12 ms·

> GPT4 gave the correct answer in 1/10th the time it would take Priya and cost a lot less. [...] Priya has tried to learn coding, but she has struggled. Not tha

by T-A 4y ago

> GPT4 gave the correct answer in 1/10th the time it would take Priya and cost a lot less. [...] Priya has tried to learn coding, but she has struggled. Not that she gets a lot of time to do it either. 1) Show Priya how to use GPT4 to do her current job in 1/10th of the time. 2) Let her use part (50%+) of the time saved to learn coding or whatever other skill she needs (not sure coding is it).

Etheryte 4y ago
Exactly, while there is some merit to the article's argument, I don't think it holds any water in this case. GPT4 will lie to you [0] and you need the human to figure out when that's the case. [0] https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/7/chatgpt-lies/ https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/7/chatgpt-lies/
- eropple 4y ago
  > you need the human to figure out when that's the case Do you? I mean, you and I think you do in order to do a good job, but does that hold water? The last decade or so of technological "progress" in the commercial space should leave few illusions about the willingness to obstruct processes and damage the interactions between people to save a few bucks. As tech gets more capable, the human interactions with it are getting worse. And if you hate phone trees now (I do!), GPT4's contribution is adding ever deeper, infinitely patient tools for stalling you when you have to call for things. Hell, we already have plenty of stans in the HN comment sections actively claiming that no, of course you shouldn't hold LLM purveyors responsible for their hallucinations, the desired universe is liability-free! If you've already bought into societal enshittification for a buck and there are no penalties, why would you worry about being right?
- topper-123 4y ago
  > you need the human to figure out when that's the case. Yes, but you will need fewer people. And thas is with the current level of GPT. If the GPTs proficiency increases, fewer and fewer people will be needed. That’s a problem.
  - Etheryte 4y ago
    Try and reframe the same argument except with computers to see that it doesn't add up. When computers started becoming widely spread you could've easily made the same argument. It isn't a problem, it's a boon to make our lives easier.
kaibee 4y ago
> 1) Show Priya how to use GPT4 to do her current job in 1/10th of the time. Why would I subsidize that as a business owner? I can fire 9/10ths of the people who do that job instead.
- imdsm 4y ago
  Train people to use GPT-related tech to become superhuman team members. You can do it all yourself, sure, but that doesn't scale. You can either train GPT-tech to use GPT to scale or train humans. Right now, reliability is the most difficult issue, so humans are essentially to ensuring the results are correct.
  - henriquez 4y ago
    Humans are useful for training future iterations of the closed source thinking model. Once the model is sophisticated enough to train itself humans will no longer be required.
  - blibble 4y ago
    > Train people to use GPT-related tech to become superhuman team members. then OpenAI either discontinue or slightly adjust the model such that it doesn't work now there goes your business
- 1123581321 4y ago
  Historically, in these situations your business is either about to become obsolete or is about to have much more competition. You could hire people to do the new tasks required to thrive, but it’s easier to retrain people you already know and who want to work for you.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    It actually much easier to hire people who already have the skillset and pay them 5-10% more than they are making because of salary compression and inversion.
eropple 4y ago
Why? No really: why? Businesses are profit-seeking entities. Why not just fire nine people? You save money. (Yes, this could be a really stupid decision for the company in question. I agree with you. I'm not saying what should happen. I'm saying what will happen, and that that is really bad.)
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  All small businesses are not pure profit maximizers. Anyway even if they were, there’s MORE money to be made by empowering employees to use powerful tools which can increase revenues and profits much more than just firing. Doing so generates goodwill which improves employee effectiveness and drive.
  - jprete 4y ago
    Goodwill doesn’t pay the bills, most businesses don’t care, and most CEOs etc cannot acquire more customers and contracts fast enough to multiply the available work by ten in the time frame required.
    - eropple 4y ago
      Yeah, the idea that there is somehow Unlimited Demand to tap is just woefully underexposed to business realities. Demand at most businesses is a river, not a municipal waterline with a spigot at one end. It ebbs and it flows, and building for a hypothetical high-demand future is what you do when you have venture capital expecting it of you--not when you're building a "small business" (or even a medium to large one, if you want to be resilient). It is, however, a really convenient excuse for people who don't regularly think about how people who don't work "above the API" actually exist in the world.
    - moneywoes 4y ago
      Seems most people miss this. If anything businesses will increase their profits instead
  - eropple 4y ago
achow 4y ago
You see the Catch-22 situation? Author is the manager of Priya. This means Priya can replace the manager, but manager needs to train Priya for that. Obviously that is not going to happen as Author him/herself is very apprehensive about his/her future earning potential. This would be the problem in the new world, people with lesser power (of knowledge) would get crushed.
tap-snap-or-nap 4y ago
1) Competition is brutal. Many educated remain unemployed and the amount of work is not 10x. It also makes more sense to keep one person do 10 peoples job if there were more people doing it and avoid multiple people trying to co-ordinate. 2) Most if not all employers are not going to let 50% of the work time to go towards non income generating activities.
wokwokwok 4y ago
This is hopeless fantasy. What skills, exactly, would those be?
csomar 4y ago
More probable scenario: 1- Hire someone cheaper than Priya and show him to tricks to run GPT-4. Make him work 24/7 non-stop because it's an upgrade from his naan flipping job. 2- Fire Priya.
scarface74 4y ago
> Show Priya how to use GPT4 to do her current job in 1/10th of the time And then if they have 10 people doing her job, 9 people are out of a job.
908B64B197 4y ago
> Priya has tried to learn coding, but she has struggled. If there's one thing that will get automated first, it's coding (taking simple explicit specifications and turning them into code). Unless she can learn software engineering (understanding problem areas well enough you can devise a detailed spec, and maybe implement it) she'll be out of a job as well with just coding skills. People who haven't dealt with cheap offshored labor or bootcamp grads from the latest craze don't realize how much that workflow was similar to working with GPT4. Except GPT4 requires no training and gives answers in seconds.
benatkin 4y ago
This is the suggestion that everybody can just learn to code. I remember Code.org and #HourOfCode back in 2014. Still, it is hard both to find a senior software developer and to become one.
876978095789789 4y ago
> 2) Let her use part (50%+) of the time saved to learn coding or whatever other skill she needs (not sure coding is it). People are still pushing this meme on HN, even after GPT-4?

