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I'm realizing people code for different reasons. There's code used to achieve means and code written for self. I fall into the latter category which makes the t

I'm realizing people code for different reasons. There's code used to achieve means and code written for self. I fall into the latter category which makes the thought of AI assisted code offensive. From my perspective, computers are ideal for automation and calculation. Humans are (generally) better suited for problem solving. One requires precision and the other approximation.

saurik 4y ago
Until recently, I would have taken your second paragraph for granted; but, somehow, we have ended up in a dystopian future where humans are going to have to be directly involved with all the boring tasks that require careful correctness and we'll get to outsource many of the high-level creative tasks to computers (lol). https://www.instagram.com/p/CnpXLncOfbr/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CnpXLncOfbr/
- shanebellone 4y ago
  The irony being computers are incapable of approximation.
  - falcor84 4y ago
    I don't see why this should be true, and think this is just the next frontier.
    - jacobr1 4y ago
      And it is an odd thing to say on the thread about generative AI ... which is all about producing statistical approximations of outputs.
      - shanebellone 4y ago
        The output is an approximation. However, the intention is to produce something exact. Further, the computer is not actually approximating. The relationships between input and output are imperfect which results in an approximate output despite exact calculations.
carapace 4y ago
You're not alone. I program for fun, mostly, and I'm completely uninterested in these talking computers. I'm a little wistful that my hobby has gone from a viable career path to just a hobby, but I believe the talking computers systems will write better software, so I can't be too sad, eh? Now that the machines can think and talk, the only real problem left (to a first approximation) is selection of the options they generate, as describe sixty years ago by Engelbart in his classic, "Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework" https://dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html https://dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html I'm going to repeat that because it's as important as it is counter-intuitive: the machines will think better than we can, so all [solvable] problems are solved except the problem of intelligence itself: "What is the best option?"
- shanebellone 4y ago
  "but I believe the talking computers systems will write better software, so I can't be too sad, eh?" I hear you and actually agree that most coding will eventually be performed by AI. However, I'd bet against AI/ML ever being capable of original thought. One must first move past convention; something that is diametrically opposed to the current AI/ML approach. Time won't change this. A new paradigm might. Either way, the most powerful commodity (and scarcest resource) is and has always been... original thought.
  - carapace 4y ago
    I suppose it depends on what you mean by "original" though, eh? Are you familiar with the "cut up" technique? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique It could be considered a mechanical original thought generator? From Information Theory we have the result that the unpredictability of a message is a measure of it's information content. Right now we are concentrating on making systems that generate predictable results (the novelty is not just that they can generate realistic "thought", but also that they can do it "to spec", which is another way of saying that we can predict some of the aspects of the output of the machines: it looks like they understand us and are providing salient responses. So it's not that computers can or cannot make original thought, it's that we have to decide what parts of the outputs are original: it's an observer-dependent variable, so to speak? What do you think?

saurik 4y ago

Until recently, I would have taken your second paragraph for granted; but, somehow, we have ended up in a dystopian future where humans are going to have to be directly involved with all the boring tasks that require careful correctness and we'll get to outsource many of the high-level creative tasks to computers (lol). https://www.instagram.com/p/CnpXLncOfbr/ https://www.instagram.com/p/CnpXLncOfbr/

shanebellone 4y ago
The irony being computers are incapable of approximation.
- falcor84 4y ago
  I don't see why this should be true, and think this is just the next frontier.
  - jacobr1 4y ago
    And it is an odd thing to say on the thread about generative AI ... which is all about producing statistical approximations of outputs.
    - shanebellone 4y ago
      The output is an approximation. However, the intention is to produce something exact. Further, the computer is not actually approximating. The relationships between input and output are imperfect which results in an approximate output despite exact calculations.

carapace 4y ago

You're not alone. I program for fun, mostly, and I'm completely uninterested in these talking computers. I'm a little wistful that my hobby has gone from a viable career path to just a hobby, but I believe the talking computers systems will write better software, so I can't be too sad, eh? Now that the machines can think and talk, the only real problem left (to a first approximation) is selection of the options they generate, as describe sixty years ago by Engelbart in his classic, "Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework" https://dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html https://dougengelbart.org/pubs/augment-3906.html I'm going to repeat that because it's as important as it is counter-intuitive: the machines will think better than we can, so all [solvable] problems are solved except the problem of intelligence itself: "What is the best option?"

shanebellone 4y ago
"but I believe the talking computers systems will write better software, so I can't be too sad, eh?" I hear you and actually agree that most coding will eventually be performed by AI. However, I'd bet against AI/ML ever being capable of original thought. One must first move past convention; something that is diametrically opposed to the current AI/ML approach. Time won't change this. A new paradigm might. Either way, the most powerful commodity (and scarcest resource) is and has always been... original thought.
- carapace 4y ago
  I suppose it depends on what you mean by "original" though, eh? Are you familiar with the "cut up" technique? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique It could be considered a mechanical original thought generator? From Information Theory we have the result that the unpredictability of a message is a measure of it's information content. Right now we are concentrating on making systems that generate predictable results (the novelty is not just that they can generate realistic "thought", but also that they can do it "to spec", which is another way of saying that we can predict some of the aspects of the output of the machines: it looks like they understand us and are providing salient responses. So it's not that computers can or cannot make original thought, it's that we have to decide what parts of the outputs are original: it's an observer-dependent variable, so to speak? What do you think?