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What is the reasoning behind this whole AI business? I mean, apart from making something cool that sort of simulates human intelligence (and that's quite a stre

What is the reasoning behind this whole AI business? I mean, apart from making something cool that sort of simulates human intelligence (and that's quite a stretch IMHO), what's the point? Is this driven by laziness, greed, or what? I'm seriously asking because I just don't see the point.

80hd 3y ago
>I'm seriously asking I'm not sure I believe that. Is human-like intelligence not valuable to you?
- throwaway290 3y ago
  For me "human" is the key part tho...
  - tasuki 3y ago
    Why? Intelligence is good for problem solving. You have a problem you need solved. Do you prefer a human do it rather than a machine? Why?
    - throwaway290 3y ago
      Ultimately it is always human that does it, unless you say machine has free will. In this case there is a tool that can make human more efficient. But there are other tools as well, which I think are more interesting. Imagine if human intelligence is like physical ability to move. AI tools are like personal mobility chairs. Over time the ability to move only atrophies. But other tools are like bicycles and skateboards. They help move faster while still requiring exercise.
      - tasuki 3y ago
        > Ultimately it is always human that does it, unless you say machine has free will. What does free will have to do with any of this? If I ask a machine what is 7 + 6 and it tells me 13, does that mean it has free will? In my point of view, intelligence and consciousness are orthogonal concepts. I'm not even sure what "free will" means.
        throwaway290 3y ago
        > What does free will have to do with any of this You say in your original comment "do you want a machine to solve a problem?" but this is attribution error. A tool never solves the problem. It can only help you, an intelligent being, solve the problem. Whoever puts forward the problem can be credited with solving it, so we can come back to this when machine can proactively put forward problems. (Aka have free will, agency and all that.) > If I ask a machine what is 7 + 6 and it tells me 13, does that mean it has free will? No, but machine did not solve the problem. It only calculated 6 + 7. If you have 13 dollars and want to buy two things for 7 and 6 dollars, that is a problem you can solve. Machine can tell you 7 + 6, but it is you who solves the problem. Choosing to use some machine or another is part of your solution. > In my point of view, intelligence and consciousness are orthogonal concepts. Then what is "intelligence". I think it's one of the least understood word thrown around today. If there is a principal difference between "AI" and a calculator I want to know what it is.
        UncleEntity 3y ago
        > Whoever puts forward the problem can be credited with solving it… This does not compute, saying the person who poses the problem is credited for the solution is not how things work. Well, outside of politics that is. I think it’s been fairly well proven that the robots can problem solve.
        throwaway290 3y ago
        quick quiz to check if you read the rest: 1) What was the actual problem and why? 2) Who actually solved that problem? 3) What acted as a tool in the process?
        UncleEntity 3y ago
        I was randomly watching the YouTubes earlier and they were talking about the magic square [0]. If I were to instruct the robots to mathematically solve this for some value humans have been unable to do so far who do you believe is responsible for the solution, the human asking the question or the AI coming up with the solution? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square
  - staunton 3y ago
    Why? I would think the key part is what it can do, not what hardware it runs on. If you just haven't yet found how you can make use of the current stuff, keep in mind this discussion is always extrapolating what happens if the technology gets much better.
- ciconia 3y ago
  Frankly, no. I much prefer interacting with humans than with machines, and I emphasize interacting. A machine does what you tell it - it will not enlighten you, will not surprise you, will not create new knowledge.
  - IanCal 3y ago
    I'd like to spend more time doing that and less time writing the more basic parts of code.
  - tasuki 3y ago
    Sure it will. In the game of go, the machine routinely enlightens and surprises all the top players. It creates new knowledge in the form of inventing new joseki which turn out to be better than the established ones.
sahillavingia 3y ago
Same thing that motivates all business software: save time, save money, make money.
throwaway290 3y ago
I think it's driven by the symbiosis of greed for business and coolness factor for many techies because AI is a sci-fi thing and for now they are not the ones getting fired because of it
thealienthing 3y ago
I think one of the great strengths of AI (smol developer in mind) is to greatly speed up the development process by reducing busy work. How many times do you need to write a CRUD app from scratch? Sure templates exist but having a buddy that can do a lot of the tedious work up front while also implementing the basic structure with your design in mind can save you hours of work. Far more powerful than some template that can leave you with a bunch of extra crap and irrelevant libraries. More broadly speaking, AI applications like chatGPT can save you a ton of time looking up a bunch of tools just to accomplish an incredibly boring task. This can help to keep you focused on the far more interesting and challenging aspects of work. Often, the solutions yielded from these interactions end up revealing to me a built in bash tool or python lib that I had no idea even existed. To me it’s like stackoverflow on steroids if you know how to use it Also, AI chat bots can be extremely effective learning resources. A few weeks ago, I wanted to implement a digital low pass audio filter and didn’t know more than a few basic concepts. I asked chatGPT to explain the concepts with code examples. What followed was several late nights of just asking it follow up questions and very detailed discussions on the various aspects of filters. I got a primer on digital signal processing, bilinear transforms and filter design. I fed it snippets from free text university textbooks asking it to walk me through concepts and explain the things that would have been completely over my head. This was extremely useful since many books will assume you have a strong background in topics that can takes weeks to get a grip of assuming you even have a teacher. All in all, I see AI as a tool as disruptive and empowering as the Gutenberg printing press, radio or internet was for humans. I highly recommend trying some of this stuff out and seeing how you can use it to enhance your workflow and learning process.
- ciconia 3y ago
  > How many times do you need to write a CRUD app from scratch? Personally, I really don't mind doing this. And each time I get a little better at it. I much prefer this to having an AI agent write code for me that I then have to audit and verify it does what it's supposed to do. I highly doubt this will reduce work.
  - gonzan 3y ago
    Reading code that you know what is supposed to do and testing it works correctly is a lot faster than writing all the said code. Reading is much faster than writing. I also don’t mind writing this sort of code and I’m actually quite fast at writing it but AI is just on another level. Simple stuff like this it gets right almost every time and even does well on slightly more complicated stuff.
UncleEntity 3y ago
> I'm seriously asking because I just don't see the point. Why does it need a point? There’s not much of a point to anything I do that doesn’t involve basic survival but I don’t let that stop me from doing things I find interesting.

