5 ms·

A.I. Has Become a Technology of Faith

54 points by fortran77 2y ago

lucianbr 2y ago
> the bulk of the conversation about AI’s greatest capabilities is premised on a vision of a theoretical future Yeah. 99% of the positive opinions I read about AI are "in X years it will do Y, Z, and that will change everything". As if the future is easily predictable. Where are the flying cars? Where is the moon base? Why isn't everyone moving around on Segways? You never know what will happen. Some techs do grow exponentially, but not all, and it's impossible to know for sure which one will, ahead of time. Alas. I doubt anyone will change their opinion. "This one is different." Ah well.
- mikece 2y ago
  "Try, but verify" should be the guidance toward so-called AI.
- floxy 2y ago
  >Where are the flying cars? Apparently you can put $150 down on your flying car preorder now (only $299,999 final price). https://alef.aero/preorder.html https://alef.aero/preorder.html
its_ethan 2y ago
> It is a sales pitch, one in which the problems of today are brushed aside or softened as issues of now, which surely, leaders in the field insist, will be solved as the technology gets better. What we see today is merely a shadow of what is coming. We just have to trust them. I'm a believer that AI is currently over-hyped, but to me this feels applicable to a lot of things that have gone on to be revolutionary. For the smart-phone too, one of the "issues of now" was slow cellular connectivity, which made the premise of using your phone for web-browsing feel like a chore. With cellular speeds "solved" we now live in a world where smart phones are the tool the majority of people use the internet on. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/mobile-internet-traffic https://explodingtopics.com/blog/mobile-internet-traffic
- nybsjytm 2y ago
  > to me this feels applicable to a lot of things that have gone on to be revolutionary. The big issue is that it's also applicable to a lot of other things.
  - its_ethan 2y ago
    No doubt! I err on the side of "most things are over-hyped" (see: room temp superconductor hype that lasted a week), but I try to remind myself there's a yin and yang thing going on. Yin: "this tech will change the future" Yang: "this is over-hyped and the promises are hot air" It's easy to default to "yang" because it is true most of the time (especially with tech). But you gotta acknowledge that "yin" is actually right some times too. Nuance, man, it'll get you every time.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      I often like to use an analogy involving a local volcano. The odds are incredibly strong will not explode today, but the granularity/time-periods matter, and there's a fundamental asymmetry in how we value the false-positive rate versus the false-negative rate. :P ___ "Look, I've made daily predictions for 30 years now, and they're all perfectly 100% accurate, go on your hike, it'll be fine." <Volcano suddenly erupts in background> "Did I say 100%? OK, fine, after today it's 99.99%, which is still awesome."
    - nybsjytm 2y ago
      Right now, as stated, the "Yang" side as applied to AI is clearly true. Even if the tech will "change the future" it will be no less correct for us to say that current AI products are overhyped/vaporware and that AI salesmen and researchers are passing off sci-fi stories and business strategies as wise prognostication. Even if what they're saying turns out to be true, it's completely correct to say that they're just (sometimes unbeknownst to themselves) wildly guessing.
      - its_ethan 2y ago
        I don't really intend to bicker, but I'm a little curious about the thinking here.. Maybe it's getting too philosophical, but if you're correct because of "wildly guessing".. you're still correct. Maybe you've only been correct 2% of the time with your predictions, but that doesn't change being right or wrong in any given instance. If someone says "it will do A" and you say "no it won't, you're passing off sci-fi as prognostication", and then it does end up doing "A", you were wrong? No? If someone's AI tech does end up "changing the future" then how would you not be incorrect if you had previously said it was vaporware?
andersco 2y ago
https://archive.is/duPil https://archive.is/duPil
MulliMulli 2y ago
I was a skeptic after all the hype around Blockchain, Virtual Reality, and other technologies over the last few years. However, I have to say I find AI impressive. Compared to the other things I mentioned, I see cool new products and solutions popping up every week that add real value to my personal and professional life. ChatGPT alone saves me at least 10 hours of work every week, with more savings all the time.
- jl6 2y ago
  I think it’s consistent to find AI overhyped while still believing it to have some value.
  - itsdrewmiller 2y ago
