely listen to this podcast which is an interview with a Professor of Psychology at Columbia. He also thought what you thought-- that you can't convince a Q-Anon type-- and they were actually testing something else. When they found out that 25% of people who believed conspiracy theories actually changed their mind after three exchanges with an LLM. They repeated the test and the results were replicab…

Very interesting. Thank you for that, and I say so with due recognition that my response wasn't really aimed at the central idea of your comment. Thank you for humouring it anyway!
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