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In many cases we need something less like AI and more like a basic algorithm (2023)
- not_your_vase 2y agoThis doesn't seem to be about improvement nor about algorithms. It's about bolting AI on top of everything (because that's the style at the time) for the sake of being able to tell that it has AI. From marketing pov it kind of makes sense. If I think about it, if there are two otherwise equal toilet brushes, I will pick the one that has AI too.
- rightbyte 2y ago> If I think about it, if there are two otherwise equal toilet brushes, I will pick the one that has AI too. Really? Will you, or do you believe other people will? (I realize toilet brush is a metaphor).
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y agoIf the prices were comparable id take the non ai one because the manufacturing cost probably went into better materials
- rolph 2y agoout of all the things an ai proffers, i have yet see one, wash windows; swweep floors; scrub toilets; or make coffee. if AI could do those things, seamlessly, then i would bite, other than that it looks and smells like a grift.
- karmakaze 2y agoCars are a good counterexample. Low-tech cars have much less troubles. Eventually full-featured ones will also be consistently reliable and secure but we're going through growing pains. Safety features that can be enabled/disabled are a good advancement though.
- drewcoo 2y agoSoftware today might be more like cars in the 1950s. Every year, cars needed to feature new, useless styling to be attractive to buyers. Cars were often replaced annually so that the neighbors could see your taller fins and space-age styling. This also is the era when seatbelts were known to save lives but were not included in most cars.
- shmerl 2y agoYes, indeed. This push for "AI has to do everything" is dumb. It seems to be the new buzzword and koolaid that has to be attached to every context just because.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y agoClaiming that AI is not useful is absurd and oxymoronic. If you cant figure out how to use it, you are locked in a paradigm that is becoming obsolete.
- allears 2y agoThe post doesn't claim that AI is useless. It just makes the point that sometimes there are much simpler (faster, cheaper) solutions that are just as effective if not more so.
- CamperBob2 2y agoThose are often the solutions that AI is particularly well-suited to employing.
- bing_dai 2y agoCould you provide an example?
- Retric 2y agoSure these are often things AI is capable of doing. However, if using AI provides a worse product, building it takes longer and costs more, and the product is error prone, slower, and or more expensive to use then AI is simply a poor solution. The only argument has nothing to do with the product it’s about padding a resume etc.
- pomtato 2y agowell to steal a quote, "Neural networks are second best at almost everything"
- darby_nine 2y agoI honestly have no clue what people expect ai to "obsolete". The world doesn't work like that.
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- gcp123 2y agoThis is about selling solutions vs solving problems. There's an excellent quote about this common phenomenon from Lant Pritchett (Prof @ Harvard Kennedy School) that has stuck with me for years, and helped improve how I begin a working relationship with my clients: "A lot of the time when we first interact with people and ask them to come up with problems that they want to solve they often name a solution because they have a preset idea of the solution and hence they never really have thought through to the problem to which this that was a solution" Here is a great quick explanation of this from him and how he addresses it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ewJatFeZU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ewJatFeZU
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- appsDev 2y agoI completely agree, I think even in some cases eventually AI should be combined with a basic algorithm, for example chatGPT sometimes gives wrong math answers, which makes sense because it is just generating what it "says" based on it's data. If it could take the equation it finds though and plug it into a simple calculator algorithm then the answer would be correct. Just simple example, but you know what I mean..
- jondwillis 2y agoAI (language models) are already being combined with basic algorithms as you say to solve issues like not being able to “do” math.
- appsDev 2y agoYes, I agree! Just wanted to give an example though of how a basic algorithms should not be forgotten :)
- TYPE_FASTER 2y agoThey used to be called “expert systems.”
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