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ITT: engineers disgusted that marketing uses different language to communicate product benefits to consumers. See also: “posi-trac” (limited slip differential)

ITT: engineers disgusted that marketing uses different language to communicate product benefits to consumers. See also: “posi-trac” (limited slip differential), “alleve” (2-(6-Methoxynaphthalen-2-yl)propanoic acid), Technicolor (usually to describe a 3-strip prismatic camera+film arrangement). In general, consumers are marketing care about the benefits, and engineers care about the methods. Hence AI versus machine learning. It’s nothing to get upset or disgusted about.

sdflhasjd 3y ago
See also: Autopilot. I think the disgust can be justified in some circumstances, when marketing is used to oversell or just outright deceive, in this case and others which involves taking advantage of common ignorance.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Autopilot is a particularly egregious case, though. Naming an experimental, very limited car feature after the device that flys the plane most of the time, and has for many years, really ought to have been illegal. It sets wildly inappropriate expectations. Most of the other names are just random nice sounding names that they made up. It is more like if they called DayQuil “Tracheotomax,” because you know, it helps you breathe!
  - darkwater 3y ago
    I'm not a Elon fan but the autopilot in a plane does basically the same (if we are saying that planes and cars do the same thing, which is transport people) that Tesla's or many more manufacturers "autopilot" does on highways. Not an aviation expert but I don't think AP is controlling take-offs and landings. It controls cruise speed, altitude and direction. A car AP on a highway does the same (minus altitude).
    - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      True, but that's where the difference in intended usage is problematic. In the sky, autopilot can't accidentally hit another plane or barrier because it got confused about the road paint or construction signs. The stakes are a lot higher on the ground, even though it technically controls less of the vehicle than autopilot in a plane does (acceleration, braking, and steering compared to elevator, trim, roll, pitch, throttle, vector) since cars don't have to worry about 3 dimensional movement much while airplanes do.
    - wongarsu 3y ago
      Also a plane's autopilot has situations where it will yell at you to take over; and have situations where it's expected that the pilot recognizes problems and overrides the autopilot. It's a good analogy from a technical standpoint, with the "minor" difference that in most situations pilots have a lot more time to react than the driver of a car. Which makes it very different from a consumer standpoint
      - rando_dfad 3y ago
        and pilots have a lot more training
    - alwayseasy 3y ago
      Autopilot was not a consumer feature but a professional one where the understanding of the system comes with multiple certifications.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > I'm not a Elon fan but the autopilot in a plane does basically the same (if we are saying that planes and cars do the same thing, which is transport people) that Tesla's or many more manufacturers "autopilot" does on highways. Even if true, when you talk about consumer marketing, none of that matters. I don't have name for it, but there's a whole class of bad-faith, deliberately misleading statements that exploit the difference between common and technical understandings (e.g. say something you know most people will inaccurately interpret as X, then fall back to the much narrower Y when challenged).
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    >It is more like if they called DayQuil “Tracheotomax,” because you know, it helps you breathe! "Introducing new Rectopurge, for all your constipation needs!"
- bongoman37 3y ago
  [dead]
- jalk 3y ago
  I was pretty disgusted when Dyson called their hairdryers “zero carbon emission” because they used brushless DC motors
  - pierat 3y ago
    Yep, that's called "Greenwashing". It serves to make the middle class folk think they're making any sort of climate change oriented decision, when in fact they aren't. It also superficially makes the company doing Greenwashing look more respectable.
- _ea1k 3y ago
  It is no worse than "Pro Pilot". For some reason, that one never seems to bother anyone.
sdfghswe 3y ago
> In general, consumers are marketing care about the benefits, and engineers care about the methods. Hence AI versus machine learning. Sorry, which is the methods and which is the benefits? In your mind is "AI" a benefit?
- itsoktocry 3y ago
  >Sorry, which is the methods and which is the benefits? In your mind is "AI" a benefit? I think you're demonstrating the issue by focusing on the name again: "AI" and "Machine Learning" are the same thing. Engineers care about the method, so ML is more appropriate; it describes what they are doing. Consumers care about outcomes, so "AI" is used because it's familiar.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    > I think you're demonstrating the issue by focusing on the name again: "AI" and "Machine Learning" are the same thing. Engineers care about the method, so ML is more appropriate; it describes what they are doing. Consumers care about outcomes, so "AI" is used because it's familiar. So how is "AI" an outcome benefitting me as customer?
    - philipov 3y ago
      From an old fortune message: Q: "So, why did you get into Artificial Intelligence?" A: "It made sense: I didn't have any real intelligence." Sums up the benefit nicely.
  - jncfhnb 3y ago
    They are not the same thing. Consumer don’t know that and hence don’t care. And that’s fine.
  - sdfghswe 3y ago
    That's my point. They are the same thing. But the person I'm responding to implies that one is a benefit and the other one is a method. I was just asking which is which, seeing as I don't see the difference. They're both different names for the same set of tools, in my opinion.
phillipcarter 3y ago
Yep. A lot of engineers don't like the idea that most people aren't engineers, don't think like them, and don't appreciate things the way they do. You can't sell "machine learning solutions" unless your target audience is developers building ML systems.
- rapind 3y ago
  I have to disagree. "Machine learning" could just as easily be a marketing buzzword. Artificial Intelligence is just sexier because it's misleading (while being broad enough to be acceptable).
  - phillipcarter 3y ago
    Again, that's just the inner developer not liking the term. There's a reason why AI sticks with people and ML doesn't.
  - lucubratory 3y ago
    If machine learning were the broadly accepted term to refer to these techniques in society, the people who currently complain that "AI is misleading because they're not intelligent" would instead be complaining that "ML is misleading because they're not learning". I know this because I have already seen people complaining that ML is misleading because "they're not learning". The reality is that no matter what structure the software takes, or what outputs it achieves, it can't falsify a fundamentally unfalsifiable belief that machines cannot be like people in ways that could imply any sort of social recognition of that status.
