5 ms·

I really wish BrandShield didn't use AI as a marketing term. It just looks like it's doing a generic ctrl-F on webpages? Then things like this happen, and peop

I really wish BrandShield didn't use AI as a marketing term. It just looks like it's doing a generic ctrl-F on webpages? Then things like this happen, and people think "ooh AI is bad, the bubble must burst" when this has nothing to do with that in the first place, and the real issue was that they sent a "fraud/phishing report" rather than a "trademark infringement" report. Then I also wish that people who knew better, that this really has nothing to do with AI (like, this is obviously not autonomously making decisions any more than a regular program is), to stop blindly parroting and blaming it as a way to get more clicks, support and rage.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
I fear that ship has already sailed. I think the grifters and scammers have already abused the term enough that even decent uses of it are now tainted. I know that the two aren't strictly the same, but I would suggest using "Machine Learning" instead, which I think has more respectable connotations.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  AS IS TRADITION. (After the previous AI bubble, no-one mentioned the dread term for about 20 years, instead using the safely ultra-broad umbrella term.)
rsynnott 2y ago
I mean, whether this has anything to do with AI or not (I’d buy that they’re using LLMs to write abuse letters or similar) it fits very nicely into the general pattern of AI breaking the internet through an endless deluge of worthless misleading spam. So, perhaps call it honorary AI?
CaptainFever 2y ago
It's possible they were using LLMs (or even just traditional ML algorithms) to choose if a certain webpage was fraud/phishing instead of mere trademark infringement, though. In this case it makes sense that one would be angry that a sapient being didn't first check if the report was accurate before sending it off.
- acka 2y ago
  More than the hypothetical risk of Earth being consumed by a paperclip-making machine, I believe the real and present danger in the use of ML and AI technology lies in humans making irresponsible decisions about where and how to apply these technologies. For example, in my country, we are still dealing with the fallout from a decision made over a decade ago by the Tax Department. They used a poorly designed ML algorithm to screen applicants claiming social benefits for fraudulent activity. This led to several public inquiries and even contributed to the collapse of a government coalition. Tens of thousands of people are still suffering from being wrongly labeled as fraudulent, facing hefty fines and being forced to repay so-called fraudulent benefits.
  - CaptainFever 2y ago
    Perhaps in certain cases requiring someone to sign off, and take the blame if anything happens, would help alleviate this problem. Much like how engineers need to sign off on construction plans. (Layman here, obviously.)
    - wholinator2 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - jcranmer 2y ago
        The comment you are replying to is using commas correctly: it's partitioning off a clause of the sentence as a side phrase that can be removed, and the resulting sentence is a fully grammatically-correct sentence. If you really hate commas, you can replace the commas here with parentheses, but honestly, I prefer the commas here.
        BalinKing 2y ago
        I agree with the parent that in formal written English, the comma would be incorrect—cf. the "In compound predicates" section in [0]. But I disagree that the sentence is hard to parse as a result, and I doubt many would think twice about it given that we're on an informal internet message board. [0] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/punctuation-capitalization/comma/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/punctuation-capitalization/co...
johnnyanmac 2y ago
> and people think "ooh AI is bad, the bubble must burst" when this has nothing to do with that in the first place That haphazard branding and parroting is exactly why the bubble needs to burst. Bubbles bursting take out the gritters and rarely actually kills off all the innovation in the scene (it kills a lot, though. I'm not trying to dismiss that).
- kombookcha 2y ago
  Exactly this, if you give a hoot about actual useful applications for AI, there is a great need to clear out all the grifters and scammers attracted by the initial hype cycle.
pdpi 2y ago
I find that businesses that bill themselves as ${TOOL}-users instead of ${PROBLEM}-solvers are, as a general rule, problematic. I couldn't possibly care any less whether a product is built on AI or a clever switch statement or a bazillion little gnomes doing the work by hand. I care that it solves a problem. AI does need to die. Not so much because LLMs are bad, but rather because, like "big data" and "blockchain" and many other buzzwordy tools before it, it is a solution looking for a problem.
- 7thaccount 2y ago
  The AI hype is annoying in my field as well. AI can have its uses, but we already figured out where to use it in my field ages ago. That doesn't stop people from hyping nothing though.
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago
  Yes. If your business solves a real customer problem and uses "blockchain" to do it, that's great, but you should describe yourself as a tool to solve the problem. If you mention blockchain on the homepage of your product at all, it should be treated with suspicious. It's a sign that you're speaking to investors and fools and not to savvy customers. One exception: personal projects. "This is an NES emulator that is built in Rust, and it uses Rust because I wanted to learn Rust" is a perfectly good description of a project (but not a business).
  - pdpi 2y ago
    > This is an NES emulator that is built in Rust, and it uses Rust because I wanted to learn Rust Arguably, in this scenario, learning rust is the "business need" and the NES emulator is the tool :) But yeah, exactly. A blockchain is, technically, just a content-addressable linked list. A Merkle tree is the same, as a tree. Git's core data structure is a DAG version of this. These things are useful. Yet nobody calls Git "blockchain technology", because what we all care about is Git's value as a version control tool.
jandrese 2y ago
When AI is being used as a cover for the bad/questionable behavior the company was already doing then there is no bubble to burst. The performance of the "AI" doesn't matter, only that it throws up a smoke shield in front of the company when people call to complain about the abuse.

