4 ms·
Most people in the broad sense don't use AI at all, at least not willingly. From your article I think "most people" in this context actually refers to a very sm
by gregjor 2y ago
Most people in the broad sense don't use AI at all, at least not willingly. From your article I think "most people" in this context actually refers to a very small number of your colleagues and people you have shown your work to.
Many people who have used AI find it useless, in the sense that it doesn't add to their workflow, and just creates more distractions and sources of error. Perhaps mistaking novelty for efficiency or increased "productivity" (always mentioned but never measured) plenty of people have tried using AI. So far the current crop of LLMs have managed to attract public interest (now waning) and piles of money (seeking a return), but have failed to achieve widespread adoption because they mostly don't add much value. Almost every big company announced AI initiatives and plastered "AI" all over their press releases, but almost none have found a "killer app" for AI.
Of course if AI could "actively observe, understand context, and offer assistance at the right moment" -- the Holy Grail of current AI work -- then more people might find it useful. But that looks more and more like a chasm current LLM technology can't cross rather than something we'll see in the next version or two. I expect AI will turn out like full self-driving, just around the corner for decades, and maybe never really happening.
- MakerBi 2y agoYes, it may be true that LLMs may never cross that chasm. But I wonder what if LLMs provide continuous help and suggestions even though there may be useless suggestions, will people consider it a helpful AI assistant?
- gregjor 2y agoI can get continuous and mostly useless "help and suggestions" from my children or parents. I don't consider that helpful in terms of getting my work done. If LLMs could do what you describe then maybe they would get more traction. Right now they seem to hold our interest out of novelty, like a talking bird, and maybe help some people who have worse skill issues than the LLMs. I may have it wrong but I think the leap from current LLMs to software that truly understands and can reason like a person will prove very difficult.
- JohnFen 2y agoI wouldn't. That would still just be a distraction. But I should admit right up front that I feel the same about things like (non-AI) code autocomplete. I find anything like that to be counterproductive because it makes me think about something other than what I need to be thinking about, disrupting "flow". A tool that occasionally gives incorrect suggestions is even worse because I need to spend even more brain cycles on evaluating it than I do with a simple autocomplete. Because of that, it's faster, easier, and more productive to write it myself.