4 ms·

Yes I think many posters here regularly undervalue human capability and experience compared to AI or even regular code. Probably due to motivated reasoning more

by tveita 4y ago

Yes I think many posters here regularly undervalue human capability and experience compared to AI or even regular code. Probably due to motivated reasoning more than any explicit misanthropy - no one wants a stick in the mud to deride their fun new technology. I think on the whole "all" sides are represented here, just far more slanted towards tech than most other sites. Some other arguments paraphrased: Car on autopilot crashes itself in completely clear conditions - "many humans are bad drivers too" Stack Overflow buried in confident confabulations - "many human answers are incorrect too" prospect of next-gen GPT bots posting on news sites and forums - "if you can't tell the difference, why would you care if you're talking to a human?" prospect of image generation models razing the entry-level art job market - "pictures made by clicking a button has just as much artistic value if they look good to me"

cameronh90 4y ago
A counterpoint is that a lot of technological progress so far has been making things a bit shitter but a lot cheaper. Consider self service check outs. They are much more painful than a human checkout, but one staff member can run 10 of them at a time. Or IKEA furniture. The old hand made furniture my grandparents had was so much better, but it was so expensive that they had to save for months to get a desk. Another example that I find particularly painful is shop signs. Back a century ago, every town had sign painters who would draw and maintain those beautiful old signs. Nowadays the vast majority are just mass produced printed on metal, plastic or worse (see the LycaMobile signs common in corner shops here). Unsurprisingly, sign writing isn't a very common career now. London busses still use handmade blinds rather than the low resolution LED matrices common elsewhere, which I really appreciate. History is full of humans accepting mediocrity as long as it's even slightly cheaper. That's Ryanair's whole business model.
- williamcotton 4y ago
  Is Daft Punk mediocre because they programmed drum machines instead of learning how to play them? Or programmed keyboards instead of learning how to play them? Are they mediocre because they used multitrack recording instead of recording the entire composition live? My 4 year old saw me drawing some notes on the piano roll view in Logic Pro and asked if she could try. I opened up a new project and gave her a 2 bar loop to draw drum notes. She clicked around and placed notes using not more than random chance… …but because her actions were in the framework of the drum sampler and piano roll it sounded like a perfectly workable, if mediocre, dance rhythm! We have a kid sized drum kit in the dining room and she is completely unable to play anything other than random noise. Make of this what you will…

by tveita 4y ago

cameronh90 4y ago

A counterpoint is that a lot of technological progress so far has been making things a bit shitter but a lot cheaper. Consider self service check outs. They are much more painful than a human checkout, but one staff member can run 10 of them at a time. Or IKEA furniture. The old hand made furniture my grandparents had was so much better, but it was so expensive that they had to save for months to get a desk. Another example that I find particularly painful is shop signs. Back a century ago, every town had sign painters who would draw and maintain those beautiful old signs. Nowadays the vast majority are just mass produced printed on metal, plastic or worse (see the LycaMobile signs common in corner shops here). Unsurprisingly, sign writing isn't a very common career now. London busses still use handmade blinds rather than the low resolution LED matrices common elsewhere, which I really appreciate. History is full of humans accepting mediocrity as long as it's even slightly cheaper. That's Ryanair's whole business model.

williamcotton 4y ago
Is Daft Punk mediocre because they programmed drum machines instead of learning how to play them? Or programmed keyboards instead of learning how to play them? Are they mediocre because they used multitrack recording instead of recording the entire composition live? My 4 year old saw me drawing some notes on the piano roll view in Logic Pro and asked if she could try. I opened up a new project and gave her a 2 bar loop to draw drum notes. She clicked around and placed notes using not more than random chance… …but because her actions were in the framework of the drum sampler and piano roll it sounded like a perfectly workable, if mediocre, dance rhythm! We have a kid sized drum kit in the dining room and she is completely unable to play anything other than random noise. Make of this what you will…