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It's crazy to me that we managed to get such an exciting technology both theoretically and as a practical tool and still managed to make it into a bubbly hype w
by advael 2y ago
It's crazy to me that we managed to get such an exciting technology both theoretically and as a practical tool and still managed to make it into a bubbly hype wave because business people want it to be an automation technology, which is just a poor fit for what they actually do
It's kind of cool that we can make mathematical arguments for this, but the idea that generative models can function as universal automation is a fiction mostly being pushed by non-technical business and finance people, and it's a good demonstration of how we've let such people drive the priorities of technological development and adoption for far too long
A common argument I see folks make is that humans are fallible too. Yes, no shit. No automation even close to as fallible as a human at its task could function as an automation. When we automate, we remove human accountability and human versatility from the equation entirely, and can scale the error accumulation far beyond human capability. Thus, an automation that actually works needs drastically superhuman reliability, which is why functioning automations are usually narrow-domain machines
- akira2501 2y ago> want it to be an automation technology They want it to be a wage reduction technology. Everything else you've noticed is a direct consequence of this, and only this, so the analysis doesn't actually need to be any deeper than that.
- advael 2y agoBusiness culture's tribal knowledge about technology seems to have by and large devolved into wanting only bossware, that all gizmos should function as a means of controlling their suppliers, their labor force, or their customers. I think this is a good sign that the current economic incentives aren't functioning in a desirable way for most people and this needs significant intervention