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I feel much more like ChatGPT is basically the same as Tesla's autopilot. Wonderful and seems like a huge advancement, but as it's actually applied to situation

I feel much more like ChatGPT is basically the same as Tesla's autopilot. Wonderful and seems like a huge advancement, but as it's actually applied to situations we see how banal and limited it actually is. But loads of crypto-bro types will make millions selling ChatGPT "modernization consulting", so if you're looking to make a quick buck, highly recommend.

verelo 4y ago
I think there’s a difference here. There are cases I’ve found for minor manual tasks, things like real estate listings with some basic programmatically created prompts containing details of a listing. Imo the largest holdback is context. I have some problems that would be amazingly well solved if i could hand gpt3 a whole large document and ask it questions about the document.
- machiaweliczny 4y ago
  This thing of read that book for me and answer questions would be very useful.
redorb 4y ago
ChatGPT is already 10x more useful than crypto and NFTS. The foundational value of ChapGPT is not based on speculation or selling it to the 'next fool'.
- Jiocus 4y ago
  You are right, of course; The foundational (technical) value isn't based on speculation but that is irrelevant to con-artists or crime organisations who are looking for their next hype product to drive a new round of frauds. The people I see most enthusiastic about the current AI development are not the technologist and developers, but people who aren't involved in tech and doesn't code. There's already adverts on social media for ChatGPT AI services of various trustworthiness. They claim their AIs can construct and implement “the” winning trading algorithms for anyone, for a fee, of course. This issue isn't on GPT per se, but many can't yet see the difference between plausible applications and those which aren't. With each fantastical story about what ChatGPT managed to do, it's hard to blame them.
- uuvs8 4y ago
  Is it actually? It doesn't give out reliable information and its "creativity" is questionable. Most of the excitement about it has to do with anthropomorphizing a robot that "feels" like an intelligent conversation partner, but it's not. Beyond toys, that is. Similar to crypto. It isn't actually useful as a currency or to store value. Most of the excitemeny had to do with fake "freedom" dreams of the anarchically-leaning crowd and misunderstandings of what it is and isn't. Beyond toys, that is. I see lots of parallels actually.
  - nickthegreek 4y ago
    ChatGPT has real value to me. Ive been using it for my d&d games and to do some simple writing stuff that I hate. It costs me nothing, and I don't have to gamble to use it. Its value over crypto for me and my friends is exponential. Stable Diffusion has been even more valuable for me and I get to run that on my own metal.
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    >Most of the excitement about it has to do with anthropomorphizing a robot that "feels" like an intelligent conversation partner, but it's not Literally no one I know that's excited about ChatGPT cares even one bit about the conversation aspect. No one I know is excited by the fact that it's a robot to talk to... They are excited by the fact that you can feed it code and errors and it can debug for you or you can give it code and it can write relevant documentation. Or you can give it tabular data and it can make charts and do basic analysis... If you can't see the utility then maybe you should question your own creativity.
  - signal11 4y ago
    Sam Altman’s isn’t claiming ChatGPT will make you rich. When you start using it, it tells you it’s a research project. Even in its current form, it’s useful for a narrow set of uses. It’s entirely conceivable that ChatGPT successors will be able to incorporate signals of fact vs opinion, and also authoritativeness of a source, into their training. So yeah, ChatGPT is a toy, but that’s not bad for a research demo. But it has a lot of potential, and can help people in practical ways as it improves.