    I think this is true, but the real question is where to position yourself on emphasizing the true current value and future potential of AI, vs. tamping down on excess hype. My peer group tends to poo poo AI (I think they email me every single Ed Zitron post), so I end up aggressively pro-AI in most social interactions despite having no specific expectations around AGI or even continued near linear improvement. Even if we are six months from hitting the asymptote on LLMs, they will be powering incredible innovation and value for the next decade.
SamJose 2y ago
In the early 80's home computers were a technology of faith. Many thought it was absurd that many people would want computers in their home.
- nybsjytm 2y ago
  Just for balance, here's 84 examples of the opposite: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21029499/decade-fails-flops-tech-science-culture-apple-google-data-kickstarter-2010-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21029499/decade-fails-fl...
  - SamJose 2y ago
    "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olsen I was there. I remember people saying it, but this f*cking site wants to downvote me into negative for remembering it, probably because they are thinking of business computers. Everyone was on board with that. I'm talking specifically of home computers.
    - nybsjytm 2y ago
      I wouldn't worry, I think what you're saying is pretty well known. We've all heard it before from every tech evangelist out there. Everyone knows that sometimes tech naysayers turn out to be wrong; the point is that it's pretty useless information.
      - SamJose 2y ago
        The AI naysayers will be similarly remembered was the point of my "useless information" post. I was surprised to be downvoted, probably because those doing it have an axe to grind and have poor reading comprehension skills. Surprising for Hacker News, but I've noticed every site is getting dumber at an alarming rate so why should Hacker News be the exception? If you're going to downvote me for disagreeing with me at least say why. It's in the HN guidelines
    - rpdillon 2y ago
oglop 2y ago
[flagged]
aaroninsf 2y ago
Every critique of AI assumes to some degree that contemporary implementations will not, or cannot, be improved upon. -Ximm's Law
tomatohs 2y ago
AI is a machine that can creates more than what you put in. That is "value creation" by definition. If you've used AI, you know it's a massive timesaver. I find a lot of those who are skeptical haven't used it very much.
- radarsat1 2y ago
  Yesterday I needed to make a simple GUI app for a specific purpose. I haven't done it in a while so I figured it would take some time, but just to try, I drew a picture of the interface I had in mind and told 4o to generate a PyQt5 app for me, and it ... did it. Still took a bit of back and forth for some details but damn if it didn't get me from A to B way faster than if I'd been sitting there figuring out VBoxLayout etc again from scratch after several years. I was impressed.
- floxy 2y ago
  >I find a lot of those who are skeptical haven't used it very much. Any tips on how I can use it more? Right now, my AI experience has been limited to asking ChatGPT questions, which it makes up incorrect answers to. And making some funky rap songs. And trying to avoid seemingly AI created videos on Youtube. Is there a setup where I can describe a motion that I want, and it will synthesize a mechanical linkage that will accomplish the task?
  - itsdrewmiller 2y ago
    What kinds of questions are you asking that it is consistently getting wrong? Do you write any code? That’s something AI is very consistently helpful for, even without being 100% perfect.
  - tomatohs 2y ago
    AI makes things up so it's not appropriate for deterministic solutions. I'm sure something is coming for your mechanical linkage problem. As for using it more, think of it as a co-worker and not a chat bot. There was a switch that had to happen in my brain before I started realizing I could just ask AI for the answer. Starting with, why did you prefer to ask me for this answer rather than AI? This is what AI would have said: > Great question! It sounds like you've had some interesting experiences with AI so far. There are definitely more practical and impactful ways to utilize AI beyond chatbots and entertainment. > Problem-Specific AI Tools: There are specialized AI tools designed for various fields. For instance, in mechanical engineering, there are AI-driven CAD tools that can help design and optimize mechanical linkages. You might want to explore software like Autodesk Fusion 360, which incorporates AI for generative design. These tools can take your specifications and generate a variety of design options. > Learning Resources: To get more comfortable with AI, you might find it useful to check out online courses on platforms like Coursera or edX. They offer courses on machine learning, AI, and specific applications in different fields. > Experiment with AI APIs: Platforms like OpenAI, Google Cloud AI, and IBM Watson offer APIs that you can integrate into your projects. For instance, you could use them to analyze data, generate content, or even control hardware. > Join AI Communities: Engaging with communities like AI Stack Exchange, Reddit's r/MachineLearning, or even specialized LinkedIn groups can provide you with tips, resources, and examples of how others are using AI in innovative ways. > Hands-on Projects: Try building a small project that leverages AI. For example, you could create a simple AI-powered application using Python and libraries like TensorFlow or PyTorch. This could be anything from a predictive model to a small automated system.
