10 ms·

Prepare for household appliances - washing machines etc. - doing strange things randomly. Prepare for the same thing with electronics which you didn't consider

Prepare for household appliances - washing machines etc. - doing strange things randomly. Prepare for the same thing with electronics which you didn't consider as containing much software before - central heating units, AC units, fridges, stoves, light switches, LED light bulbs, vacuum cleaners, electric shavers, electric toothbrushes, kids toys, microwave ovens, really anything which consumes electricity. Prepare for the support of the vendors of those appliances not taking phone calls anymore, only text communication. Prepare for the support not understanding the random problems you encounter. Prepare for the answers you get from support being similarly random. And maybe, with an unknown probability, prepare for your house burning down and nobody can tell you why.

indeyets 4y ago
You imply, that such tools would lead to lower quality of code. I actually hope for the opposite. This is not a tool for generating applications using statistical methods (we have a lot of tools which do that already), but a tool for assisting human persons by taking boring/repetitive tasks from them and letting us focus on the meaning, the goal
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
  If my house burns down due to random bugs in a big appliance, do you think the random underpaid 3rd world developers which will be used do care about that? I think this will lead to extreme cost cutting measures in choice of the developers which are used. People who would have previously been totally ineligible to develop software will happily be chosen. And they won't care about the garbage code they produce as long as it somehow seems to work from the outside. They'll care about feeding their families in the dire situation they are in, not more.
  - indeyets 4y ago
    There's a good chance this will produce BETTER code than "eligible" low-grade coders which do this now. You're overly optimistic about them
    - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
      You are comparing things which are not equal. The currently semi-bad low-grade coders will get pushed out and replaced with even WORSE ones. The worse ones will be the ones responsible for choosing and approving the code which was generated by AI. So let's say there is a "Q(c)" which measures worst possible quality of code c. If the person who monitors this things has a bad worst possible quality Q(c), the code will also have a bad worst possible quality Q(c).
      - indeyets 4y ago
        not really If current code has Q=0.1, "AI" has Q=0.3 and "person who monitors" has Q=0.02 end result might still be better. It's not a simple multiplication of coefficients there. Better baseline would pull result higher
  - another-dave 4y ago
    I think you're overestimating code quality currently in big enterprise written entirely by humans. It's adherence to safety regulations that's stopping your house burning down at the moment and this responsibility will be there regardless of how the code is written.
    - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
      I don't think there is adherence to safety regulations. The majority of electronics gets produced in foreign nations far far away. Do you really think they obey the regulations?
      - indeyets 4y ago
        they absolutely do. those might be different regulations, but there are some. and there're import control and certifications. and most of all, there's reputation. it still works
      - linsomniac 4y ago
        If they're produced in a foreign nation for sale in the US, with a (legitimate) UL sticker, then yes they adhere to those regulations. If we're talking about Kitchen Aid / Whirlpool / Samsung / LG / etc, they're going to design for certification and have them produced in the foreign nation to those specifications. If you're getting random things on Amazon or Alibaba, they definitely may not be produced to those regulations, and you may be risking your insurance coverage if one of those is found to be the source of a fire, as I understand it.
      - another-dave 4y ago
        At least in Europe, if you're importing goods for sale, they have to be fit for purpose (including passing any applicable safety standards) regardless of where the product was manufactured. That said, if some vendors are illegally selling products that _don't_ meet safety standards, I'd be doubtful of the GP's claim - that the reason they aren't burning down your house is because of the calibre of software devs working on the product.
    - 4y ago
  - williamcotton 4y ago
    > People who would have previously been totally ineligible to develop software will happily be chosen. And you would logically be without a job hence your fear of these tools? Maybe it’s much more likely that these tools entrench current software developers who did in fact learn the craft before these tools and can successfully use them to make themselves much more productive? Does the recent memory of bootcampers getting paid as much as industry vets after a year or two have an impact on this psychology of feeling replaceable?
