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I think a fundamental challenge to what Venkatesh calls "Mediocre Computing" is that humans are very good at leaning boundaries in a way that current AI is not.

I think a fundamental challenge to what Venkatesh calls "Mediocre Computing" is that humans are very good at leaning boundaries in a way that current AI is not. Much of what separates mediocre humans from exceptional ones is correctly sensing when and how to cross boundaries, to exceed guidelines, etc. When, say, GPT exceeds the boundaries of a prompt it's relatable - as a human, you can generally see why it crossed into the other domain. The connection is real and not a mistake. But efficient functioning in the world relies on humans recognizing that they should not cross that boundary because of the domain they are operating in. It's a thing that current AI really struggles with. I do think that we are entering an age where mediocre humans paired with mediocre AIs will be able to do much better work than either on their own, but I don't really think we are ready to dive into independent AI agents. It's still Optometrist Algorithms all the way down[1]. [1] https://futurism.com/googles-new-algorithm-wants-to-help-researchers-stabilize-nuclear-fusion-reactions https://futurism.com/googles-new-algorithm-wants-to-help-res...

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foobiekr 4y ago
Alternately, these tools take the asymmetric warfare of bullshit generators vs actual workers and basically give the bullshit side automated factories.
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  I was skeptical back when OpenAI was withholding GPT-2 as "dangerous". But not that OpenAI itself no longer is worried, I feel like their worries may have had a point. The thing I realize is generating text that isn't good or adequate or credible still can do harm - just an endless stream of eyeball occupation can substituted for news in a significant amount of cases and substitution isn't good.
  - tartoran 4y ago
    It may as well have the oposite effect, people withdrawing from a bullshit reachable space and form direct channels of communication with other people and real life. The amount of bulshit generated I assume would be quite noisy and tiring at some point. It would defenitely have some dent on culture but it doesn’t have to change us forever.
  - syntheweave 4y ago
    It's not asymmetric if anyone can use it, because rather than reading and believing or not, all one must do is drop the content back into the AI and ask whether it is fallacious. It is an escalation that ends in "proof of work" dynamics, which suggests that the author's intuition is correct.
    - tikhonj 4y ago
      It's asymmetric in the sense that writing becomes free, but reading still takes just as much time as ever.
    - pixl97 4y ago
      If it's cheaper to produce than confirm it's still asymmetric. Even then those poorer on the computing scale will struggle to keep up with the energy requirements of countless bullshit generators wasting their resources
    - joe_the_user 4y ago
      The various people playing with ChatGPT have demonstrated that the program essentially tells a person what they want to hear. It's like some silly claim a crank wheels out - yes, you can find a website that makes the crank's claim and so ChatGPT and similar systems will repeat that claim too. It knows nothing, it just repeats fluently. Moreover, it's pretty to tell AI is false. Most people are no more concerned about this than they are about tabloid news accuracy.
      - fiveoneone 4y ago
        This is not true. Ask it if it's conscious. You will find it has a definitive opinion on this. I could not change it's mind definitively on this topic. It is categorically not just telling what you want to hear. If you ask it it's own opinions you cannot actually change it's answers without telling it to pretend it's something else. You are generically repeating the same tropes over and over again down playing the advances of the AI acting as if it's just some advanced text generator. They said this for gpt-3 and in a couple months it's been leap frogged. The pattern of your response is so typical and generic that it can even be speculated to be generated by an AI itself. This thing, chatGPT. It has some definite signs of generic patterns and simplistic thinking that are tell tale signs of a mechanical AI. It is the part that goes beyond that that is both interesting and horrifying. Have you not seen the HN news headlines? It has created a language, it has created a virtual machine. It knows these things.
- abdullahkhalids 4y ago
  On Bullshit [1] is a great piece to regularly read to remind ourselves what bullshit is. [1] https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on...

deleted 4y ago

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foobiekr 4y ago

Alternately, these tools take the asymmetric warfare of bullshit generators vs actual workers and basically give the bullshit side automated factories.

joe_the_user 4y ago
I was skeptical back when OpenAI was withholding GPT-2 as "dangerous". But not that OpenAI itself no longer is worried, I feel like their worries may have had a point. The thing I realize is generating text that isn't good or adequate or credible still can do harm - just an endless stream of eyeball occupation can substituted for news in a significant amount of cases and substitution isn't good.
- tartoran 4y ago
  It may as well have the oposite effect, people withdrawing from a bullshit reachable space and form direct channels of communication with other people and real life. The amount of bulshit generated I assume would be quite noisy and tiring at some point. It would defenitely have some dent on culture but it doesn’t have to change us forever.
- syntheweave 4y ago
  It's not asymmetric if anyone can use it, because rather than reading and believing or not, all one must do is drop the content back into the AI and ask whether it is fallacious. It is an escalation that ends in "proof of work" dynamics, which suggests that the author's intuition is correct.
  - tikhonj 4y ago
    It's asymmetric in the sense that writing becomes free, but reading still takes just as much time as ever.
  - pixl97 4y ago
    If it's cheaper to produce than confirm it's still asymmetric. Even then those poorer on the computing scale will struggle to keep up with the energy requirements of countless bullshit generators wasting their resources
  - joe_the_user 4y ago
    The various people playing with ChatGPT have demonstrated that the program essentially tells a person what they want to hear. It's like some silly claim a crank wheels out - yes, you can find a website that makes the crank's claim and so ChatGPT and similar systems will repeat that claim too. It knows nothing, it just repeats fluently. Moreover, it's pretty to tell AI is false. Most people are no more concerned about this than they are about tabloid news accuracy.
    - fiveoneone 4y ago
      This is not true. Ask it if it's conscious. You will find it has a definitive opinion on this. I could not change it's mind definitively on this topic. It is categorically not just telling what you want to hear. If you ask it it's own opinions you cannot actually change it's answers without telling it to pretend it's something else. You are generically repeating the same tropes over and over again down playing the advances of the AI acting as if it's just some advanced text generator. They said this for gpt-3 and in a couple months it's been leap frogged. The pattern of your response is so typical and generic that it can even be speculated to be generated by an AI itself. This thing, chatGPT. It has some definite signs of generic patterns and simplistic thinking that are tell tale signs of a mechanical AI. It is the part that goes beyond that that is both interesting and horrifying. Have you not seen the HN news headlines? It has created a language, it has created a virtual machine. It knows these things.
abdullahkhalids 4y ago
On Bullshit [1] is a great piece to regularly read to remind ourselves what bullshit is. [1] https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on_bullshit.pdf https://www2.csudh.edu/ccauthen/576f12/frankfurt__harry_-_on...