bell-cot 2y ago
Techno-utopianism requires a new & different Awesome New Technologies every few years - once people start to realize that the previous ANT ain't gonna take us to the Promised Land after all. Just like the previoius ANT didn't, and the one before that didn't, and the one before... On the bright side - at least they aren't trying to sell us on the idea of nuclear-powered cars, or commuting via rocket-belt anymore.
AndrewKemendo 2y ago
OpenAI =/= AI I could sit here and list hundreds of places that AI - specifically deep learning is applied in your daily life to improve it Yall seem to also forget about Deepmind every time https://deepmind.google/technologies/alphafold/ https://deepmind.google/technologies/alphafold/ They literally solved protein folding with AI and won the Lasker prize Similarly with AlphaGo etc… AI is the most frustrating discipline to be in (and also most inspiring imo) because it’s never enough and anything that works, ceases to be AI AI has always been a technology of faith if you recognize that the lived definition is “any technology that has been conceived but not widely implemented”
- nybsjytm 2y ago
  > They literally solved protein folding with AI AlphaFold deserves some hype but this is a tremendous overstatement.
  - AndrewKemendo 2y ago
    It’s not an overstatement: AlphaFold, developed by the Alphabet-owned company DeepMind, predicted the 3-D structures of almost every known protein—about 200 million in all
    - nybsjytm 2y ago
      I can also make a prediction for every single known protein, it's trivial to do. My own predictions would be uniformly wrong. The question is how accurate AlphaFold's predictions are - of course, this question was almost totally avoided by the news reports and DeepMind press releases. It is accurate enough (and accurate often enough) to be a useful tool but by no means accurate enough to say they "literally solved protein folding."
  - nojvek 2y ago
    Ha! That’s the hype there. They made predictions, like any other model out there. Their models are better but not close to what we get out of xray crystallography which is a painstaking process. Protein folding is nowhere near a solved problem. A third of proteins don’t have high enough accuracy. https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2020/12/02/no-deepmind-has-not-solved-protein-folding/ https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2020/12/02/no-deepmind-h...
k310 2y ago
The future’s bright if we get there. Each new technology, be it search (with surveillance compute load), crypto, and now AI, places enormous load on the grid, that also serves consumers, something as un-glamorous as air conditioning. AI or A/C? “Oh, but it’s different this time.” Shiny objects competing with survival. Tell that to non-1337 working stiffs and retirees on a fixed income saddled with enormous PG&E bills. Please innovate in more useful and less shiny ways. The planet is literally burning up, not just my little piece of it.
benreesman 2y ago
It can be both a big deal fundamentally and a major pillar of a weird, scary religion. It is currently both. Of course machine learning is a big deal, it was a big deal a decade ago and more. We know it’s a big deal. This Calvinism meets growth hacking, this Scientology for Atherton thing is bizarre and kind of terrifying. It is in no way surprising that a philosophy that justifies short-run amoral wealth maximization with tired arguments about long-run utilitarianism would turn out any other way. What’s surprising is that people who talk about imminent digital gods are put in positions of vast power instead of therapy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
shinycode 2y ago
AI can’t solve everything because, although most things can be described and explained. Most other have to be experienced. And even though something sounds nice in text, once experienced we can say if it’s good or not. For example, an AI can create a recipe that sounds good, but it will never be able to ground those choices on experience. Only through other people’s experiences combined, which might not be great in the end. And it won’t ever produce and adjust it based on its experience. The same for a lot of other things that AI is meant to « replace ».
- bitnasty 2y ago