    - sanderjd 4y ago
      That is not my memory of what happened with bootcamps, sadly.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    It's going to be like "self-driving": the computer does the work, but there's a human whose job it is to take responsibility for failures of the system.
  - tluyben2 4y ago
    Yep, but that has been going on for a long time. This might speed it up though. Probably it will. It's just simply cheaper to have a $5-9/hr crappy dev clicking around and copying/testing 100+ 'solutions' from chatgpt for a week trying to match the inputs/outputs they are given as 'spec' than it is hiring someone good for 3-4 hours. And it's less risk to the company too. Like said, this is already the case since somewhere beginning '00 when the outsourcing boom started taking off. Tools like this probably simply will lower the bar to $2-3/hr 'data entry' 'specialists', who were ignored before for programming work. I already see people directly around me who normally couldn't really write much of anything (be it natural language or code) with ease or at all who suddenly (since chatgpt saw the light) produce both with success. They could already do that with gpt3 or copilot, but that takes prompting; chatgpt lowers the barrier to entry significantly. > And they won't care about the garbage code they produce as long as it somehow seems to work from the outside. It would be a black box for sure; json in, json out. When something is broken, that 'nano service' is just replaced by a new black box nano service that does the same thing but without the reported bug(s).
- sanderjd 4y ago
  I hope for the opposite as well, but I think it's a false hope. I think my intuition is that the average quality of software may well improve (good!) but that when issues arise they will be more obscure and harder to debug and fix, because nobody will know what the system is actually doing.
ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
Perhaps certain consumer electronics should come with a label "Programmed by Humans", such as the "Free-Range/Cage-Free" labels.
- albert_e 4y ago
  Was thinking exactly the same thing "No GMO"!
  - ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
    Asked ChatGPT what is the difference between chicken eggs and cow eggs, they answered: "Chicken eggs and cow eggs are produced by different animals and have some notable differences. Chicken eggs are much smaller than cow eggs and have a smooth, hard shell. Cow eggs, on the other hand, are much larger and have a thicker, bumpy shell. Additionally, chicken eggs are typically used for human consumption, while cow eggs are not." then I followed up with how to make an omelette from cow eggs, they answered: "To make an omelette from cow eggs, you will need the following ingredients: 2-3 cow eggs Salt and pepper, to taste 1 tablespoon of butter or oil Instructions: 1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them together with a fork or whisk. ... (general omelette steps) 7. Serve immediately and enjoy! Note: cow eggs may be larger than chicken eggs, so adjust the amount of eggs you use accordingly." Technically correct, hard to argue. Perhaps the AI label should specify "Programmed by Pattern Matching: No general understanding or common reason involved".
    - olddustytrail 4y ago
      Not technically accurate at all! Cow eggs are much smaller than chicken eggs.
      - ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
        Haha, apparently yes, didn't look up, "in a dairy cow, each ovary is approximately 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) long and 3/4 inch (19.05 mm) in diameter" [1] with the oocytes around 115 micrometers, whereas a large hen would produce eggs around 2.44 in (62 mm) length and 1.69 in (43 mm) diameter [2]. [1] https://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/1031/anatomy-of-the-cows-reproductive-tract https://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/1031/anatomy-of-the-c... [2] https://brinsea.co.uk/latest/resource-centre/egg-sizes https://brinsea.co.uk/latest/resource-centre/egg-sizes
oldgradstudent 4y ago
> Prepare for the support of the vendors of those appliances not taking phone calls anymore, only text communication. Even worse, prepare for them to enthusiastically take calls.
napier 4y ago
Prepare for your in-house-mind-core -- $10,000 of neural SoCs running a society-chain of LLM based OS and included as standard with all $400,000 or more home purchases -- conversationally debugging and providing pseudo-psychological support to your toaster, fridge, cleaning/security-bot-hive and other assistant golem appliances imbued with pseudo-sapience.
agumonkey 4y ago
> Prepare for the support of the vendors of those appliances not taking phone calls anymore, only text communication. this is a fun pattern I've seen play in other industries
roarcher 4y ago
> Prepare for the support of the vendors of those appliances not taking phone calls anymore, only text communication. Don't worry, someone will plug ChatGPT into a text-to-speech model soon enough, and market it as a way to put the personal touch back into customer support. Maybe they'll even give it a folksy accent.