CuriouslyC 4y ago
Autopilot is playing out that way because there are a really large number of corner cases and fringe complexity to driving, and the consequences of getting things wrong are very expensive. Most uses of ChatGPT will (at least initially) be around automating the easy stuff, and if it gets something wrong it'll be a mild annoyance.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  I think people don't realize how many corner cases there are in coding. I think that the problems people have with accounting for all the Autopilot corner cases is going to be repeated with code generation as well.
  - gitfan86 4y ago
    That is true, but think about domains like Advertisements. Ads are currently far from perfect. A 5% click rate is a huge success. If 30% of the ads generated are low quality but 10% do really well it will be a huge benefit
    - iamflimflam1 4y ago
      Exactly, generating moderately decent advertising copy will be really helpful. Even just to start the creative process going. "Here's a description of my product, give me 5 potential tag lines for it." It's a great start for brain storming.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      Even there the corner case failures are going to be amazing if we're throwing up AI generated Ads onto billboards indiscriminately. "So it seems our blacklist didn't include the word 'Hilter'...."
    - notahacker 4y ago
      Ad text sounds like the exact opposite of a significant use case really; very little text to generate and high cost from the text being substandard. If 30% of the ads generated are low quality, you're wasting 30% of your ad budget, which is less efficient than paying a human to come up with higher average quality text (unless you're generating unique copy on the fly to evade spam detectors...). Just because current ads are far from perfect doesn't mean generated text isn't on average more banal and less accurate... I think the main use case for pure LLMs will remain those already starting to be tackled by AI: low importance (or testable) information/opinion retrieval, low effort content generation, suggestion prompts and entertainment
HDThoreaun 4y ago
I already use chatGPT in place of google sometimes. It has upsides and downsides, but I absolutely find it to be useful given the right prompt. Not sure how they will scale it to bing level but if they’re able to respond with both chatGPT response and the normal links I think it’d be a better product.
bamboozled 4y ago
Couldn't agree more, it's like a "cool trick". I havent' found it really useful for anything except some initial novelty / amusement. I've not opened that tab for weeks.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago
  > Couldn't agree more, it's like a "cool trick". I havent' found it really useful for anything except some initial novelty / amusement. I've not opened that tab for weeks. Same, during the update it just kept crashing and afterward it just seem way too prone to errors to be usable; their have been funny prompts Ive seen thrown around but the novelty wore off just like it did with Dall-E as you saw how many attempts you had to make to get to something viable and more competitors came online: Stable Diffusion. This will keep the AI hype going so I'm not complaining, as a person who studies AI/ML, but it's hardly the miracle they are making it out to be. Perhaps that changes with GPT4, but I fear that sourcing is now becoming critical and just like Co-pilot it will encounter a lot of scrutiny before they can monetize it properly and open source projects will emerge to take market share.
Melting_Harps 4y ago