  I agree with most of your post, except the last bit. AI replacing human workers is not black and white. AI will not replace all human artists, for example, but with AI, artists are needed less often. Whether this is good or bad, I don’t know.
  - shinycode 2y ago
    It’s true and it happened for example with tailors. Before a lot of people were wearing suits and there was a lot of tailors. Now with industries and cheap clothes, tailors are rare but not dead. There is a few tailors compared to before but the skills are now a luxury and those suits are really expensive compared to the industrial made ones. It’s probably going to be the same circle, the quality will go down, the workers with it as well. But the ones remaining might have the opportunity to move up and become a luxury. It happened to most domains touched by industries, luxury developed (shoes, bags, clothes, food etc). Whether or not AI worker will level up the quality or dilute the quality in the low end we don’t know yet Edit: As regards to art, I stumbled across this ad : https://youtu.be/GuieFpIauN0 https://youtu.be/GuieFpIauN0 which is impressive given the final "cost" to produce it. I wonder how much it would have cost a human to do it from scratch. The quality is not amazing, but the message is there. Art is concerned as well, why would I learn how to do this if no one will pay humans to create it ?
WalterSear 2y ago
A.I. Has Become a Technology of Smug Pshaw, Pshaw, I Didn't Understand Blockchain Either And Look How That Turned Out.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  And also the metaverse (remember when one of the world's largest companies changed its name because of how revolutionary the metaverse was going to be). The ratio of hits to misses with tech hype is not good recently. I don't blame anyone for being skeptical.
GaggiX 2y ago
Machine learning is really the only way to deal with non-formal, unstructured data, there is nothing to believe, the technology has been battle tested by billions of people, just think of BERT used by Google Search or all the AI models used for moderation, translation or detection and many more cases. But I guess all these use cases are just too boring to talk about today, AI has already helped millions of people at least, including me since I'm a native English speaker, I learned a lot just by using Deepl or YouTube with the auto-generated captions (which are much better today than they were in the past).
amiantos 2y ago
I think this movement around 'debunking AI' is entirely the fault of marketing and company CEOs inflating the potential around generative AI to such ridiculous amounts. Of course after CEOs toured the country shouting about the dangers and virtues of AI as if it will destroy the world or remake it into something better, and that it will do it any minute now, everyone is 'annoyed' now that neither thing has happened already. How long ago were people screaming and crying that AI development must be slowed down by world governments or else? Similar tone in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ByoAt5gCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ByoAt5gCA I say 'annoyed' with quotes, because as far as I can tell it's largely journalists and the media machine that seem to be taking a gleeful lap telling everyone how AI hasn't measured up after promoting the idea that AI will steal all their jobs and ruin the internet. I think that's the fun part of some of these perspectives, that inherent conflict, that journalists want to convince us that AI is very dangerous technology and that it's stealing all their work and it's going to put everyone out of a job... but also AI is not living up to expectations and it's a nothing burger and all these companies are a joke selling lies to people. It's really hard square these conflicting storylines being served to us by the press (who are obviously biased against the technology that they think will destroy their livelihoods). I hate to sound like one of those "you can't just journalism!" cranks, because I feel that way about nothing else, but in this case sometimes the vitriol coming from journalists about AI related technologies seems a bit much.
- nybsjytm 2y ago
  > I think this movement around 'debunking AI' is entirely the fault of marketing and company CEOs inflating the potential around generative AI to such ridiculous amounts. I don't think you should let the AI research community off the hook so easily. Some of the most obnoxious and influential voices are researchers who are taken as credible authorities. I'm thinking for instance of the disgraceful "Sparks of AGI" paper from Sebastien Bubeck's research team at Microsoft Research, also certain "godfathers", etc.
650 2y ago
Of course this had to be whisked off the front page ;) > Through an op-ed in Time, Altman and Huffington had just announced the launch of a new company called Thrive AI Health Launching Companies Grifter, I guess he found his shtick.

