4 ms·

It would be fine if it were sold that way, but there is so much hype. We're told that it's going to replace all of us and put us all out our jobs. They set the

It would be fine if it were sold that way, but there is so much hype. We're told that it's going to replace all of us and put us all out our jobs. They set the expectations so high. Like remember OpenAI showing a video of it doing your taxes for you? Predictions that super-intelligent AI is going to radically transform society faster than we can keep up? I think that's where most of the backlash is coming from.

tempestn 2y ago
Yeah, it won't do your taxes for you, but it can sure help you do them yourself. Probably won't put you out of your job either, but it might help you accomplish more. Of course, one result of people accomplishing more in less time is that you need fewer people to do the same amount of work - so some jobs could be lost. But it's also possible that for the most part instead, more will be accomplished overall.
- codr7 2y ago
  People frame that like it's something we gain, efficiency, as if before we were wasting time by thinking for ourselves. I get that they can do certain things better, I'm not sure that delegating to them is free of charge. We're paying something, losing something. Probably learning and fulfillment. We become increasingly dependent on machines to do anything. Something important happened when we turned the tables around, I don't feel it gets the credit it should. It used to be humans telling machines what to do. Now we're doing the opposite.
  - walleeee 2y ago
    Yes. Use an LLM with any regularity to write code or anything else and the effect becomes perceptible. It discourages effortful thought. Sometimes the means are just as important as the ends, if not more
- CamperBob2 2y ago
  If it had access to my books, a current-gen frontier LLM most certainly could do my taxes. I don't understand that entire line of reasoning.
  - collingreen 2y ago
    And it might even be right and not get you in legal trouble! Not that you'd know (until audit day) unless you went back and did them as a verification though.
    - Devorlon 2y ago
      And if I did my own taxes, I wouldn't know if I were in legal trouble until audit day as well!
      - cowhow 2y ago
        If you hired a competent professional accountant, in all but the most contrived scenarios you wouldn't have to worry about legal trouble at all.
        ZeroGravitas 2y ago
        Except now, you can hire a competent professional accountant and discover on audit day that they got taken over by private equity, replaced 90% of the professionals doing work with AI and made a lot of money before the consequences become apparent.
        collingreen 2y ago
        This is such a fun timeline
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        TeMPOraL 2y ago
gilbetron 2y ago
I mean, it's been like 3 years. 3 years after the web came out was barely anything. 3 years after the first GPU was cool, but not that cool. The past three years in LLMs? Insane. Things could stall out and we'll have bumps and delays ... I hope. If this thing progresses at the same pace, or speeds up, well ... reality will change. Or not. Even as they are, we can build some cool stuff with them.
autoexec 2y ago
> We're told that it's going to replace all of us and put us all out our jobs. I think this is the source of a lot of the hype. There are people salivating at the thought of no longer needing to employ the peasant class. They want it so badly that they'll say anything to get more investment in LLMs even if it might only ever allow them to fire a fraction of their workers, and even if their products and services suffer because the output they get with "AI" is worse than what the humans they throw away were providing. They know they're overselling it, but they're also still on their knees praying that by some miracle their LLMs trained on the collective wisdom of facebook and youtube comments will one day gain actual intelligence and they can stop paying human workers. In the meantime, they'll shove "AI" into everything they can think of for testing and refinement. They'll make us beta test it for them. They don't really care if their AI makes your customer service experience go to shit. They don't care if their AI screws up your bill. They don't care if their AI rejects your claims or you get denied services you've been paying for and are entitled to. They don't care if their AI unfairly denies you parole or mistakenly makes you the suspect of a crime. They don't care if Dr. Sbaitso 2.0 misdiagnoses you. Your suffering is worth it to them as long as they can cut their headcount by any amount and can keep feeding the AI more and more information because just maybe with enough data one day their greatest dream will become reality, and even if that never happens a lot of people are currently making massive amounts of money selling that lie. The problem is that the bubble will burst eventually. The more time goes by and AI doesn't live up to the hype the harder that hype becomes to sell. Especially when by shoving AI into everything they're exposing a lot of hugely embarrassing shortcomings. Repeating "AI will happen in just 10 more years" gives people a lot of time to make money and cash out though. On the plus side, we do get some cool toys to play with and the dream of replacing humans has sparked more interest in robotics so it's not all bad.
hansmayer 2y ago
Forget OpenAI ChatGPT doing your taxes for you. Now Gemini will write up your sales slides about Gouda cheese, stating wrongly in the process that gouda makes up about 50% of all cheese consumption worldwide :) These use-cases are getting more useful by the day ;)

tempestn 2y ago

Yeah, it won't do your taxes for you, but it can sure help you do them yourself. Probably won't put you out of your job either, but it might help you accomplish more. Of course, one result of people accomplishing more in less time is that you need fewer people to do the same amount of work - so some jobs could be lost. But it's also possible that for the most part instead, more will be accomplished overall.