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

I fear that ship has already sailed. I think the grifters and scammers have already abused the term enough that even decent uses of it are now tainted. I know that the two aren't strictly the same, but I would suggest using "Machine Learning" instead, which I think has more respectable connotations.

rsynnott 2y ago
AS IS TRADITION. (After the previous AI bubble, no-one mentioned the dread term for about 20 years, instead using the safely ultra-broad umbrella term.)

rsynnott 2y ago

I mean, whether this has anything to do with AI or not (I’d buy that they’re using LLMs to write abuse letters or similar) it fits very nicely into the general pattern of AI breaking the internet through an endless deluge of worthless misleading spam. So, perhaps call it honorary AI?

CaptainFever 2y ago

It's possible they were using LLMs (or even just traditional ML algorithms) to choose if a certain webpage was fraud/phishing instead of mere trademark infringement, though. In this case it makes sense that one would be angry that a sapient being didn't first check if the report was accurate before sending it off.

acka 2y ago
More than the hypothetical risk of Earth being consumed by a paperclip-making machine, I believe the real and present danger in the use of ML and AI technology lies in humans making irresponsible decisions about where and how to apply these technologies. For example, in my country, we are still dealing with the fallout from a decision made over a decade ago by the Tax Department. They used a poorly designed ML algorithm to screen applicants claiming social benefits for fraudulent activity. This led to several public inquiries and even contributed to the collapse of a government coalition. Tens of thousands of people are still suffering from being wrongly labeled as fraudulent, facing hefty fines and being forced to repay so-called fraudulent benefits.
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  Perhaps in certain cases requiring someone to sign off, and take the blame if anything happens, would help alleviate this problem. Much like how engineers need to sign off on construction plans. (Layman here, obviously.)
  - wholinator2 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - jcranmer 2y ago
      The comment you are replying to is using commas correctly: it's partitioning off a clause of the sentence as a side phrase that can be removed, and the resulting sentence is a fully grammatically-correct sentence. If you really hate commas, you can replace the commas here with parentheses, but honestly, I prefer the commas here.
      - BalinKing 2y ago
        I agree with the parent that in formal written English, the comma would be incorrect—cf. the "In compound predicates" section in [0]. But I disagree that the sentence is hard to parse as a result, and I doubt many would think twice about it given that we're on an informal internet message board. [0] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/punctuation-capitalization/comma/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/punctuation-capitalization/co...

johnnyanmac 2y ago

> and people think "ooh AI is bad, the bubble must burst" when this has nothing to do with that in the first place That haphazard branding and parroting is exactly why the bubble needs to burst. Bubbles bursting take out the gritters and rarely actually kills off all the innovation in the scene (it kills a lot, though. I'm not trying to dismiss that).

kombookcha 2y ago
Exactly this, if you give a hoot about actual useful applications for AI, there is a great need to clear out all the grifters and scammers attracted by the initial hype cycle.

pdpi 2y ago

I find that businesses that bill themselves as ${TOOL}-users instead of ${PROBLEM}-solvers are, as a general rule, problematic. I couldn't possibly care any less whether a product is built on AI or a clever switch statement or a bazillion little gnomes doing the work by hand. I care that it solves a problem. AI does need to die. Not so much because LLMs are bad, but rather because, like "big data" and "blockchain" and many other buzzwordy tools before it, it is a solution looking for a problem.

7thaccount 2y ago
The AI hype is annoying in my field as well. AI can have its uses, but we already figured out where to use it in my field ages ago. That doesn't stop people from hyping nothing though.
CobrastanJorji 2y ago
Yes. If your business solves a real customer problem and uses "blockchain" to do it, that's great, but you should describe yourself as a tool to solve the problem. If you mention blockchain on the homepage of your product at all, it should be treated with suspicious. It's a sign that you're speaking to investors and fools and not to savvy customers. One exception: personal projects. "This is an NES emulator that is built in Rust, and it uses Rust because I wanted to learn Rust" is a perfectly good description of a project (but not a business).
- pdpi 2y ago
  > This is an NES emulator that is built in Rust, and it uses Rust because I wanted to learn Rust Arguably, in this scenario, learning rust is the "business need" and the NES emulator is the tool :) But yeah, exactly. A blockchain is, technically, just a content-addressable linked list. A Merkle tree is the same, as a tree. Git's core data structure is a DAG version of this. These things are useful. Yet nobody calls Git "blockchain technology", because what we all care about is Git's value as a version control tool.

jandrese 2y ago

When AI is being used as a cover for the bad/questionable behavior the company was already doing then there is no bubble to burst. The performance of the "AI" doesn't matter, only that it throws up a smoke shield in front of the company when people call to complain about the abuse.