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One thing jumps out about the person who noticed the AI was wrong on things they were familiar with. It's like when ELon Musk talks about rockets. I don't know

One thing jumps out about the person who noticed the AI was wrong on things they were familiar with. It's like when ELon Musk talks about rockets. I don't know about rockets so I take his word for it. When Elon Must talked about software it was obvious he has no idea what he's doing. So when the AI generates something I know nothing about, it looks productive but when it's generating things for which I'm familiar I know its full of shit.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
> So when the AI generates something I know nothing about, it looks productive but when it's generating things for which I'm familiar I know its full of shit. This is why when you hear people talk about how great it is at producing X, our takeaway should be "this person is not an expert at X, and their opinions can be disregarded" They are telling on themselves that they are not experts at the thing they think the AI is doing a great job at
- andybak 2y ago
  "This is why when you hear people talk about how terrible it is at producing X, our takeaway should be "this person either hasn't tried to use it in good faith, and their opinions can be disregarded" I'm playing devil's advocate somewhat here but it often seem like that there's a bunch of people on both sides using hella motivated reasoning because they have very strong feelings that developed early on in their exposure to AI. AI is both terrible and wonderful. It's useless and some things and impressive at others. It will ruin whole sectors of the economy and upturn lives. It will get better and it is getting better so any limitations you currently observe are probably termporary. The net benefit for humanity may turn out to be positive or negative - it's too early to tell.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    > AI is both terrible and wonderful. It's useless and some things and impressive at others That's kind of my problem. I am saying that it mostly only appears impressive to people who don't know better When people do know better it comes up short consistently Most of the pro AI people I see are bullish about it on things they have no idea about, like non-technical CEOs insisting that it can create good code
    - andybak 2y ago
      > When people do know better it comes up short consistently I disagree with that part and I don't think this opinion can be sustained by anyone using it with any regularity in good faith People can argue whether it's 70/30 or 30/70 or what domains it's more useful in than others but you are overstating the negative.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      Have you considered that it's actually impressive in some areas that are outside of your interest or concern?
      - bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Could be, but why would I trust that when it's clearly so bad at the things I am good at?
        andybak 2y ago
        At this point I just want to restate my hypothesis that you haven't or aren't using it in good faith - or you haven't used it much at all.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Two can play that game My hypothesis is that you are invested in the success of AI products somehow, financially or emotionally, and that leads you to be blind to their shortcomings You keep using them whenever possible because you want them to be useful even though in reality their usefulness is really iffy
        andybak 2y ago
        So - we are at an impasse. Both suspect the other of motivated reasoning and an internal bias that distorts their ability for rational thinking. It's entirely possible we're both irrational to some degree. But that's irrelevant to answering the question at hand. Do you claim you are using it regularly and in good faith - enough to honestly form a reliable view on its utility? I would claim that I am using it in such a way. It would take more effort than I'm prepared to put in to provide evidence of this but please - ask away. (for the record - I have no financial or professional involvement directly with AI. I simply find the technology fascinating and I use it daily - both playfully and for it's practical utility)
  - ang_cire 2y ago
    > The net benefit for humanity may turn out to be positive or negative - it's too early to tell. It's just a tool, but it is unfortunately a tool that is currently dominated by large-sized corporations, to serve Capitalism. So it's definitely going to be a net-negative. Contrast that to something like 3D printing, which has most visibly benefited small companies and individual users.
    - andybak 2y ago
      Like many things (general purpose computing, the internet) we can carve out our own space once something is released into the public sphere so I don't think Capitalism has the iron grip on this that you're hypothesising. In recent memory I think it's mainly social media where the corporations have mostly succeeded in keeping a firm hold on things and where it remains hard for users to subvert their aims. And that's largely because of the failure of decentralized social media to grow to a mass audience. I think AI is different. "Good enough" models are already available under generous licenses, fine-tuning and even training is within the reach of groups of volunteers etc etc
- pfdietz 2y ago
  Sounds like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

bluefirebrand 2y ago

> So when the AI generates something I know nothing about, it looks productive but when it's generating things for which I'm familiar I know its full of shit. This is why when you hear people talk about how great it is at producing X, our takeaway should be "this person is not an expert at X, and their opinions can be disregarded" They are telling on themselves that they are not experts at the thing they think the AI is doing a great job at

andybak 2y ago
"This is why when you hear people talk about how terrible it is at producing X, our takeaway should be "this person either hasn't tried to use it in good faith, and their opinions can be disregarded" I'm playing devil's advocate somewhat here but it often seem like that there's a bunch of people on both sides using hella motivated reasoning because they have very strong feelings that developed early on in their exposure to AI. AI is both terrible and wonderful. It's useless and some things and impressive at others. It will ruin whole sectors of the economy and upturn lives. It will get better and it is getting better so any limitations you currently observe are probably termporary. The net benefit for humanity may turn out to be positive or negative - it's too early to tell.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  > AI is both terrible and wonderful. It's useless and some things and impressive at others That's kind of my problem. I am saying that it mostly only appears impressive to people who don't know better When people do know better it comes up short consistently Most of the pro AI people I see are bullish about it on things they have no idea about, like non-technical CEOs insisting that it can create good code
  - andybak 2y ago
    > When people do know better it comes up short consistently I disagree with that part and I don't think this opinion can be sustained by anyone using it with any regularity in good faith People can argue whether it's 70/30 or 30/70 or what domains it's more useful in than others but you are overstating the negative.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    Have you considered that it's actually impressive in some areas that are outside of your interest or concern?
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      Could be, but why would I trust that when it's clearly so bad at the things I am good at?
      - andybak 2y ago
        At this point I just want to restate my hypothesis that you haven't or aren't using it in good faith - or you haven't used it much at all.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Two can play that game My hypothesis is that you are invested in the success of AI products somehow, financially or emotionally, and that leads you to be blind to their shortcomings You keep using them whenever possible because you want them to be useful even though in reality their usefulness is really iffy
        andybak 2y ago
        So - we are at an impasse. Both suspect the other of motivated reasoning and an internal bias that distorts their ability for rational thinking. It's entirely possible we're both irrational to some degree. But that's irrelevant to answering the question at hand. Do you claim you are using it regularly and in good faith - enough to honestly form a reliable view on its utility? I would claim that I am using it in such a way. It would take more effort than I'm prepared to put in to provide evidence of this but please - ask away. (for the record - I have no financial or professional involvement directly with AI. I simply find the technology fascinating and I use it daily - both playfully and for it's practical utility)
- ang_cire 2y ago
  > The net benefit for humanity may turn out to be positive or negative - it's too early to tell. It's just a tool, but it is unfortunately a tool that is currently dominated by large-sized corporations, to serve Capitalism. So it's definitely going to be a net-negative. Contrast that to something like 3D printing, which has most visibly benefited small companies and individual users.
  - andybak 2y ago
    Like many things (general purpose computing, the internet) we can carve out our own space once something is released into the public sphere so I don't think Capitalism has the iron grip on this that you're hypothesising. In recent memory I think it's mainly social media where the corporations have mostly succeeded in keeping a firm hold on things and where it remains hard for users to subvert their aims. And that's largely because of the failure of decentralized social media to grow to a mass audience. I think AI is different. "Good enough" models are already available under generous licenses, fine-tuning and even training is within the reach of groups of volunteers etc etc
pfdietz 2y ago
Sounds like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect