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I certainly don't see how not using AI is dwelling in darkness. We can have a very nice and functional society without it. You also say that you hope AI will d

I certainly don't see how not using AI is dwelling in darkness. We can have a very nice and functional society without it. You also say that you hope AI will drop the price of art to the basement where it belongs. What if AI drops the cost of generating a computer program to the basement where it belongs, and programmers will be paid minimum wage? Would you be so content then? Frankly, the attitude on this board is dismaying, but that is expected because the people who are benefiting from AI with higher salaries are currently the programmers. It has nothing to do with logic or fairness, only selfishness.

polygamous_bat 4y ago
> What if AI drops the cost of generating a computer program to the basement where it belongs, and programmers will be paid minimum wage? Would you be so content then? I'd be more than happy to get rid of the "programmers" that are generating the same quality code as Copilot. Engineers are employed to translate human needs into tangible system designs, that they have to write code to do so is mostly an artefact of our current system-building methodology. In fact, I would be immensely happy if I could get rid of that part.
- spoiler 4y ago
  > Engineers are employed to translate human needs into tangible system designs, I mean, isn't this with achievable prompt refinement? One could argue that it wouldn't satisfy some $arbitrary_dimension (scalability, accessibility, whatever), but you can imagine it wouldn't be hard to get there with prompt refinement eventually, especially on an AI trained to satisfy SWE requirement (and not talking about GH's Copilot,which is an early application of a fairly young technology)
  - spoiler 4y ago
    Then again, it also seems we perform worse when using AI tools, so maybe I'm wrong https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03622 https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03622
  - polygamous_bat 4y ago
    Right now, how DALL-E works is that you enter a prompt, it gives you a few images, you fine tune your prompt, and after a few rounds you may pick an image and maybe polish it before you can use it. What would the co-pilot equivalent be? You give it a prompt, it generates a few repos, but then you still have to understand the whole project to judge that it respects the system needs and restrictions. After a few rounds, maybe you will have to change up the code a little, but 90% code will be written by the machine. I, for one, welcome this future -- because once again, this "prompt refinement" iteration is where our human creativity is used most effectively; I think it's a significant improvement over writing boilerplate code every time.
throwaway675309 4y ago
You clearly aren't familiar with the state of advancement in being able to develop an app in the last 40 years. I have a rigorous academic background in computer science and you don't see me throwing a tantrum that your average layman today can fire up unity or RPG maker to create games without having a firm grasp of rigid body Newtonian physics, game loops, asset management, graphic drivers, and handrolled x86 assembly.
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  I started programming on a 486 and graphing calculators and have used some pretty modern frameworks and languages as well. It's great that you have an academic background. I assure you I have a very rigorous one also, including publications, and I have a very deep knowledge of many technical disciplines. My argument is not that we should avoid everything that makes tasks easier, but that AI does it on a fundamentally different scale, and that should be treated with caution. It's like salt. I put salt on my food, but not too much. Some restaurants put way too much salt on their food but you can still eat there. AI is like eating handfuls of it, which will kill you.
EarlKing 4y ago
> I certainly don't see how not using AI is dwelling in darkness. We can have a very nice and functional society without it. We can also have a very nice and functional society without penicillin, hot water, or fire... but nobody argues in favor of getting rid of those things just because doing so would make lives more profitable for the few. In fact, most people would be horrified by the selfishness of such a suggestion. > You also say that you hope AI will drop the price of art to the basement where it belongs. What if AI drops the cost of generating a computer program to the basement where it belongs, and programmers will be paid minimum wage? Would you be so content then? I would, yes, since I'm not employed as a software engineer and I'm tired of cleaning up after those who are who can't write programs worth a damn. > Frankly, the attitude on this board is dismaying, but that is expected because the people who are benefiting from AI with higher salaries are currently the programmers. It has nothing to do with logic or fairness, only selfishness. ...or we recognize your class interest for what it is and we are not impressed. Everyone is made obsolete at some point. shrug Learn to code, I guess?
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  1. Of course I don't argue for getting rid of penicillin. Each invention has its own merits and each should be debated separately without making an analogy to another. 2. I am not personally worried about being made obsolete. I can code just fine and have extensive coding experience, and I can do a lot of other things as well. Nonetheless, I am still opposed to it. My opinion is just that we should slow down, examine how disruptive AI can be. 3. I only ask that we be more cautious towards technology. Currently our modus operandi is invent and release anything, as long as it makes money, which I think is crazy.