indeyets 4y ago

You imply, that such tools would lead to lower quality of code. I actually hope for the opposite. This is not a tool for generating applications using statistical methods (we have a lot of tools which do that already), but a tool for assisting human persons by taking boring/repetitive tasks from them and letting us focus on the meaning, the goal

RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
If my house burns down due to random bugs in a big appliance, do you think the random underpaid 3rd world developers which will be used do care about that? I think this will lead to extreme cost cutting measures in choice of the developers which are used. People who would have previously been totally ineligible to develop software will happily be chosen. And they won't care about the garbage code they produce as long as it somehow seems to work from the outside. They'll care about feeding their families in the dire situation they are in, not more.
- indeyets 4y ago
  There's a good chance this will produce BETTER code than "eligible" low-grade coders which do this now. You're overly optimistic about them
  - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
    You are comparing things which are not equal. The currently semi-bad low-grade coders will get pushed out and replaced with even WORSE ones. The worse ones will be the ones responsible for choosing and approving the code which was generated by AI. So let's say there is a "Q(c)" which measures worst possible quality of code c. If the person who monitors this things has a bad worst possible quality Q(c), the code will also have a bad worst possible quality Q(c).
    - indeyets 4y ago
      not really If current code has Q=0.1, "AI" has Q=0.3 and "person who monitors" has Q=0.02 end result might still be better. It's not a simple multiplication of coefficients there. Better baseline would pull result higher
- another-dave 4y ago
  I think you're overestimating code quality currently in big enterprise written entirely by humans. It's adherence to safety regulations that's stopping your house burning down at the moment and this responsibility will be there regardless of how the code is written.
  - RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
    I don't think there is adherence to safety regulations. The majority of electronics gets produced in foreign nations far far away. Do you really think they obey the regulations?
    - indeyets 4y ago
      they absolutely do. those might be different regulations, but there are some. and there're import control and certifications. and most of all, there's reputation. it still works
    - linsomniac 4y ago
      If they're produced in a foreign nation for sale in the US, with a (legitimate) UL sticker, then yes they adhere to those regulations. If we're talking about Kitchen Aid / Whirlpool / Samsung / LG / etc, they're going to design for certification and have them produced in the foreign nation to those specifications. If you're getting random things on Amazon or Alibaba, they definitely may not be produced to those regulations, and you may be risking your insurance coverage if one of those is found to be the source of a fire, as I understand it.
    - another-dave 4y ago
      At least in Europe, if you're importing goods for sale, they have to be fit for purpose (including passing any applicable safety standards) regardless of where the product was manufactured. That said, if some vendors are illegally selling products that _don't_ meet safety standards, I'd be doubtful of the GP's claim - that the reason they aren't burning down your house is because of the calibre of software devs working on the product.
  - 4y ago
- williamcotton 4y ago
  > People who would have previously been totally ineligible to develop software will happily be chosen. And you would logically be without a job hence your fear of these tools? Maybe it’s much more likely that these tools entrench current software developers who did in fact learn the craft before these tools and can successfully use them to make themselves much more productive? Does the recent memory of bootcampers getting paid as much as industry vets after a year or two have an impact on this psychology of feeling replaceable?
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    That is not my memory of what happened with bootcamps, sadly.
- pjc50 4y ago
  It's going to be like "self-driving": the computer does the work, but there's a human whose job it is to take responsibility for failures of the system.
- tluyben2 4y ago
  Yep, but that has been going on for a long time. This might speed it up though. Probably it will. It's just simply cheaper to have a $5-9/hr crappy dev clicking around and copying/testing 100+ 'solutions' from chatgpt for a week trying to match the inputs/outputs they are given as 'spec' than it is hiring someone good for 3-4 hours. And it's less risk to the company too. Like said, this is already the case since somewhere beginning '00 when the outsourcing boom started taking off. Tools like this probably simply will lower the bar to $2-3/hr 'data entry' 'specialists', who were ignored before for programming work. I already see people directly around me who normally couldn't really write much of anything (be it natural language or code) with ease or at all who suddenly (since chatgpt saw the light) produce both with success. They could already do that with gpt3 or copilot, but that takes prompting; chatgpt lowers the barrier to entry significantly. > And they won't care about the garbage code they produce as long as it somehow seems to work from the outside. It would be a black box for sure; json in, json out. When something is broken, that 'nano service' is just replaced by a new black box nano service that does the same thing but without the reported bug(s).
sanderjd 4y ago
I hope for the opposite as well, but I think it's a false hope. I think my intuition is that the average quality of software may well improve (good!) but that when issues arise they will be more obscure and harder to debug and fix, because nobody will know what the system is actually doing.

ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago

Perhaps certain consumer electronics should come with a label "Programmed by Humans", such as the "Free-Range/Cage-Free" labels.

albert_e 4y ago
Was thinking exactly the same thing "No GMO"!
- ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
  Asked ChatGPT what is the difference between chicken eggs and cow eggs, they answered: "Chicken eggs and cow eggs are produced by different animals and have some notable differences. Chicken eggs are much smaller than cow eggs and have a smooth, hard shell. Cow eggs, on the other hand, are much larger and have a thicker, bumpy shell. Additionally, chicken eggs are typically used for human consumption, while cow eggs are not." then I followed up with how to make an omelette from cow eggs, they answered: "To make an omelette from cow eggs, you will need the following ingredients: 2-3 cow eggs Salt and pepper, to taste 1 tablespoon of butter or oil Instructions: 1. Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them together with a fork or whisk. ... (general omelette steps) 7. Serve immediately and enjoy! Note: cow eggs may be larger than chicken eggs, so adjust the amount of eggs you use accordingly." Technically correct, hard to argue. Perhaps the AI label should specify "Programmed by Pattern Matching: No general understanding or common reason involved".
  - olddustytrail 4y ago
    Not technically accurate at all! Cow eggs are much smaller than chicken eggs.
    - ly3xqhl8g9 4y ago
      Haha, apparently yes, didn't look up, "in a dairy cow, each ovary is approximately 1.5 inches (38.1 mm) long and 3/4 inch (19.05 mm) in diameter" [1] with the oocytes around 115 micrometers, whereas a large hen would produce eggs around 2.44 in (62 mm) length and 1.69 in (43 mm) diameter [2]. [1] https://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/1031/anatomy-of-the-cows-reproductive-tract https://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/1031/anatomy-of-the-c... [2] https://brinsea.co.uk/latest/resource-centre/egg-sizes https://brinsea.co.uk/latest/resource-centre/egg-sizes

oldgradstudent 4y ago

> Prepare for the support of the vendors of those appliances not taking phone calls anymore, only text communication. Even worse, prepare for them to enthusiastically take calls.

napier 4y ago

Prepare for your in-house-mind-core -- $10,000 of neural SoCs running a society-chain of LLM based OS and included as standard with all $400,000 or more home purchases -- conversationally debugging and providing pseudo-psychological support to your toaster, fridge, cleaning/security-bot-hive and other assistant golem appliances imbued with pseudo-sapience.

agumonkey 4y ago

> Prepare for the support of the vendors of those appliances not taking phone calls anymore, only text communication. this is a fun pattern I've seen play in other industries

roarcher 4y ago

> Prepare for the support of the vendors of those appliances not taking phone calls anymore, only text communication. Don't worry, someone will plug ChatGPT into a text-to-speech model soon enough, and market it as a way to put the personal touch back into customer support. Maybe they'll even give it a folksy accent.