    - rapind 3y ago
      Ai is misleading because it's too broad and consumers confuse it as AGI which is far more powerful (and not yet possible). From a marketing perspective this is a feature, not a bug since it gives off the appearance of being a much bigger deal than it is. Are we really going to pretend that marketing departments / companies aren't fully aware of and taking advantage of this misunderstanding? This just seems like common sense to me.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TimPC 3y ago
I think this one annoys people because when engineers hear AI they think of a bunch of techniques that mostly didn't work and caused an AI winter. When they hear ML they think of the latest and greatest techniques that have moved the needle on some of the hardest problems in the space.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
What you say is true, however in this case, there's no communication of benefits. AI is not a benefit, it's an attention-grabbing buzzword. I lament that people fall for buzzwords, hollow words that all mean the same thing to a fool - "Oh it's got <BUZZWORD>, that means GOOD! Just take my money!". But I don't lament for long, and when I'm done lamenting, that's when I start selling. “The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind’s flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality—without exploiting them for fun and profit.” - Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes
jebarker 3y ago
I'd also add that, as much as many engineers hate the fact, marketing is very necessary to sell things to the general market. It's also a real skill set to figure out how to market things well. Even more so when trying to sell technical capabilities.
- runeofdoom 3y ago
  I doubt it's "we need marketing to sell stuff" that engineers hate, but rather the seemingly inevitable "marketing lies about what our product does".
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I certainly don't hate that fact at all. What I hate is that marketers very often lie and misrepresent.
malkosta 3y ago
The problem is the "intelligence" word causes more harm than value. It makes the whole world afraid of what is in fact just matrix multiplications. We don't know what "intelligence" means, but we know it isn't matrix multiplication, or brute force algorithms, otherwise gears could be called intelligent. I understand the importance of selling. But selling shouldn't be confused with deceiving consumers. It's hard to accept our work is used to create general panic for the sake of money.
- snapcaster 3y ago
  "It makes the whole world afraid of what is in fact just matrix multiplications" is such a reductionist view that doesn't really capture the reality of AI taking people's jobs and reshaping the economy. That's like saying electricity is just "electrons moving through a wire"
  - jvanderbot 3y ago
    Look bombs are just an accelerated oxidization. Like rusting but fast. What's the big deal. Rusting is natural.
  - 7thaccount 3y ago
    You and the comment you're referring to are both making good comments, but may not be talking apples to apples. I believe the post you're replying to is just saying that matrix multiplications (as useful as they are), aren't going to become Skynet. Your post is pointing out that various AI techniques are replacing loads of jobs for folks that still need to make ends meet, but likely don't have the skill sets to magically become a web developer overnight. As a result, AI is pretty dangerous like many disruptions throughout history. Only in the past, there was usually still plenty of need for labor.
    - malkosta 3y ago
      That's a deep thought, it puts the discussion in a great perspective for further thinking. Thanks!
    - 3y ago
gwbas1c 3y ago
No, it's truth in labeling. > I’ve been told that a product was “driven by AI” only to find out it was driven by “if-then” statements. At best, a system like that is an "expert system." It's not artificially-intelligent in any way. This, BTW, is why many developed countries have strict labelling laws for food and trademarks. Otherwise, people will call something whatever they can get away with in order to sell it, even if it's not what they claim they're selling.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > At best, a system like that is an “expert system.” It’s not artificially-intelligent in any way. “Expert system” was adopted for that particular form of AI (which it was also considered when it was developed) because “expertise” is a combination of both intelligence and knowledge. So, if “AI” is misleading for it, “expert system” is more misleading.
mistrial9 3y ago
half the ordinary people I talk to are spooked by "AI" combine with general deterioration of services by big tech, invasive agreements and slow, growing awareness of what surveillance might look like
- JohnFen 3y ago
  Half of the engineers I talk to feel the same way.
JohnFen 3y ago
> See also: “posi-trac” (limited slip differential), “alleve” (2-(6-Methoxynaphthalen-2-yl)propanoic acid), Technicolor (usually to describe a 3-strip prismatic camera+film arrangement). But none of those examples are misleading. "AI" is (or at least very often is).
BeFlatXIII 3y ago
> “alleve” (2-(6-Methoxynaphthalen-2-yl)propanoic acid) Chemical names aren't the best examples to use, as even within the scientific community, it's extremely rare to use full IUPAC systematic names for well-known organic molecules. The fancy name for caffeine would be 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, not 1,3,7-trimethyl-3,7-Dihydro-1H-purine-2,6-dione.
helpfulContrib 3y ago
[dead]
zozbot234 3y ago
Machine learning itself used to be called "data mining" which is perhaps a more honest description of what it's all about. It amounts to a non-rigorous application of methods derived from statistics, e.g. 'deep' neural networks can be understood as a hierarchical (hence 'deep') version of regression models.
w0de0 3y ago
On the contrary, the casual lies inherent to marketing - to capitalism - are absolutely something which should disgust you. That casual dishonesty is endemic, or that it elides complexity which may escape the average intelligence - these are not reasons to accept it. Marketing is disgusting.
JohnMakin 3y ago
I love the implicit admission here that marketing is BS. Either that or you didn't read the blog post - I don't think his point is that we're calling it the wrong thing, but rather that it opens the door for a lot of people to sell something they aren't actually doing.
olliecornelia 3y ago
“Wahhh why did my startup fail?”
XIVMagnus 3y ago
hahahaah literally this. Ever since I started running my own business, I found it funny that I needed to rephrase my services in order to attract the right client. Marketing is the direct opposite of engineering, imo.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

