I keep seeing this argument that there is value out there, but for normal people all we are seeing is spam, cute ai cat pics on different social medias, can you please give a few examples of fields/problems where AI has been really helpful.
I work on ML networks used for industrial control systems that characterize defects in the product and determine what to do about them. Not what normal people think of when they hear "AI", but it's not really much different from what LLMs are built on.
We've been selling these systems for a decade or so now.
Generative AI chat is incredibly useful for learning, especially tasks that require a lot of inline learning such as software engineering. I use generative AI chat constantly, because it is basically a Stack Overflow that is near instant with it's answers and can debug error messages extremely well.
I don't even have to leave my code editor if I install the extension in my IDE. And with an IDE extension it can be aware of the actual context of my codebase to the point where it can write code samples that reference my own methods and variables.
It's incredibly helpful. I've seen and used a lot of different learning techniques over the years. I started out learning coding from physical books. Then it was online bulletin boards and forums, and Google. But AI agents and chat have replaced almost all of that now. I rarely waste my time on Google anymore when I can get more relevant answers, faster, right in my IDE.
Sure there is the occasional hallucination, but its not that much worse than terrible answers on Stack Overflow, or junk blogs and outdated docs that Google surfaces because someone SEOed the hell out of them.
Honestly, I have found LLMs to be much inferior to my usual methods for this sort of use case. So much so that I've stopped using them.
I am fascinated by how different people have such different experiences with these systems. A study into what the difference between the "best thing since sliced bread" camp and the "meh" camp is would be very interesting.
>I keep seeing this argument that there is value out there
I am sure that every person with significant hearing problems greatly appreciates auto generated subtitles. Surely some people enjoy having access to voice commands. Having translation tools which are reasonably good at inferring context is a great help if you want to communicate with a person who has no shared language. Having the ability to do some automated screening for abnormality can definitely help in manufacturing, same for medical imaging where a computer might point out to a doctor that something warrants a second look can be helpful. Cars being able to detect pedestrians and cyclists, surely has saved many lives already.
I could go on, but this is what I mean with people conflating "chat bots", with the entire range of applications for neutral networks.
Neural networks are currently the best way for a computer to infer human like knowledge about the real world. To make distinctions and to detect things which might be hard for a human to detect.
You must be kidding, ALL algorithmic trading uses ML models, the VAST MAJORITY of money being made and traded is on the back of ML right now. Are there really people in tech today that don't understand how much ML has taken over?
Lol, you might be talking about chatgpt specifically, which is kinda dumb.
The issue that LLMs are constantly hallucinating and are not capable following long term rules. Since its still niche, its not a problem but what if professionals like Lawyers or doctors start using it day to day, then we are in trouble. I wouldn't go as far as saying its useless but its effectiveness is very close to zero in most fields not related to spamming.
If you try to replace your whole job with an LLM, yes you will have problem.
I work in IT, I use ChatGPT daily to spit out scripts, ask it to come up with function names, convert code from a technology to another, ask it to do minor refactoring that I don't know how to do.
I can immediately validate the output, learn from it, and even work with techs I'm not familiar with.
of course, I don't try to replace my whole job out of it.
ChatGPT is 'good' at doing statistical analysis with python on a given dataset, that can help in the harder task you quoted "distinguishing between ideas that are correct, and ideas that are plausible-sounding but wrong".
The job itself cannot be easily verified, but you can use LLM on a subset of theses tasks.
>otherwise we believe they used copyrighted audio from S. Johansson's movies.
I will slightly rewrite the quoted bit to reflect reality as is currently known by the public: "otherwise we assert without evidence they used copyrighted audio". I'm fully of the opinion that everyone on both sides is wrong here, and I'm only right because I hold the most minimal opinion; that everyone needs to go outside and touch grass because this whole thing is bizarre and pointless.
If you are on long contract with a cab company, for example if you are a corporation who regularly needs a cab to pick people up from Airport, the prices are almost 4x per trip as compared to Uber. Even at peak hours Uber is much better
> Before we had open concept hellscapes, and the cubicle farm, people had actual offices
It is true, but the move to cubicles and in the end open halls was necessary because rent in prime employment centers of the world has gotten so high, and companies seem to be requiring ever more people and we cant afford to give everyone an office nowadays. Modern office is definitely better in some ways socially, I dont think you will be really motivated to go to work if all you had was one room to sit and close the doors to not see anyone. These days, You have more people to talk to if you want and sometimes its a good and safe environment to discuss things. If I had to sit in an empty room to work and then it wouldn't be any different than working from home.
> I dont think you will be really motivated to go to work if all you had was one room to sit and close the doors to not see anyone
You're describing an office like it's solitary confinement. I'm describing somewhere where you have the option to choose silence and solitude, not the obligation.
> and sometimes its a good and safe environment to discuss things
And the rest of the time? A free-for-all for managers trying to build their own fiefdom-- sorry, "team."
> If I had to sit in an empty room to work and then it wouldn't be any different than working from home.
Which is precisely why so many people are resisting the RTO mandates. Not only do they have a pointless commute after working for years remotely [1], but the office they're coming back to is not even an empty room, it's an open-plan office with all of the downsides I described in OP.
Still love these little blogs, its like visiting someone's home, but in some cases they are abandoned homes from 2012 when the internet really took the turn for the worst.
A startup would, instead, never show an ad, allow themselves to run out of money, upload a photo of themselves crying on LinkedIn about letting go all of their staff, and then say that they just couldn't find a way to monetize the app.
Yeah. And? They want to milk the last drops of $$$ out of their customers, as usual. If they want to block ad-blockers on their service then so be it.
i don't like the venture capital culture, enshittification pisses me off, the constant race for more revenue, growth and profits while cutting jobs and wages annoys me as well. but for me there's no moral argument against them blocking ad-blockers without criticizing the whole system around it.
do i think that services should be federated, open-source and non-profit oriented? Yes, of course. but YouTube is not that, at all, so being angry about them blocking this is just so unnecessary to me.
it seems to me that people are just veeeery pissed of that they either have to pay for it or stop using it. they don't know where to aim their anger at so they're just angry at Google.
Well no shit. And the people who block ads are greedy and don't want to pay anything for the service, they have a delusional expectation it should be free for them forever.