> But loads of crypto-bro types will make millions selling ChatGPT "modernization consulting", so if you're looking to make a quick buck, highly recommend. You guys will attribute anything under the sun to 'crypto-bros' at this point, it's HN's version of boomers 'must be the fault of the millennials,' which is ironic considering how many of you fall into the age group. Furthermore, Sam Altman, former head of YC oversaw the funding of Coinbase which is now the largest crypto exchange in the US, and who himself tried to launch Worldcoin [0]. Which, yes is a (failed) crypto-currency and is also the head of OpenAI, which has created Dall-E and GPT. Listen, I'm all for calling out scammers and have done it after over 10 years in this space, but the level of disillusion and absurd levels of paranoia amongst so many of you to constantly remind us all how 'crypto-bros' are lurking in every corner and under every rock just waiting to pounce on the opportunity to scam when in reality you are witnessing the creation of tech from these very same sectors and the people whose platforms you fear so much. 0: https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/21/sam-altmans-worldcoin-wants-to-scan-every-humans-eyeball-and-give-them-crypto-in-exchange/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/21/sam-altmans-worldcoin-want...
jklinger410 4y ago
You will experience the AI revolution like a frog in a boiling pot. By the time you notice that AI is finally useful to you, it will be everywhere. And you will have missed out on the entire field.
bryanlarsen 4y ago
Who predicted that the first widely used domestic robot would be anything like the Roomba? AI will have a similar trajectory, IMO. It'll find a bunch of good use cases, but it won't be in predictable places, and the predictable ones won't be as useful as expected.
vikp 4y ago
In this particular case (summarizing search results), it seems to work well. I think anchoring to known information helps avoid a lot of the issues (hallucinations, boring language, etc). You can check out an open source demo I made if you want to play around with how search + GPT work - https://github.com/VikParuchuri/researcher https://github.com/VikParuchuri/researcher .
londons_explore 4y ago
Last week, about ~30% of my Google searches were instead directed to ChatGPT. It's pretty good if you want a summary of a topic, but every web page wants to give you in depth information assuming you're already an expert. For example "What gas is in double glazing?" or "Tell me how screws are made". It's also good for more creative things, like "Write a story about an escapeologist". I now use it for ideas for bedtime stories for my son.
- bo1024 4y ago
  How do you know if the summary is accurate?
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    I've spot checked them, and found that for the sorts of queries I do, they seem to be spot on. I wouldn't trust any numbers, or queries where the premise of the question is false though.
dalbasal 4y ago
I agree that GPT modernization consulting and such bullshit will emerge. It always does. That's neither here nor there though. It's just noise. Re: Tesla autopilot. I think this is the more serious. Obviously I'm speculating. It is definitely possible that GPT is one more example of AI doing cool tricks, and convincing us that is it farther advanced than it is. That said, I don't think this is another Tesla autopilot for two reasons. Reason one is robotics. Autopilot is robotics and robotics sucks. It's incredibly difficult, frustratingly physical and painfully hard to do the last 20%. The economics is even worse. It's very rare that robotics finds the unit volume necessary to achieve realistic prices. When version 1 is a $10 million dollar replacement for a $50k employee, there's rarely a version 2. It's just very hard to move the ball forward in robotics. Reason two is that GPT is a solution looking for problems. It's more general. Autopilot has one job: drive the car and do the robotaxi thing. There are few stepping stones. Mistakes can kill people and kill Tesla. It either does the job or doesn't, Elonmagic notwithstanding. GPT just needs to do something useful, not any particular thing. It can be used in low stakes applications. It can be bolted on to stuff for shots and giggle. Marginal costs are already zero. Basically, it's software. Software spreads faster and easier.