54 points by fortran77 2y ago

> the bulk of the conversation about AI’s greatest capabilities is premised on a vision of a theoretical future Yeah. 99% of the positive opinions I read about AI are "in X years it will do Y, Z, and that will change everything". As if the future is easily predictable. Where are the flying cars? Where is the moon base? Why isn't everyone moving around on Segways? You never know what will happen. Some techs do grow exponentially, but not all, and it's impossible to know for sure which one will, ahead of time. Alas. I doubt anyone will change their opinion. "This one is different." Ah well.

mikece 2y ago
"Try, but verify" should be the guidance toward so-called AI.
floxy 2y ago
>Where are the flying cars? Apparently you can put $150 down on your flying car preorder now (only $299,999 final price). https://alef.aero/preorder.html https://alef.aero/preorder.html

its_ethan 2y ago

> It is a sales pitch, one in which the problems of today are brushed aside or softened as issues of now, which surely, leaders in the field insist, will be solved as the technology gets better. What we see today is merely a shadow of what is coming. We just have to trust them. I'm a believer that AI is currently over-hyped, but to me this feels applicable to a lot of things that have gone on to be revolutionary. For the smart-phone too, one of the "issues of now" was slow cellular connectivity, which made the premise of using your phone for web-browsing feel like a chore. With cellular speeds "solved" we now live in a world where smart phones are the tool the majority of people use the internet on. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/mobile-internet-traffic https://explodingtopics.com/blog/mobile-internet-traffic

nybsjytm 2y ago
> to me this feels applicable to a lot of things that have gone on to be revolutionary. The big issue is that it's also applicable to a lot of other things.
- its_ethan 2y ago
  No doubt! I err on the side of "most things are over-hyped" (see: room temp superconductor hype that lasted a week), but I try to remind myself there's a yin and yang thing going on. Yin: "this tech will change the future" Yang: "this is over-hyped and the promises are hot air" It's easy to default to "yang" because it is true most of the time (especially with tech). But you gotta acknowledge that "yin" is actually right some times too. Nuance, man, it'll get you every time.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    I often like to use an analogy involving a local volcano. The odds are incredibly strong will not explode today, but the granularity/time-periods matter, and there's a fundamental asymmetry in how we value the false-positive rate versus the false-negative rate. :P ___ "Look, I've made daily predictions for 30 years now, and they're all perfectly 100% accurate, go on your hike, it'll be fine." <Volcano suddenly erupts in background> "Did I say 100%? OK, fine, after today it's 99.99%, which is still awesome."
  - nybsjytm 2y ago
    Right now, as stated, the "Yang" side as applied to AI is clearly true. Even if the tech will "change the future" it will be no less correct for us to say that current AI products are overhyped/vaporware and that AI salesmen and researchers are passing off sci-fi stories and business strategies as wise prognostication. Even if what they're saying turns out to be true, it's completely correct to say that they're just (sometimes unbeknownst to themselves) wildly guessing.
    - its_ethan 2y ago
      I don't really intend to bicker, but I'm a little curious about the thinking here.. Maybe it's getting too philosophical, but if you're correct because of "wildly guessing".. you're still correct. Maybe you've only been correct 2% of the time with your predictions, but that doesn't change being right or wrong in any given instance. If someone says "it will do A" and you say "no it won't, you're passing off sci-fi as prognostication", and then it does end up doing "A", you were wrong? No? If someone's AI tech does end up "changing the future" then how would you not be incorrect if you had previously said it was vaporware?

andersco 2y ago

https://archive.is/duPil https://archive.is/duPil

MulliMulli 2y ago

I was a skeptic after all the hype around Blockchain, Virtual Reality, and other technologies over the last few years. However, I have to say I find AI impressive. Compared to the other things I mentioned, I see cool new products and solutions popping up every week that add real value to my personal and professional life. ChatGPT alone saves me at least 10 hours of work every week, with more savings all the time.

jl6 2y ago
I think it’s consistent to find AI overhyped while still believing it to have some value.
- itsdrewmiller 2y ago
  I think this is true, but the real question is where to position yourself on emphasizing the true current value and future potential of AI, vs. tamping down on excess hype. My peer group tends to poo poo AI (I think they email me every single Ed Zitron post), so I end up aggressively pro-AI in most social interactions despite having no specific expectations around AGI or even continued near linear improvement. Even if we are six months from hitting the asymptote on LLMs, they will be powering incredible innovation and value for the next decade.