sdflhasjd 3y ago

See also: Autopilot. I think the disgust can be justified in some circumstances, when marketing is used to oversell or just outright deceive, in this case and others which involves taking advantage of common ignorance.

bee_rider 3y ago
Autopilot is a particularly egregious case, though. Naming an experimental, very limited car feature after the device that flys the plane most of the time, and has for many years, really ought to have been illegal. It sets wildly inappropriate expectations. Most of the other names are just random nice sounding names that they made up. It is more like if they called DayQuil “Tracheotomax,” because you know, it helps you breathe!
- darkwater 3y ago
  I'm not a Elon fan but the autopilot in a plane does basically the same (if we are saying that planes and cars do the same thing, which is transport people) that Tesla's or many more manufacturers "autopilot" does on highways. Not an aviation expert but I don't think AP is controlling take-offs and landings. It controls cruise speed, altitude and direction. A car AP on a highway does the same (minus altitude).
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    True, but that's where the difference in intended usage is problematic. In the sky, autopilot can't accidentally hit another plane or barrier because it got confused about the road paint or construction signs. The stakes are a lot higher on the ground, even though it technically controls less of the vehicle than autopilot in a plane does (acceleration, braking, and steering compared to elevator, trim, roll, pitch, throttle, vector) since cars don't have to worry about 3 dimensional movement much while airplanes do.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    Also a plane's autopilot has situations where it will yell at you to take over; and have situations where it's expected that the pilot recognizes problems and overrides the autopilot. It's a good analogy from a technical standpoint, with the "minor" difference that in most situations pilots have a lot more time to react than the driver of a car. Which makes it very different from a consumer standpoint
    - rando_dfad 3y ago
      and pilots have a lot more training
  - alwayseasy 3y ago
    Autopilot was not a consumer feature but a professional one where the understanding of the system comes with multiple certifications.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > I'm not a Elon fan but the autopilot in a plane does basically the same (if we are saying that planes and cars do the same thing, which is transport people) that Tesla's or many more manufacturers "autopilot" does on highways. Even if true, when you talk about consumer marketing, none of that matters. I don't have name for it, but there's a whole class of bad-faith, deliberately misleading statements that exploit the difference between common and technical understandings (e.g. say something you know most people will inaccurately interpret as X, then fall back to the much narrower Y when challenged).
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  >It is more like if they called DayQuil “Tracheotomax,” because you know, it helps you breathe! "Introducing new Rectopurge, for all your constipation needs!"
bongoman37 3y ago
[dead]
jalk 3y ago
I was pretty disgusted when Dyson called their hairdryers “zero carbon emission” because they used brushless DC motors
- pierat 3y ago
  Yep, that's called "Greenwashing". It serves to make the middle class folk think they're making any sort of climate change oriented decision, when in fact they aren't. It also superficially makes the company doing Greenwashing look more respectable.
_ea1k 3y ago
It is no worse than "Pro Pilot". For some reason, that one never seems to bother anyone.