verelo 4y ago

I think there’s a difference here. There are cases I’ve found for minor manual tasks, things like real estate listings with some basic programmatically created prompts containing details of a listing. Imo the largest holdback is context. I have some problems that would be amazingly well solved if i could hand gpt3 a whole large document and ask it questions about the document.

machiaweliczny 4y ago
This thing of read that book for me and answer questions would be very useful.

redorb 4y ago

ChatGPT is already 10x more useful than crypto and NFTS. The foundational value of ChapGPT is not based on speculation or selling it to the 'next fool'.

Jiocus 4y ago
You are right, of course; The foundational (technical) value isn't based on speculation but that is irrelevant to con-artists or crime organisations who are looking for their next hype product to drive a new round of frauds. The people I see most enthusiastic about the current AI development are not the technologist and developers, but people who aren't involved in tech and doesn't code. There's already adverts on social media for ChatGPT AI services of various trustworthiness. They claim their AIs can construct and implement “the” winning trading algorithms for anyone, for a fee, of course. This issue isn't on GPT per se, but many can't yet see the difference between plausible applications and those which aren't. With each fantastical story about what ChatGPT managed to do, it's hard to blame them.
uuvs8 4y ago
Is it actually? It doesn't give out reliable information and its "creativity" is questionable. Most of the excitement about it has to do with anthropomorphizing a robot that "feels" like an intelligent conversation partner, but it's not. Beyond toys, that is. Similar to crypto. It isn't actually useful as a currency or to store value. Most of the excitemeny had to do with fake "freedom" dreams of the anarchically-leaning crowd and misunderstandings of what it is and isn't. Beyond toys, that is. I see lots of parallels actually.
- nickthegreek 4y ago
  ChatGPT has real value to me. Ive been using it for my d&d games and to do some simple writing stuff that I hate. It costs me nothing, and I don't have to gamble to use it. Its value over crypto for me and my friends is exponential. Stable Diffusion has been even more valuable for me and I get to run that on my own metal.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  >Most of the excitement about it has to do with anthropomorphizing a robot that "feels" like an intelligent conversation partner, but it's not Literally no one I know that's excited about ChatGPT cares even one bit about the conversation aspect. No one I know is excited by the fact that it's a robot to talk to... They are excited by the fact that you can feed it code and errors and it can debug for you or you can give it code and it can write relevant documentation. Or you can give it tabular data and it can make charts and do basic analysis... If you can't see the utility then maybe you should question your own creativity.
- signal11 4y ago
  Sam Altman’s isn’t claiming ChatGPT will make you rich. When you start using it, it tells you it’s a research project. Even in its current form, it’s useful for a narrow set of uses. It’s entirely conceivable that ChatGPT successors will be able to incorporate signals of fact vs opinion, and also authoritativeness of a source, into their training. So yeah, ChatGPT is a toy, but that’s not bad for a research demo. But it has a lot of potential, and can help people in practical ways as it improves.

CuriouslyC 4y ago

Autopilot is playing out that way because there are a really large number of corner cases and fringe complexity to driving, and the consequences of getting things wrong are very expensive. Most uses of ChatGPT will (at least initially) be around automating the easy stuff, and if it gets something wrong it'll be a mild annoyance.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
I think people don't realize how many corner cases there are in coding. I think that the problems people have with accounting for all the Autopilot corner cases is going to be repeated with code generation as well.
- gitfan86 4y ago
  That is true, but think about domains like Advertisements. Ads are currently far from perfect. A 5% click rate is a huge success. If 30% of the ads generated are low quality but 10% do really well it will be a huge benefit
  - iamflimflam1 4y ago
    Exactly, generating moderately decent advertising copy will be really helpful. Even just to start the creative process going. "Here's a description of my product, give me 5 potential tag lines for it." It's a great start for brain storming.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    Even there the corner case failures are going to be amazing if we're throwing up AI generated Ads onto billboards indiscriminately. "So it seems our blacklist didn't include the word 'Hilter'...."
  - notahacker 4y ago
    Ad text sounds like the exact opposite of a significant use case really; very little text to generate and high cost from the text being substandard. If 30% of the ads generated are low quality, you're wasting 30% of your ad budget, which is less efficient than paying a human to come up with higher average quality text (unless you're generating unique copy on the fly to evade spam detectors...). Just because current ads are far from perfect doesn't mean generated text isn't on average more banal and less accurate... I think the main use case for pure LLMs will remain those already starting to be tackled by AI: low importance (or testable) information/opinion retrieval, low effort content generation, suggestion prompts and entertainment

HDThoreaun 4y ago

I already use chatGPT in place of google sometimes. It has upsides and downsides, but I absolutely find it to be useful given the right prompt. Not sure how they will scale it to bing level but if they’re able to respond with both chatGPT response and the normal links I think it’d be a better product.

bamboozled 4y ago

Couldn't agree more, it's like a "cool trick". I havent' found it really useful for anything except some initial novelty / amusement. I've not opened that tab for weeks.

Melting_Harps 4y ago
> Couldn't agree more, it's like a "cool trick". I havent' found it really useful for anything except some initial novelty / amusement. I've not opened that tab for weeks. Same, during the update it just kept crashing and afterward it just seem way too prone to errors to be usable; their have been funny prompts Ive seen thrown around but the novelty wore off just like it did with Dall-E as you saw how many attempts you had to make to get to something viable and more competitors came online: Stable Diffusion. This will keep the AI hype going so I'm not complaining, as a person who studies AI/ML, but it's hardly the miracle they are making it out to be. Perhaps that changes with GPT4, but I fear that sourcing is now becoming critical and just like Co-pilot it will encounter a lot of scrutiny before they can monetize it properly and open source projects will emerge to take market share.