polygamous_bat 4y ago

> What if AI drops the cost of generating a computer program to the basement where it belongs, and programmers will be paid minimum wage? Would you be so content then? I'd be more than happy to get rid of the "programmers" that are generating the same quality code as Copilot. Engineers are employed to translate human needs into tangible system designs, that they have to write code to do so is mostly an artefact of our current system-building methodology. In fact, I would be immensely happy if I could get rid of that part.

spoiler 4y ago
> Engineers are employed to translate human needs into tangible system designs, I mean, isn't this with achievable prompt refinement? One could argue that it wouldn't satisfy some $arbitrary_dimension (scalability, accessibility, whatever), but you can imagine it wouldn't be hard to get there with prompt refinement eventually, especially on an AI trained to satisfy SWE requirement (and not talking about GH's Copilot,which is an early application of a fairly young technology)
- spoiler 4y ago
  Then again, it also seems we perform worse when using AI tools, so maybe I'm wrong https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03622 https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03622
- polygamous_bat 4y ago
  Right now, how DALL-E works is that you enter a prompt, it gives you a few images, you fine tune your prompt, and after a few rounds you may pick an image and maybe polish it before you can use it. What would the co-pilot equivalent be? You give it a prompt, it generates a few repos, but then you still have to understand the whole project to judge that it respects the system needs and restrictions. After a few rounds, maybe you will have to change up the code a little, but 90% code will be written by the machine. I, for one, welcome this future -- because once again, this "prompt refinement" iteration is where our human creativity is used most effectively; I think it's a significant improvement over writing boilerplate code every time.

throwaway675309 4y ago

You clearly aren't familiar with the state of advancement in being able to develop an app in the last 40 years. I have a rigorous academic background in computer science and you don't see me throwing a tantrum that your average layman today can fire up unity or RPG maker to create games without having a firm grasp of rigid body Newtonian physics, game loops, asset management, graphic drivers, and handrolled x86 assembly.

vouaobrasil 4y ago
I started programming on a 486 and graphing calculators and have used some pretty modern frameworks and languages as well. It's great that you have an academic background. I assure you I have a very rigorous one also, including publications, and I have a very deep knowledge of many technical disciplines. My argument is not that we should avoid everything that makes tasks easier, but that AI does it on a fundamentally different scale, and that should be treated with caution. It's like salt. I put salt on my food, but not too much. Some restaurants put way too much salt on their food but you can still eat there. AI is like eating handfuls of it, which will kill you.

EarlKing 4y ago

> I certainly don't see how not using AI is dwelling in darkness. We can have a very nice and functional society without it. We can also have a very nice and functional society without penicillin, hot water, or fire... but nobody argues in favor of getting rid of those things just because doing so would make lives more profitable for the few. In fact, most people would be horrified by the selfishness of such a suggestion. > You also say that you hope AI will drop the price of art to the basement where it belongs. What if AI drops the cost of generating a computer program to the basement where it belongs, and programmers will be paid minimum wage? Would you be so content then? I would, yes, since I'm not employed as a software engineer and I'm tired of cleaning up after those who are who can't write programs worth a damn. > Frankly, the attitude on this board is dismaying, but that is expected because the people who are benefiting from AI with higher salaries are currently the programmers. It has nothing to do with logic or fairness, only selfishness. ...or we recognize your class interest for what it is and we are not impressed. Everyone is made obsolete at some point. shrug Learn to code, I guess?

vouaobrasil 4y ago
1. Of course I don't argue for getting rid of penicillin. Each invention has its own merits and each should be debated separately without making an analogy to another. 2. I am not personally worried about being made obsolete. I can code just fine and have extensive coding experience, and I can do a lot of other things as well. Nonetheless, I am still opposed to it. My opinion is just that we should slow down, examine how disruptive AI can be. 3. I only ask that we be more cautious towards technology. Currently our modus operandi is invent and release anything, as long as it makes money, which I think is crazy.