by T-A 4y ago

Etheryte 4y ago

Exactly, while there is some merit to the article's argument, I don't think it holds any water in this case. GPT4 will lie to you [0] and you need the human to figure out when that's the case. [0] https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/7/chatgpt-lies/ https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/7/chatgpt-lies/

eropple 4y ago
> you need the human to figure out when that's the case Do you? I mean, you and I think you do in order to do a good job, but does that hold water? The last decade or so of technological "progress" in the commercial space should leave few illusions about the willingness to obstruct processes and damage the interactions between people to save a few bucks. As tech gets more capable, the human interactions with it are getting worse. And if you hate phone trees now (I do!), GPT4's contribution is adding ever deeper, infinitely patient tools for stalling you when you have to call for things. Hell, we already have plenty of stans in the HN comment sections actively claiming that no, of course you shouldn't hold LLM purveyors responsible for their hallucinations, the desired universe is liability-free! If you've already bought into societal enshittification for a buck and there are no penalties, why would you worry about being right?
topper-123 4y ago
> you need the human to figure out when that's the case. Yes, but you will need fewer people. And thas is with the current level of GPT. If the GPTs proficiency increases, fewer and fewer people will be needed. That’s a problem.
- Etheryte 4y ago
  Try and reframe the same argument except with computers to see that it doesn't add up. When computers started becoming widely spread you could've easily made the same argument. It isn't a problem, it's a boon to make our lives easier.

kaibee 4y ago

> 1) Show Priya how to use GPT4 to do her current job in 1/10th of the time. Why would I subsidize that as a business owner? I can fire 9/10ths of the people who do that job instead.