80hd 3y ago

>I'm seriously asking I'm not sure I believe that. Is human-like intelligence not valuable to you?

throwaway290 3y ago
For me "human" is the key part tho...
- tasuki 3y ago
  Why? Intelligence is good for problem solving. You have a problem you need solved. Do you prefer a human do it rather than a machine? Why?
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    Ultimately it is always human that does it, unless you say machine has free will. In this case there is a tool that can make human more efficient. But there are other tools as well, which I think are more interesting. Imagine if human intelligence is like physical ability to move. AI tools are like personal mobility chairs. Over time the ability to move only atrophies. But other tools are like bicycles and skateboards. They help move faster while still requiring exercise.
    - tasuki 3y ago
      > Ultimately it is always human that does it, unless you say machine has free will. What does free will have to do with any of this? If I ask a machine what is 7 + 6 and it tells me 13, does that mean it has free will? In my point of view, intelligence and consciousness are orthogonal concepts. I'm not even sure what "free will" means.
      - throwaway290 3y ago
        > What does free will have to do with any of this You say in your original comment "do you want a machine to solve a problem?" but this is attribution error. A tool never solves the problem. It can only help you, an intelligent being, solve the problem. Whoever puts forward the problem can be credited with solving it, so we can come back to this when machine can proactively put forward problems. (Aka have free will, agency and all that.) > If I ask a machine what is 7 + 6 and it tells me 13, does that mean it has free will? No, but machine did not solve the problem. It only calculated 6 + 7. If you have 13 dollars and want to buy two things for 7 and 6 dollars, that is a problem you can solve. Machine can tell you 7 + 6, but it is you who solves the problem. Choosing to use some machine or another is part of your solution. > In my point of view, intelligence and consciousness are orthogonal concepts. Then what is "intelligence". I think it's one of the least understood word thrown around today. If there is a principal difference between "AI" and a calculator I want to know what it is.
        UncleEntity 3y ago
        > Whoever puts forward the problem can be credited with solving it… This does not compute, saying the person who poses the problem is credited for the solution is not how things work. Well, outside of politics that is. I think it’s been fairly well proven that the robots can problem solve.
        throwaway290 3y ago
        quick quiz to check if you read the rest: 1) What was the actual problem and why? 2) Who actually solved that problem? 3) What acted as a tool in the process?
        UncleEntity 3y ago
        I was randomly watching the YouTubes earlier and they were talking about the magic square [0]. If I were to instruct the robots to mathematically solve this for some value humans have been unable to do so far who do you believe is responsible for the solution, the human asking the question or the AI coming up with the solution? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square
- staunton 3y ago
  Why? I would think the key part is what it can do, not what hardware it runs on. If you just haven't yet found how you can make use of the current stuff, keep in mind this discussion is always extrapolating what happens if the technology gets much better.
ciconia 3y ago
Frankly, no. I much prefer interacting with humans than with machines, and I emphasize interacting. A machine does what you tell it - it will not enlighten you, will not surprise you, will not create new knowledge.
- IanCal 3y ago
  I'd like to spend more time doing that and less time writing the more basic parts of code.
- tasuki 3y ago
  Sure it will. In the game of go, the machine routinely enlightens and surprises all the top players. It creates new knowledge in the form of inventing new joseki which turn out to be better than the established ones.

