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Why is that a perception question rather than a delivery question? We still don’t really know how/if the current crop of AI is going to deliver. Even if there

Why is that a perception question rather than a delivery question? We still don’t really know how/if the current crop of AI is going to deliver. Even if there are a lot of great applications for these things (I think there are), it’s not clear they’re going to be truly transformative?

osigurdson 4y ago
>> truly transformative For me, it is already pretty transformative. I use ChatGPT at least as much as the regular internet - probably more.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Out of curiosity: to do what? Not just as a hobby/toy?
  - recursive 4y ago
    Today it told me how to write a powershell command to make a git commit that includes the current timestamp in the commit message. For example. I could have figured it out elseways, but would have taken >20x the time.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      I don’t see how this type of usage (which is real/valuable) adds up to “as much or more” than the actual internet.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        "The actual internet" allowed people to get information 20x times faster than before (e.g. vs physically going to a library, or writing a letter to an expert). If we now have a technology that lets us get answers 20x times faster than what we had before it, then yes - I see this technology as a huge advancement over the "old" internet.
  - est 4y ago
    most of programmers use ChatGPT as the "librarian" to replace finding docs/stackoverflow manually.
    - red-iron-pine 4y ago
      So like the Star Trek Computer? > "Computer, locate Commander Riker's repo" > "Commander Riker's repo is not currently on the ship"
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    Here are a couple of recent examples: 1) I wanted to make a github action to auto build, run tests and publish a package. I don't do a lot of this type of work so quite unfamiliar with it. ChatGPT gave me a very good start with some example yaml which I was able to tweak and get started with. When something wasn't working with my tweaked yaml file, I asked it what the problem was and it was able to pin-point the issue right away. I don't use it at work for anything but it is very useful for side projects and things like that. 2) I had some example json text from a service for which I wanted to create some serialization classes. This is easy to do but it is tedious work. ChatGPT was able to write most of this for me. There are likely tools, websites, services that can create this, but the experience in ChatGPT is pretty great - copy and paste in some json text and ask it to create the code. If it isn't quite right, give it some additionally instructions. When 80% OK, manually tweak it. 3) I use it to get ideas for things or to provide answers about things. For example, one of the commenters in this thread discussed the "AI scaling hypothesis". Google would have had a good answer for this but if you happen to have any questions(after the initial response is provided) this is a completely new search. ChatGPT, though not always correct, feels a lot more calming to use. Google seems very "noisy" to me now. Google is still very necessary but it feels like only 20% of queries need to go there at this point.
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      I see. I’m skeptical all of this (and similar use cases) could add up to “as much or more” than the regular internet. The average internet usage is something like 6-7 hours per day. I don’t see how even extremely heavy usage of GPT gets anywhere close to that, unless much of that time is “playing” (which is itself extremely cool!)
      - osigurdson 4y ago
        The comparison I draw is to google search, not general internet usage like Netflix and YouTube. I think it makes sense to use ChatGPT more often than search for most of my use cases. Fully agree that it does not replace the entire internet.
        4y ago
  - rsfern 4y ago
    Today I used chatGPT to workshop title ideas for a research paper I’m finalizing. (It wasn’t able to produce good backronym titles, sadly, but it was a pretty good source of feedback/ideas) Some graduate students I collaborate use it to help them revise and polish their writing (English is not their first language)
  - zamnos 4y ago
    Look outside of dev work, which needs a huge amount of context in a specialized language domain, and instead look at things that are human to human communication in order to find areas ChatGPT where already an indispensable tool. Eg https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/tech/chatgpt-real-estate/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/tech/chatgpt-real-estate/inde...
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      Right but most internet usage is read, not write, which is why I was specifically curious about the claim that they use GPT as much or more than the internet. Also these types of use cases I think will not actually last very long. They’ll be adversarial’d out of value and then probably out of existence after that. In a world where every listing is written by a bot, a reader’s first objective is to distill the human-written parts out of the unreliable narration and filler words of the bot.
  - cheevly 4y ago
    See my channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbvAaQYtgYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbvAaQYtgYM
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      It is strange to me that OpenAI has Whisper speech-to-text but no text-to-speech. "Hey Chat", seems like an obvious offering from OpenAI.
      - p1esk 4y ago
        OpenAI have built Jukebox - I'm pretty sure they can create a very good text-to-speech model whenever they decide it's worth the effort.
  - interstice 4y ago
    Quite a lot lately: 1) Short scripts in languages im unfamiliar with 2) Generating short, specific, well defined functions 3) Curing the tyranny of the blank page effect re emails, explanations, etc 4) Rephrasing that long email last thing on a friday when English just wont click
    - ethanbond 4y ago
      I don’t see how any of these add up to using it “as much or more” than the internet.
catach 4y ago
"Great applications" but not transformative is enough to avert a winter, I'd say.