SamJose 2y ago

In the early 80's home computers were a technology of faith. Many thought it was absurd that many people would want computers in their home.

nybsjytm 2y ago
Just for balance, here's 84 examples of the opposite: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21029499/decade-fails-flops-tech-science-culture-apple-google-data-kickstarter-2010-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/20/21029499/decade-fails-fl...
- SamJose 2y ago
  "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." - Ken Olsen I was there. I remember people saying it, but this f*cking site wants to downvote me into negative for remembering it, probably because they are thinking of business computers. Everyone was on board with that. I'm talking specifically of home computers.
  - nybsjytm 2y ago
    I wouldn't worry, I think what you're saying is pretty well known. We've all heard it before from every tech evangelist out there. Everyone knows that sometimes tech naysayers turn out to be wrong; the point is that it's pretty useless information.
    - SamJose 2y ago
      The AI naysayers will be similarly remembered was the point of my "useless information" post. I was surprised to be downvoted, probably because those doing it have an axe to grind and have poor reading comprehension skills. Surprising for Hacker News, but I've noticed every site is getting dumber at an alarming rate so why should Hacker News be the exception? If you're going to downvote me for disagreeing with me at least say why. It's in the HN guidelines
  - rpdillon 2y ago

oglop 2y ago

[flagged]

aaroninsf 2y ago

Every critique of AI assumes to some degree that contemporary implementations will not, or cannot, be improved upon. -Ximm's Law

tomatohs 2y ago

AI is a machine that can creates more than what you put in. That is "value creation" by definition. If you've used AI, you know it's a massive timesaver. I find a lot of those who are skeptical haven't used it very much.

radarsat1 2y ago
Yesterday I needed to make a simple GUI app for a specific purpose. I haven't done it in a while so I figured it would take some time, but just to try, I drew a picture of the interface I had in mind and told 4o to generate a PyQt5 app for me, and it ... did it. Still took a bit of back and forth for some details but damn if it didn't get me from A to B way faster than if I'd been sitting there figuring out VBoxLayout etc again from scratch after several years. I was impressed.
floxy 2y ago
>I find a lot of those who are skeptical haven't used it very much. Any tips on how I can use it more? Right now, my AI experience has been limited to asking ChatGPT questions, which it makes up incorrect answers to. And making some funky rap songs. And trying to avoid seemingly AI created videos on Youtube. Is there a setup where I can describe a motion that I want, and it will synthesize a mechanical linkage that will accomplish the task?
- itsdrewmiller 2y ago
  What kinds of questions are you asking that it is consistently getting wrong? Do you write any code? That’s something AI is very consistently helpful for, even without being 100% perfect.
- tomatohs 2y ago
  AI makes things up so it's not appropriate for deterministic solutions. I'm sure something is coming for your mechanical linkage problem. As for using it more, think of it as a co-worker and not a chat bot. There was a switch that had to happen in my brain before I started realizing I could just ask AI for the answer. Starting with, why did you prefer to ask me for this answer rather than AI? This is what AI would have said: > Great question! It sounds like you've had some interesting experiences with AI so far. There are definitely more practical and impactful ways to utilize AI beyond chatbots and entertainment. > Problem-Specific AI Tools: There are specialized AI tools designed for various fields. For instance, in mechanical engineering, there are AI-driven CAD tools that can help design and optimize mechanical linkages. You might want to explore software like Autodesk Fusion 360, which incorporates AI for generative design. These tools can take your specifications and generate a variety of design options. > Learning Resources: To get more comfortable with AI, you might find it useful to check out online courses on platforms like Coursera or edX. They offer courses on machine learning, AI, and specific applications in different fields. > Experiment with AI APIs: Platforms like OpenAI, Google Cloud AI, and IBM Watson offer APIs that you can integrate into your projects. For instance, you could use them to analyze data, generate content, or even control hardware. > Join AI Communities: Engaging with communities like AI Stack Exchange, Reddit's r/MachineLearning, or even specialized LinkedIn groups can provide you with tips, resources, and examples of how others are using AI in innovative ways. > Hands-on Projects: Try building a small project that leverages AI. For example, you could create a simple AI-powered application using Python and libraries like TensorFlow or PyTorch. This could be anything from a predictive model to a small automated system.