sahillavingia 3y ago

Same thing that motivates all business software: save time, save money, make money.

throwaway290 3y ago

I think it's driven by the symbiosis of greed for business and coolness factor for many techies because AI is a sci-fi thing and for now they are not the ones getting fired because of it

thealienthing 3y ago

I think one of the great strengths of AI (smol developer in mind) is to greatly speed up the development process by reducing busy work. How many times do you need to write a CRUD app from scratch? Sure templates exist but having a buddy that can do a lot of the tedious work up front while also implementing the basic structure with your design in mind can save you hours of work. Far more powerful than some template that can leave you with a bunch of extra crap and irrelevant libraries. More broadly speaking, AI applications like chatGPT can save you a ton of time looking up a bunch of tools just to accomplish an incredibly boring task. This can help to keep you focused on the far more interesting and challenging aspects of work. Often, the solutions yielded from these interactions end up revealing to me a built in bash tool or python lib that I had no idea even existed. To me it’s like stackoverflow on steroids if you know how to use it Also, AI chat bots can be extremely effective learning resources. A few weeks ago, I wanted to implement a digital low pass audio filter and didn’t know more than a few basic concepts. I asked chatGPT to explain the concepts with code examples. What followed was several late nights of just asking it follow up questions and very detailed discussions on the various aspects of filters. I got a primer on digital signal processing, bilinear transforms and filter design. I fed it snippets from free text university textbooks asking it to walk me through concepts and explain the things that would have been completely over my head. This was extremely useful since many books will assume you have a strong background in topics that can takes weeks to get a grip of assuming you even have a teacher. All in all, I see AI as a tool as disruptive and empowering as the Gutenberg printing press, radio or internet was for humans. I highly recommend trying some of this stuff out and seeing how you can use it to enhance your workflow and learning process.

ciconia 3y ago
> How many times do you need to write a CRUD app from scratch? Personally, I really don't mind doing this. And each time I get a little better at it. I much prefer this to having an AI agent write code for me that I then have to audit and verify it does what it's supposed to do. I highly doubt this will reduce work.
- gonzan 3y ago
  Reading code that you know what is supposed to do and testing it works correctly is a lot faster than writing all the said code. Reading is much faster than writing. I also don’t mind writing this sort of code and I’m actually quite fast at writing it but AI is just on another level. Simple stuff like this it gets right almost every time and even does well on slightly more complicated stuff.

UncleEntity 3y ago

> I'm seriously asking because I just don't see the point. Why does it need a point? There’s not much of a point to anything I do that doesn’t involve basic survival but I don’t let that stop me from doing things I find interesting.