imdsm 4y ago
Train people to use GPT-related tech to become superhuman team members. You can do it all yourself, sure, but that doesn't scale. You can either train GPT-tech to use GPT to scale or train humans. Right now, reliability is the most difficult issue, so humans are essentially to ensuring the results are correct.
- henriquez 4y ago
  Humans are useful for training future iterations of the closed source thinking model. Once the model is sophisticated enough to train itself humans will no longer be required.
- blibble 4y ago
  > Train people to use GPT-related tech to become superhuman team members. then OpenAI either discontinue or slightly adjust the model such that it doesn't work now there goes your business
1123581321 4y ago
Historically, in these situations your business is either about to become obsolete or is about to have much more competition. You could hire people to do the new tasks required to thrive, but it’s easier to retrain people you already know and who want to work for you.
- scarface74 4y ago
  It actually much easier to hire people who already have the skillset and pay them 5-10% more than they are making because of salary compression and inversion.

eropple 4y ago

Why? No really: why? Businesses are profit-seeking entities. Why not just fire nine people? You save money. (Yes, this could be a really stupid decision for the company in question. I agree with you. I'm not saying what should happen. I'm saying what will happen, and that that is really bad.)

Robotbeat 4y ago
All small businesses are not pure profit maximizers. Anyway even if they were, there’s MORE money to be made by empowering employees to use powerful tools which can increase revenues and profits much more than just firing. Doing so generates goodwill which improves employee effectiveness and drive.
- jprete 4y ago
  Goodwill doesn’t pay the bills, most businesses don’t care, and most CEOs etc cannot acquire more customers and contracts fast enough to multiply the available work by ten in the time frame required.
  - eropple 4y ago
    Yeah, the idea that there is somehow Unlimited Demand to tap is just woefully underexposed to business realities. Demand at most businesses is a river, not a municipal waterline with a spigot at one end. It ebbs and it flows, and building for a hypothetical high-demand future is what you do when you have venture capital expecting it of you--not when you're building a "small business" (or even a medium to large one, if you want to be resilient). It is, however, a really convenient excuse for people who don't regularly think about how people who don't work "above the API" actually exist in the world.
  - moneywoes 4y ago
    Seems most people miss this. If anything businesses will increase their profits instead
- eropple 4y ago

achow 4y ago

You see the Catch-22 situation? Author is the manager of Priya. This means Priya can replace the manager, but manager needs to train Priya for that. Obviously that is not going to happen as Author him/herself is very apprehensive about his/her future earning potential. This would be the problem in the new world, people with lesser power (of knowledge) would get crushed.

tap-snap-or-nap 4y ago

1) Competition is brutal. Many educated remain unemployed and the amount of work is not 10x. It also makes more sense to keep one person do 10 peoples job if there were more people doing it and avoid multiple people trying to co-ordinate. 2) Most if not all employers are not going to let 50% of the work time to go towards non income generating activities.

wokwokwok 4y ago

This is hopeless fantasy. What skills, exactly, would those be?

csomar 4y ago

More probable scenario: 1- Hire someone cheaper than Priya and show him to tricks to run GPT-4. Make him work 24/7 non-stop because it's an upgrade from his naan flipping job. 2- Fire Priya.

scarface74 4y ago

> Show Priya how to use GPT4 to do her current job in 1/10th of the time And then if they have 10 people doing her job, 9 people are out of a job.

908B64B197 4y ago

> Priya has tried to learn coding, but she has struggled. If there's one thing that will get automated first, it's coding (taking simple explicit specifications and turning them into code). Unless she can learn software engineering (understanding problem areas well enough you can devise a detailed spec, and maybe implement it) she'll be out of a job as well with just coding skills. People who haven't dealt with cheap offshored labor or bootcamp grads from the latest craze don't realize how much that workflow was similar to working with GPT4. Except GPT4 requires no training and gives answers in seconds.

benatkin 4y ago

This is the suggestion that everybody can just learn to code. I remember Code.org and #HourOfCode back in 2014. Still, it is hard both to find a senior software developer and to become one.

876978095789789 4y ago

> 2) Let her use part (50%+) of the time saved to learn coding or whatever other skill she needs (not sure coding is it). People are still pushing this meme on HN, even after GPT-4?