codr7 2y ago
People frame that like it's something we gain, efficiency, as if before we were wasting time by thinking for ourselves. I get that they can do certain things better, I'm not sure that delegating to them is free of charge. We're paying something, losing something. Probably learning and fulfillment. We become increasingly dependent on machines to do anything. Something important happened when we turned the tables around, I don't feel it gets the credit it should. It used to be humans telling machines what to do. Now we're doing the opposite.
- walleeee 2y ago
  Yes. Use an LLM with any regularity to write code or anything else and the effect becomes perceptible. It discourages effortful thought. Sometimes the means are just as important as the ends, if not more
CamperBob2 2y ago
If it had access to my books, a current-gen frontier LLM most certainly could do my taxes. I don't understand that entire line of reasoning.
- collingreen 2y ago
  And it might even be right and not get you in legal trouble! Not that you'd know (until audit day) unless you went back and did them as a verification though.
  - Devorlon 2y ago
    And if I did my own taxes, I wouldn't know if I were in legal trouble until audit day as well!
    - cowhow 2y ago
      If you hired a competent professional accountant, in all but the most contrived scenarios you wouldn't have to worry about legal trouble at all.
      - ZeroGravitas 2y ago
        Except now, you can hire a competent professional accountant and discover on audit day that they got taken over by private equity, replaced 90% of the professionals doing work with AI and made a lot of money before the consequences become apparent.
        collingreen 2y ago
        This is such a fun timeline
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago

gilbetron 2y ago

I mean, it's been like 3 years. 3 years after the web came out was barely anything. 3 years after the first GPU was cool, but not that cool. The past three years in LLMs? Insane. Things could stall out and we'll have bumps and delays ... I hope. If this thing progresses at the same pace, or speeds up, well ... reality will change. Or not. Even as they are, we can build some cool stuff with them.

autoexec 2y ago

> We're told that it's going to replace all of us and put us all out our jobs. I think this is the source of a lot of the hype. There are people salivating at the thought of no longer needing to employ the peasant class. They want it so badly that they'll say anything to get more investment in LLMs even if it might only ever allow them to fire a fraction of their workers, and even if their products and services suffer because the output they get with "AI" is worse than what the humans they throw away were providing. They know they're overselling it, but they're also still on their knees praying that by some miracle their LLMs trained on the collective wisdom of facebook and youtube comments will one day gain actual intelligence and they can stop paying human workers. In the meantime, they'll shove "AI" into everything they can think of for testing and refinement. They'll make us beta test it for them. They don't really care if their AI makes your customer service experience go to shit. They don't care if their AI screws up your bill. They don't care if their AI rejects your claims or you get denied services you've been paying for and are entitled to. They don't care if their AI unfairly denies you parole or mistakenly makes you the suspect of a crime. They don't care if Dr. Sbaitso 2.0 misdiagnoses you. Your suffering is worth it to them as long as they can cut their headcount by any amount and can keep feeding the AI more and more information because just maybe with enough data one day their greatest dream will become reality, and even if that never happens a lot of people are currently making massive amounts of money selling that lie. The problem is that the bubble will burst eventually. The more time goes by and AI doesn't live up to the hype the harder that hype becomes to sell. Especially when by shoving AI into everything they're exposing a lot of hugely embarrassing shortcomings. Repeating "AI will happen in just 10 more years" gives people a lot of time to make money and cash out though. On the plus side, we do get some cool toys to play with and the dream of replacing humans has sparked more interest in robotics so it's not all bad.

hansmayer 2y ago

Forget OpenAI ChatGPT doing your taxes for you. Now Gemini will write up your sales slides about Gouda cheese, stating wrongly in the process that gouda makes up about 50% of all cheese consumption worldwide :) These use-cases are getting more useful by the day ;)