bell-cot 2y ago

Techno-utopianism requires a new & different Awesome New Technologies every few years - once people start to realize that the previous ANT ain't gonna take us to the Promised Land after all. Just like the previoius ANT didn't, and the one before that didn't, and the one before... On the bright side - at least they aren't trying to sell us on the idea of nuclear-powered cars, or commuting via rocket-belt anymore.

AndrewKemendo 2y ago

OpenAI =/= AI I could sit here and list hundreds of places that AI - specifically deep learning is applied in your daily life to improve it Yall seem to also forget about Deepmind every time https://deepmind.google/technologies/alphafold/ https://deepmind.google/technologies/alphafold/ They literally solved protein folding with AI and won the Lasker prize Similarly with AlphaGo etc… AI is the most frustrating discipline to be in (and also most inspiring imo) because it’s never enough and anything that works, ceases to be AI AI has always been a technology of faith if you recognize that the lived definition is “any technology that has been conceived but not widely implemented”

nybsjytm 2y ago
> They literally solved protein folding with AI AlphaFold deserves some hype but this is a tremendous overstatement.
- AndrewKemendo 2y ago
  It’s not an overstatement: AlphaFold, developed by the Alphabet-owned company DeepMind, predicted the 3-D structures of almost every known protein—about 200 million in all
  - nybsjytm 2y ago
    I can also make a prediction for every single known protein, it's trivial to do. My own predictions would be uniformly wrong. The question is how accurate AlphaFold's predictions are - of course, this question was almost totally avoided by the news reports and DeepMind press releases. It is accurate enough (and accurate often enough) to be a useful tool but by no means accurate enough to say they "literally solved protein folding."
- nojvek 2y ago
  Ha! That’s the hype there. They made predictions, like any other model out there. Their models are better but not close to what we get out of xray crystallography which is a painstaking process. Protein folding is nowhere near a solved problem. A third of proteins don’t have high enough accuracy. https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2020/12/02/no-deepmind-has-not-solved-protein-folding/ https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2020/12/02/no-deepmind-h...

k310 2y ago

The future’s bright if we get there. Each new technology, be it search (with surveillance compute load), crypto, and now AI, places enormous load on the grid, that also serves consumers, something as un-glamorous as air conditioning. AI or A/C? “Oh, but it’s different this time.” Shiny objects competing with survival. Tell that to non-1337 working stiffs and retirees on a fixed income saddled with enormous PG&E bills. Please innovate in more useful and less shiny ways. The planet is literally burning up, not just my little piece of it.

benreesman 2y ago

It can be both a big deal fundamentally and a major pillar of a weird, scary religion. It is currently both. Of course machine learning is a big deal, it was a big deal a decade ago and more. We know it’s a big deal. This Calvinism meets growth hacking, this Scientology for Atherton thing is bizarre and kind of terrifying. It is in no way surprising that a philosophy that justifies short-run amoral wealth maximization with tired arguments about long-run utilitarianism would turn out any other way. What’s surprising is that people who talk about imminent digital gods are put in positions of vast power instead of therapy.