Melting_Harps 4y ago

> But loads of crypto-bro types will make millions selling ChatGPT "modernization consulting", so if you're looking to make a quick buck, highly recommend. You guys will attribute anything under the sun to 'crypto-bros' at this point, it's HN's version of boomers 'must be the fault of the millennials,' which is ironic considering how many of you fall into the age group. Furthermore, Sam Altman, former head of YC oversaw the funding of Coinbase which is now the largest crypto exchange in the US, and who himself tried to launch Worldcoin [0]. Which, yes is a (failed) crypto-currency and is also the head of OpenAI, which has created Dall-E and GPT. Listen, I'm all for calling out scammers and have done it after over 10 years in this space, but the level of disillusion and absurd levels of paranoia amongst so many of you to constantly remind us all how 'crypto-bros' are lurking in every corner and under every rock just waiting to pounce on the opportunity to scam when in reality you are witnessing the creation of tech from these very same sectors and the people whose platforms you fear so much. 0: https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/21/sam-altmans-worldcoin-wants-to-scan-every-humans-eyeball-and-give-them-crypto-in-exchange/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/21/sam-altmans-worldcoin-want...

jklinger410 4y ago

You will experience the AI revolution like a frog in a boiling pot. By the time you notice that AI is finally useful to you, it will be everywhere. And you will have missed out on the entire field.

bryanlarsen 4y ago

Who predicted that the first widely used domestic robot would be anything like the Roomba? AI will have a similar trajectory, IMO. It'll find a bunch of good use cases, but it won't be in predictable places, and the predictable ones won't be as useful as expected.

vikp 4y ago

In this particular case (summarizing search results), it seems to work well. I think anchoring to known information helps avoid a lot of the issues (hallucinations, boring language, etc). You can check out an open source demo I made if you want to play around with how search + GPT work - https://github.com/VikParuchuri/researcher https://github.com/VikParuchuri/researcher .

londons_explore 4y ago

Last week, about ~30% of my Google searches were instead directed to ChatGPT. It's pretty good if you want a summary of a topic, but every web page wants to give you in depth information assuming you're already an expert. For example "What gas is in double glazing?" or "Tell me how screws are made". It's also good for more creative things, like "Write a story about an escapeologist". I now use it for ideas for bedtime stories for my son.

bo1024 4y ago
How do you know if the summary is accurate?
- londons_explore 4y ago
  I've spot checked them, and found that for the sorts of queries I do, they seem to be spot on. I wouldn't trust any numbers, or queries where the premise of the question is false though.

dalbasal 4y ago

I agree that GPT modernization consulting and such bullshit will emerge. It always does. That's neither here nor there though. It's just noise. Re: Tesla autopilot. I think this is the more serious. Obviously I'm speculating. It is definitely possible that GPT is one more example of AI doing cool tricks, and convincing us that is it farther advanced than it is. That said, I don't think this is another Tesla autopilot for two reasons. Reason one is robotics. Autopilot is robotics and robotics sucks. It's incredibly difficult, frustratingly physical and painfully hard to do the last 20%. The economics is even worse. It's very rare that robotics finds the unit volume necessary to achieve realistic prices. When version 1 is a $10 million dollar replacement for a $50k employee, there's rarely a version 2. It's just very hard to move the ball forward in robotics. Reason two is that GPT is a solution looking for problems. It's more general. Autopilot has one job: drive the car and do the robotaxi thing. There are few stepping stones. Mistakes can kill people and kill Tesla. It either does the job or doesn't, Elonmagic notwithstanding. GPT just needs to do something useful, not any particular thing. It can be used in low stakes applications. It can be bolted on to stuff for shots and giggle. Marginal costs are already zero. Basically, it's software. Software spreads faster and easier.