3 ms·

People keep saying "ah but it can't do X!". So what? Most of us have multiple decades until we can retire. This AI is getting better every few months. It will

People keep saying "ah but it can't do X!". So what? Most of us have multiple decades until we can retire. This AI is getting better every few months. It will be able to do it even faster, better and more cheaply than a human can.

tayo42 3y ago
There's an idea with some truth to it. The first 90% is easy, finishing and getting it to 100% is hard, maybe almost impossible. So asking "can it do x" is relevant. Becasue it might not
troupo 3y ago
> It will be able to do it even faster, better and more cheaply than a human can. Take what you did in the past year. Write down every product decision taken, every interaction with other teams figuring out APIs you had, all the infra where your code is running and how it was setup and changed, all the design iterations and changes that had to be implemented (especially if you have external partners demanding it). Yes. All that you'd have to input into the AI, and hope it outputs something decent given all that. And yes, you'll have to feed all that into AI all the time because it has no knowledge or memory of "on Monday the new company bet was announced in the all hands" You will be fine.
- Michelangelo11 3y ago
  So ... in this example, your job is continually feeding information to the AI from various sources. Why would the AI not be automatically hooked up to all those sources? Building a system that can do that is essentially trivial with the OpenAI API.
  - nimithryn 3y ago
    Have you tried to build a system like this? It’s not trivial
    - zarzavat 3y ago
      We have 32k contexts now, how big do you want to bet the context will be in 10 years? That’s before you add any summarization, fine tuning or other tricks. The thing that computers have always done much better than humans is deal with much larger volumes of information. The thing that humans have always done much better than computers is reason on that information better. Now the computers are coming for that too.
      - munksbeer 3y ago
        > Now the computers are coming for that too. Hopefully.
  - troupo 3y ago
    Yup. "Just" "trivially" plug it in to those sources. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688169
- Workaccount2 3y ago
  We'll have jobs, but they sure as shit won't be worth $150k anymore. Any grunt can feed meeting notes into an AI. And frankly, and AI can parse an audio recording on a meeting.
  - troupo 3y ago
    Can any grunt then check that the AI actually produce what was actually required? And yes, how can we forget that any audio of a meeting has just the correct and final specifications, and not meandering discussions about anything and everything. Can't wait to see a canhazcheeseburger in a financial app because people in the meeting had cats on camera, and people demanded to see them. I mentioned a "Revert Norway tax code" elsewhere https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37680060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37680060 It was a bit tongue in cheek, but a similar requirement ended up with: - six months of discussions involving almost 20 people - 4 new BigTable tables - Deployment of 4 new Dataflow jobs, and fixes to two other Dataflow jobs - Several complex test runs across the entire system including a few recreations of last year's full data to test that nothing broke Not a grunt job, definitely. And I'm 100% sure that people doing that would still have their jobs 10 years from now, even with AI. It amazes me, really, that people who would otherwise boast about how rational they are, and how they follow logic etc. completely replace all their knowledge and expertise with child-like belief in magic when it comes to anything AI-related.
    - Workaccount2 3y ago
      Your coping is painfully obvious. I'd be sacred too, but at least would be taking a rational approach to it. It's an adapt or die situation. Putting your head in the sand is just gonna get you mowed down.
      - troupo 3y ago
        Ad hominem is not as good an argument as you think it is. The only ones scared in this conversation are you and others who literally say you're scared for your jobs and your careers because of a magical boogey man.

tayo42 3y ago

There's an idea with some truth to it. The first 90% is easy, finishing and getting it to 100% is hard, maybe almost impossible. So asking "can it do x" is relevant. Becasue it might not

troupo 3y ago

> It will be able to do it even faster, better and more cheaply than a human can. Take what you did in the past year. Write down every product decision taken, every interaction with other teams figuring out APIs you had, all the infra where your code is running and how it was setup and changed, all the design iterations and changes that had to be implemented (especially if you have external partners demanding it). Yes. All that you'd have to input into the AI, and hope it outputs something decent given all that. And yes, you'll have to feed all that into AI all the time because it has no knowledge or memory of "on Monday the new company bet was announced in the all hands" You will be fine.

Michelangelo11 3y ago
So ... in this example, your job is continually feeding information to the AI from various sources. Why would the AI not be automatically hooked up to all those sources? Building a system that can do that is essentially trivial with the OpenAI API.
- nimithryn 3y ago
  Have you tried to build a system like this? It’s not trivial
  - zarzavat 3y ago
    We have 32k contexts now, how big do you want to bet the context will be in 10 years? That’s before you add any summarization, fine tuning or other tricks. The thing that computers have always done much better than humans is deal with much larger volumes of information. The thing that humans have always done much better than computers is reason on that information better. Now the computers are coming for that too.
    - munksbeer 3y ago
      > Now the computers are coming for that too. Hopefully.
- troupo 3y ago
  Yup. "Just" "trivially" plug it in to those sources. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688169 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37688169
Workaccount2 3y ago
We'll have jobs, but they sure as shit won't be worth $150k anymore. Any grunt can feed meeting notes into an AI. And frankly, and AI can parse an audio recording on a meeting.
- troupo 3y ago
  Can any grunt then check that the AI actually produce what was actually required? And yes, how can we forget that any audio of a meeting has just the correct and final specifications, and not meandering discussions about anything and everything. Can't wait to see a canhazcheeseburger in a financial app because people in the meeting had cats on camera, and people demanded to see them. I mentioned a "Revert Norway tax code" elsewhere https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37680060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37680060 It was a bit tongue in cheek, but a similar requirement ended up with: - six months of discussions involving almost 20 people - 4 new BigTable tables - Deployment of 4 new Dataflow jobs, and fixes to two other Dataflow jobs - Several complex test runs across the entire system including a few recreations of last year's full data to test that nothing broke Not a grunt job, definitely. And I'm 100% sure that people doing that would still have their jobs 10 years from now, even with AI. It amazes me, really, that people who would otherwise boast about how rational they are, and how they follow logic etc. completely replace all their knowledge and expertise with child-like belief in magic when it comes to anything AI-related.
  - Workaccount2 3y ago
    Your coping is painfully obvious. I'd be sacred too, but at least would be taking a rational approach to it. It's an adapt or die situation. Putting your head in the sand is just gonna get you mowed down.
    - troupo 3y ago
      Ad hominem is not as good an argument as you think it is. The only ones scared in this conversation are you and others who literally say you're scared for your jobs and your careers because of a magical boogey man.