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shinycode 2y ago

AI can’t solve everything because, although most things can be described and explained. Most other have to be experienced. And even though something sounds nice in text, once experienced we can say if it’s good or not. For example, an AI can create a recipe that sounds good, but it will never be able to ground those choices on experience. Only through other people’s experiences combined, which might not be great in the end. And it won’t ever produce and adjust it based on its experience. The same for a lot of other things that AI is meant to « replace ».

bitnasty 2y ago
I agree with most of your post, except the last bit. AI replacing human workers is not black and white. AI will not replace all human artists, for example, but with AI, artists are needed less often. Whether this is good or bad, I don’t know.
- shinycode 2y ago
  It’s true and it happened for example with tailors. Before a lot of people were wearing suits and there was a lot of tailors. Now with industries and cheap clothes, tailors are rare but not dead. There is a few tailors compared to before but the skills are now a luxury and those suits are really expensive compared to the industrial made ones. It’s probably going to be the same circle, the quality will go down, the workers with it as well. But the ones remaining might have the opportunity to move up and become a luxury. It happened to most domains touched by industries, luxury developed (shoes, bags, clothes, food etc). Whether or not AI worker will level up the quality or dilute the quality in the low end we don’t know yet Edit: As regards to art, I stumbled across this ad : https://youtu.be/GuieFpIauN0 https://youtu.be/GuieFpIauN0 which is impressive given the final "cost" to produce it. I wonder how much it would have cost a human to do it from scratch. The quality is not amazing, but the message is there. Art is concerned as well, why would I learn how to do this if no one will pay humans to create it ?

WalterSear 2y ago

A.I. Has Become a Technology of Smug Pshaw, Pshaw, I Didn't Understand Blockchain Either And Look How That Turned Out.

AlexandrB 2y ago
And also the metaverse (remember when one of the world's largest companies changed its name because of how revolutionary the metaverse was going to be). The ratio of hits to misses with tech hype is not good recently. I don't blame anyone for being skeptical.

GaggiX 2y ago

Machine learning is really the only way to deal with non-formal, unstructured data, there is nothing to believe, the technology has been battle tested by billions of people, just think of BERT used by Google Search or all the AI models used for moderation, translation or detection and many more cases. But I guess all these use cases are just too boring to talk about today, AI has already helped millions of people at least, including me since I'm a native English speaker, I learned a lot just by using Deepl or YouTube with the auto-generated captions (which are much better today than they were in the past).

amiantos 2y ago

I think this movement around 'debunking AI' is entirely the fault of marketing and company CEOs inflating the potential around generative AI to such ridiculous amounts. Of course after CEOs toured the country shouting about the dangers and virtues of AI as if it will destroy the world or remake it into something better, and that it will do it any minute now, everyone is 'annoyed' now that neither thing has happened already. How long ago were people screaming and crying that AI development must be slowed down by world governments or else? Similar tone in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ByoAt5gCA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8ByoAt5gCA I say 'annoyed' with quotes, because as far as I can tell it's largely journalists and the media machine that seem to be taking a gleeful lap telling everyone how AI hasn't measured up after promoting the idea that AI will steal all their jobs and ruin the internet. I think that's the fun part of some of these perspectives, that inherent conflict, that journalists want to convince us that AI is very dangerous technology and that it's stealing all their work and it's going to put everyone out of a job... but also AI is not living up to expectations and it's a nothing burger and all these companies are a joke selling lies to people. It's really hard square these conflicting storylines being served to us by the press (who are obviously biased against the technology that they think will destroy their livelihoods). I hate to sound like one of those "you can't just journalism!" cranks, because I feel that way about nothing else, but in this case sometimes the vitriol coming from journalists about AI related technologies seems a bit much.

nybsjytm 2y ago
> I think this movement around 'debunking AI' is entirely the fault of marketing and company CEOs inflating the potential around generative AI to such ridiculous amounts. I don't think you should let the AI research community off the hook so easily. Some of the most obnoxious and influential voices are researchers who are taken as credible authorities. I'm thinking for instance of the disgraceful "Sparks of AGI" paper from Sebastien Bubeck's research team at Microsoft Research, also certain "godfathers", etc.

650 2y ago

Of course this had to be whisked off the front page ;) > Through an op-ed in Time, Altman and Huffington had just announced the launch of a new company called Thrive AI Health Launching Companies Grifter, I guess he found his shtick.