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It's said that much of research is data janitorial work, and from my experience that's not just limited to the machine learning space. Every research scientist
by btown 1y ago
It's said that much of research is data janitorial work, and from my experience that's not just limited to the machine learning space. Every research scientist wishes that they had an army of engineers to build bespoke tooling for their niche, so they could get back to trying ideas at the speed of thought rather than needing to spend a day writing utility functions for those tools and poring over tables to spot anomalies. Giving every researcher a priceless level of leverage is a tremendous social good.
Of course, we won't be able to tell the real effects, now, because every longitudinal study of researchers will now be corrupted by the ongoing evisceration of academic research in the current environment. Vibe-coding won't be a net creativity gain to a researcher affected by vibe-immigration-policy, vibe-grant-availability, and vibe-firings, for all of which the unpredictability is a punitive design goal.
Whether fear of LLMs taking jobs has contributed to a larger culture of fear and tribalism that has emboldened anti-intellectual movements worldwide, and what the attributable net effect on research and development will be... it's incredibly hard to quantify.
- stego-tech 1y ago> Vibe-coding won't be a net creativity gain to a researcher affected by vibe-immigration-policy, vibe-grant-availability, and vibe-firings, for all of which the unpredictability is a punitive design goal. Quite literally this is what I’m trying to get at with my resistance to LLM adoption in the current environment. We’re not using it to do hard work, we’re throwing it everywhere in an intentional decision to dumb down more people and funnel resources and control into fewer hands. Current AI isn’t democratizing anything, it’s just a shinier marketing ploy to get people to abandon skilled professions and leave the bulk of the populace only suitable for McJobs. The benefits of its use are seen by vanishingly few, while its harms felt by distressingly many. At present, it is a tool designed to improve existing neoliberal policies and wealth pumps by reducing the demand for skilled labor without properly compensating those affected by its use, nor allowing an exit from their walled gardens (because that is literally what all these XaaS AI firms are - walled gardens of pattern matchers masquerading as intelligence).
- prmph 1y agoThis is one of the best comments about the current AI hype. The elite really don't see why the proletariat should be interested in, or enjoy the dignity of, actual skill and quality. Hence the enshitification of everything, and now AI promises to commoditize everything into slop. Sad because it is the very deoth of society that has birthe
- Invictus0 1y agoJohn Rockefeller didn't sit down in a big chair, twirl his mustache, and invent AI to funnel money to the hands of the wealthy. This technology was created by researchers and has been mostly accessible to everyone for as long as it has been around. All technology has the effect of concentrating wealth, and anyone who insists on using their two hands to fashion things when machines exist that can do it better will always be relegated to the "artisan" bin as time rolls on.
- drewbug 1y ago> All technology has the effect of concentrating wealth Even GNU/Linux? :)
- actionfromafar 1y agoAndroid, cloud platforms etc.
- bethekidyouwant 1y agoThis could be a comment about the industrial revolution.
- pessimizer 1y agoThe industrial revolution's immediate effect was to radically lower lifespans and lengthen working hours. After all of those people suffered and died, lifespans gradually got long again, although working hours never went back to normal. You might think it was worth it now because you got an iphone, but they didn't get an iphone.
- manquer 1y ago> much of research is data janitorial work In applied research perhaps, Fundamental research is nothing like that in any field including ML.
- freehorse 1y agoAll experimental or empirical research is like that, is closer to the point.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Fundamental research is nothing like that in any field including ML Grant writing.
- QuantumGood 1y agoThere's too much "close enough" in virtually all these discussions. LLM is not a hand grenade. It's important to keep in mind what LLMs and related tech can be relied upon do or assist with, can't be relied upon to do or assist with, and might be relied on to do in the future.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> rather than needing to spend a day writing utility functions for those tools and poring over tables to spot anomalies A ridiculous amount of most researchers' time is spent cleaning up data.