osigurdson 4y ago

>> truly transformative For me, it is already pretty transformative. I use ChatGPT at least as much as the regular internet - probably more.

ethanbond 4y ago
Out of curiosity: to do what? Not just as a hobby/toy?
- recursive 4y ago
  Today it told me how to write a powershell command to make a git commit that includes the current timestamp in the commit message. For example. I could have figured it out elseways, but would have taken >20x the time.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    I don’t see how this type of usage (which is real/valuable) adds up to “as much or more” than the actual internet.
    - p1esk 4y ago
      "The actual internet" allowed people to get information 20x times faster than before (e.g. vs physically going to a library, or writing a letter to an expert). If we now have a technology that lets us get answers 20x times faster than what we had before it, then yes - I see this technology as a huge advancement over the "old" internet.
- est 4y ago
  most of programmers use ChatGPT as the "librarian" to replace finding docs/stackoverflow manually.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    So like the Star Trek Computer? > "Computer, locate Commander Riker's repo" > "Commander Riker's repo is not currently on the ship"
- osigurdson 4y ago
  Here are a couple of recent examples: 1) I wanted to make a github action to auto build, run tests and publish a package. I don't do a lot of this type of work so quite unfamiliar with it. ChatGPT gave me a very good start with some example yaml which I was able to tweak and get started with. When something wasn't working with my tweaked yaml file, I asked it what the problem was and it was able to pin-point the issue right away. I don't use it at work for anything but it is very useful for side projects and things like that. 2) I had some example json text from a service for which I wanted to create some serialization classes. This is easy to do but it is tedious work. ChatGPT was able to write most of this for me. There are likely tools, websites, services that can create this, but the experience in ChatGPT is pretty great - copy and paste in some json text and ask it to create the code. If it isn't quite right, give it some additionally instructions. When 80% OK, manually tweak it. 3) I use it to get ideas for things or to provide answers about things. For example, one of the commenters in this thread discussed the "AI scaling hypothesis". Google would have had a good answer for this but if you happen to have any questions(after the initial response is provided) this is a completely new search. ChatGPT, though not always correct, feels a lot more calming to use. Google seems very "noisy" to me now. Google is still very necessary but it feels like only 20% of queries need to go there at this point.
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    I see. I’m skeptical all of this (and similar use cases) could add up to “as much or more” than the regular internet. The average internet usage is something like 6-7 hours per day. I don’t see how even extremely heavy usage of GPT gets anywhere close to that, unless much of that time is “playing” (which is itself extremely cool!)
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      The comparison I draw is to google search, not general internet usage like Netflix and YouTube. I think it makes sense to use ChatGPT more often than search for most of my use cases. Fully agree that it does not replace the entire internet.
      - 4y ago
- rsfern 4y ago
  Today I used chatGPT to workshop title ideas for a research paper I’m finalizing. (It wasn’t able to produce good backronym titles, sadly, but it was a pretty good source of feedback/ideas) Some graduate students I collaborate use it to help them revise and polish their writing (English is not their first language)
- zamnos 4y ago
  Look outside of dev work, which needs a huge amount of context in a specialized language domain, and instead look at things that are human to human communication in order to find areas ChatGPT where already an indispensable tool. Eg https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/tech/chatgpt-real-estate/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/28/tech/chatgpt-real-estate/inde...
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Right but most internet usage is read, not write, which is why I was specifically curious about the claim that they use GPT as much or more than the internet. Also these types of use cases I think will not actually last very long. They’ll be adversarial’d out of value and then probably out of existence after that. In a world where every listing is written by a bot, a reader’s first objective is to distill the human-written parts out of the unreliable narration and filler words of the bot.
- cheevly 4y ago
  See my channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbvAaQYtgYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbvAaQYtgYM
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    It is strange to me that OpenAI has Whisper speech-to-text but no text-to-speech. "Hey Chat", seems like an obvious offering from OpenAI.
    - p1esk 4y ago
      OpenAI have built Jukebox - I'm pretty sure they can create a very good text-to-speech model whenever they decide it's worth the effort.
- interstice 4y ago
  Quite a lot lately: 1) Short scripts in languages im unfamiliar with 2) Generating short, specific, well defined functions 3) Curing the tyranny of the blank page effect re emails, explanations, etc 4) Rephrasing that long email last thing on a friday when English just wont click
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    I don’t see how any of these add up to using it “as much or more” than the internet.

catach 4y ago

"Great applications" but not transformative is enough to avert a winter, I'd say.