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The Rise of Whatever

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Re: The Rise of Whatever

#91

Post by georgeecollins »

yieldcrv wrote: post #52
pjc50 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear that financial speculation is a big use for crypto, probably the biggest. But since almost all the tokens bear neither interest nor dividends, it looks a lot more like a casino.

if you made every incorporated and unincorporated organization and product line and revenue stream to be fractionalized and publicly traded it would look the same its just a filtering problem there are screeners to narrow everything down just like for the stock exchanges

To quote the article: >> But also… why do you care? Why would someone using a really cool tool that makes them more productive… feel compelled to sneer and get defensive at the mere suggestion that someone else isn’t doing the same?

>> It feels like the same attitude that happened with Bitcoin, the same smug nose-wrinkling contempt. Bitcoin is the future. It’ll replace the dollar by 2020. You’re gonna be left behind. Enjoy being poor. Sure thing, Disco Stu!

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#92

Post by jops »

franciscop wrote: post #69
autumnstwilight wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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…

Exactly this. LLMs make learning faster and easier for those who _want_ to learn, but conversely make it harder for those who don’t.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#93

Post by zwnow »

worldsayshi wrote: post #82
zwnow wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guy its not only about the art its about killing passion and the lifeline of people. Your take is incredibly ignorant to people who value human created work. These things will kill industries. What jobs should people work in, who got their income cut by LLMs? Force them into blue collar work?

Your point is very valid. It is the luddite argument. And that is valid. But the problem is never the technology itself but, as you point out, the loss of livelihood and meaning and especially the shifts in power from the many to the few. We need to learn to make technology truly benefit the many. Also in terms of power.

Yes, fully agree. Can't believe we live in a timeline in which big tech companies steal data from the many, use this data to train models, sell this data while also convincing technological illiterate people their propaganda machines (social media) is useful to them... Now they want to buy nuclear power plants too. Im sure nothing will go wrong there.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#94

Post by sirwhinesalot »

bruce511 wrote: post #59
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.

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 side will promise tax cuts (also for the poor that don't seem to materialize) while the more left wing side will promise to tax the rich (but in an easily dodgeable way that only ends up affecting the middle class).

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. And I think the wealthy backers wanted it that way.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#95

Post by zwnow »

JW_00000 wrote: post #84
zwnow wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guy its not only about the art its about killing passion and the lifeline of people. Your take is incredibly ignorant to people who value human created work. These things will kill industries. What jobs should people work in, who got their income cut by LLMs? Force them into blue collar work?

But isn't that the same as saying: what about all the horse carrier drivers who lost their jobs due to cars? What about all the bank tellers we lost after inventing the automated teller machine?

There is a difference in killing off passion work and mundane work. We are also killing off empathy while we are at it.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#96

Post by raincole »

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.

Microwave oven does quite unexpected things when you cook a shelled egg or a dish on metal plate.

We teach our kids about microwave oven safety for this reason.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#97

Post by ninetyninenine »

raincole wrote: post #44
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…

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…

>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.

You generally don't need a lengthy explanation because it's common sense. When someone doesn't get it then people have to go into lengthy convoluted explanations because they are trying to elucidate common sense to someone who doesn't get it.

I mean how else do I elucidate it?

LLMs are different from any revolutionary technology that came before it. The first thing is we don't understand it. It's a black box. We understand the learning algorithm that trains the weights, but we don't understand conceptually how an LLM works. They are black boxes and we have limited control over them.

You are talking to a thing that understands what you say to it, yet we don't understand this how this thing works. Nobody in the history of science has created anything similar. And yet we get geniuses like you who can use a simple analogy to reduce the creation of an LLM to something like the invention of a car and think there's utterly no difference.

There is a sort of inflection point here. It hasn't happened yet but a possible future is becoming more tangible. A future where technology surpasses humanity in intelligence. You are talking to something that is talking back and could surpass us.

I know the abundance of AI slop has made everyone numb to the events that happened in the past couple of years. But we need to look past that. Something major has happened, something different then the achievements and milestones humanity has surpassed before.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#98

Post by uh_uh »

ako wrote: post #45
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…

Agreed, it'll be a big problem if we don't keep our skills and rely on AI too much. Same with outsourcing manufacturing, at some point you loose the skill to produce products completely and are dependent on other countries. With the WWW we thought everyone having access to all information would enlighten them, but without knowledge people do not recognize the right information, and are more likely to trust (mis)infor…

What other sources of information will people turn to? Kids are growing up asking ChatGPT in school. I just can't see a mass exodus happening.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#99

Post by eviks »

tptacek wrote: post #2

LLM output is crap. It’s just crap. It sucks, and is bad. Still don't get it. LLM outputs are nondeterministic. LLMs invent APIs that don't exist. That's why you filter those outputs through agent constructions, which actually compile code. The nondeterminism of LLMs don't make your compiler nondeterministic. All sorts of ways to knock LLM-generated code. Most I disagree with, all colorable. But this article is based…

> or they suggested an elaborate and tedious workaround that would technically solve the problem (but introduce new ones).

There is no value in randomly choosing an API that exists. There is value in choosing an API that works.

When LLM makes up an API that doesn't even exist it indicates that it's not tied to the reality of the task of fetching a working API, so filtering out nonexistent APIs will not help the other results match better. But yes, they'll compile.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#100

Post by chrismorgan »

> Like, just to calibrate here: you know how some code editors will automatically fill in a right bracket or quote when you type a left one? You type " and the result is "|"? Yeah, that drives me up the wall. It saves no time whatsoever, and it’s wrong often enough that I waste time having to correct for it.

I have not yet figured out why anyone would choose this behaviour in a text editor. You have to press something to exit the delimited region anyway, whether that be an arrow key or the closing delimiter, so just… why did the first person even invent the idea, which just complicates things and also makes it harder to model the editor’s behaviour mentally? Were they a hunt-and-peck typist or something?

In theory, it helps keep your source valid syntax more of the time, which may help with syntax highlighting (especially of strings) and LSP/similar tooling. But it’s only more of the time: your source will still be invalid frequently, including when it gets things wrong and you have to relocate a delimiter. In practice, I don’t think it’s useful on that ground.

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