sdfghswe 3y ago

> In general, consumers are marketing care about the benefits, and engineers care about the methods. Hence AI versus machine learning. Sorry, which is the methods and which is the benefits? In your mind is "AI" a benefit?

itsoktocry 3y ago
>Sorry, which is the methods and which is the benefits? In your mind is "AI" a benefit? I think you're demonstrating the issue by focusing on the name again: "AI" and "Machine Learning" are the same thing. Engineers care about the method, so ML is more appropriate; it describes what they are doing. Consumers care about outcomes, so "AI" is used because it's familiar.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  > I think you're demonstrating the issue by focusing on the name again: "AI" and "Machine Learning" are the same thing. Engineers care about the method, so ML is more appropriate; it describes what they are doing. Consumers care about outcomes, so "AI" is used because it's familiar. So how is "AI" an outcome benefitting me as customer?
  - philipov 3y ago
    From an old fortune message: Q: "So, why did you get into Artificial Intelligence?" A: "It made sense: I didn't have any real intelligence." Sums up the benefit nicely.
- jncfhnb 3y ago
  They are not the same thing. Consumer don’t know that and hence don’t care. And that’s fine.
- sdfghswe 3y ago
  That's my point. They are the same thing. But the person I'm responding to implies that one is a benefit and the other one is a method. I was just asking which is which, seeing as I don't see the difference. They're both different names for the same set of tools, in my opinion.

phillipcarter 3y ago

Yep. A lot of engineers don't like the idea that most people aren't engineers, don't think like them, and don't appreciate things the way they do. You can't sell "machine learning solutions" unless your target audience is developers building ML systems.

rapind 3y ago
I have to disagree. "Machine learning" could just as easily be a marketing buzzword. Artificial Intelligence is just sexier because it's misleading (while being broad enough to be acceptable).
- phillipcarter 3y ago
  Again, that's just the inner developer not liking the term. There's a reason why AI sticks with people and ML doesn't.
- lucubratory 3y ago
  If machine learning were the broadly accepted term to refer to these techniques in society, the people who currently complain that "AI is misleading because they're not intelligent" would instead be complaining that "ML is misleading because they're not learning". I know this because I have already seen people complaining that ML is misleading because "they're not learning". The reality is that no matter what structure the software takes, or what outputs it achieves, it can't falsify a fundamentally unfalsifiable belief that machines cannot be like people in ways that could imply any sort of social recognition of that status.
  - rapind 3y ago
    Ai is misleading because it's too broad and consumers confuse it as AGI which is far more powerful (and not yet possible). From a marketing perspective this is a feature, not a bug since it gives off the appearance of being a much bigger deal than it is. Are we really going to pretend that marketing departments / companies aren't fully aware of and taking advantage of this misunderstanding? This just seems like common sense to me.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TimPC 3y ago

I think this one annoys people because when engineers hear AI they think of a bunch of techniques that mostly didn't work and caused an AI winter. When they hear ML they think of the latest and greatest techniques that have moved the needle on some of the hardest problems in the space.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

What you say is true, however in this case, there's no communication of benefits. AI is not a benefit, it's an attention-grabbing buzzword. I lament that people fall for buzzwords, hollow words that all mean the same thing to a fool - "Oh it's got <BUZZWORD>, that means GOOD! Just take my money!". But I don't lament for long, and when I'm done lamenting, that's when I start selling. “The characteristic feature of the loser is to bemoan, in general terms, mankind’s flaws, biases, contradictions, and irrationality—without exploiting them for fun and profit.” - Nassim Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes

jebarker 3y ago

I'd also add that, as much as many engineers hate the fact, marketing is very necessary to sell things to the general market. It's also a real skill set to figure out how to market things well. Even more so when trying to sell technical capabilities.

runeofdoom 3y ago
I doubt it's "we need marketing to sell stuff" that engineers hate, but rather the seemingly inevitable "marketing lies about what our product does".
JohnFen 3y ago
I certainly don't hate that fact at all. What I hate is that marketers very often lie and misrepresent.

malkosta 3y ago

The problem is the "intelligence" word causes more harm than value. It makes the whole world afraid of what is in fact just matrix multiplications. We don't know what "intelligence" means, but we know it isn't matrix multiplication, or brute force algorithms, otherwise gears could be called intelligent. I understand the importance of selling. But selling shouldn't be confused with deceiving consumers. It's hard to accept our work is used to create general panic for the sake of money.

snapcaster 3y ago
"It makes the whole world afraid of what is in fact just matrix multiplications" is such a reductionist view that doesn't really capture the reality of AI taking people's jobs and reshaping the economy. That's like saying electricity is just "electrons moving through a wire"
- jvanderbot 3y ago
  Look bombs are just an accelerated oxidization. Like rusting but fast. What's the big deal. Rusting is natural.
- 7thaccount 3y ago
  You and the comment you're referring to are both making good comments, but may not be talking apples to apples. I believe the post you're replying to is just saying that matrix multiplications (as useful as they are), aren't going to become Skynet. Your post is pointing out that various AI techniques are replacing loads of jobs for folks that still need to make ends meet, but likely don't have the skill sets to magically become a web developer overnight. As a result, AI is pretty dangerous like many disruptions throughout history. Only in the past, there was usually still plenty of need for labor.
  - malkosta 3y ago
    That's a deep thought, it puts the discussion in a great perspective for further thinking. Thanks!
  - 3y ago

gwbas1c 3y ago

No, it's truth in labeling. > I’ve been told that a product was “driven by AI” only to find out it was driven by “if-then” statements. At best, a system like that is an "expert system." It's not artificially-intelligent in any way. This, BTW, is why many developed countries have strict labelling laws for food and trademarks. Otherwise, people will call something whatever they can get away with in order to sell it, even if it's not what they claim they're selling.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> At best, a system like that is an “expert system.” It’s not artificially-intelligent in any way. “Expert system” was adopted for that particular form of AI (which it was also considered when it was developed) because “expertise” is a combination of both intelligence and knowledge. So, if “AI” is misleading for it, “expert system” is more misleading.

mistrial9 3y ago

half the ordinary people I talk to are spooked by "AI" combine with general deterioration of services by big tech, invasive agreements and slow, growing awareness of what surveillance might look like

JohnFen 3y ago
Half of the engineers I talk to feel the same way.

JohnFen 3y ago

> See also: “posi-trac” (limited slip differential), “alleve” (2-(6-Methoxynaphthalen-2-yl)propanoic acid), Technicolor (usually to describe a 3-strip prismatic camera+film arrangement). But none of those examples are misleading. "AI" is (or at least very often is).

BeFlatXIII 3y ago

> “alleve” (2-(6-Methoxynaphthalen-2-yl)propanoic acid) Chemical names aren't the best examples to use, as even within the scientific community, it's extremely rare to use full IUPAC systematic names for well-known organic molecules. The fancy name for caffeine would be 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine, not 1,3,7-trimethyl-3,7-Dihydro-1H-purine-2,6-dione.

helpfulContrib 3y ago

[dead]

zozbot234 3y ago

Machine learning itself used to be called "data mining" which is perhaps a more honest description of what it's all about. It amounts to a non-rigorous application of methods derived from statistics, e.g. 'deep' neural networks can be understood as a hierarchical (hence 'deep') version of regression models.

w0de0 3y ago

On the contrary, the casual lies inherent to marketing - to capitalism - are absolutely something which should disgust you. That casual dishonesty is endemic, or that it elides complexity which may escape the average intelligence - these are not reasons to accept it. Marketing is disgusting.

JohnMakin 3y ago

I love the implicit admission here that marketing is BS. Either that or you didn't read the blog post - I don't think his point is that we're calling it the wrong thing, but rather that it opens the door for a lot of people to sell something they aren't actually doing.

olliecornelia 3y ago

“Wahhh why did my startup fail?”

XIVMagnus 3y ago

hahahaah literally this. Ever since I started running my own business, I found it funny that I needed to rephrase my services in order to attract the right client. Marketing is the direct opposite of engineering, imo.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]