As always, I use the term “AI” loosely. I’m referring to these scary LLMs coming for our jobs.
It’s important to state that I find LLMs to be helpful in very specific use cases, but overall, this is clearly a bubble, and the promises of advance have not appeared despite hundreds of billions of VC thrown at the industry.
So as not to go full-on polemic, we’ll skip the knock-on effects in terms of power-grid and water stresses.
No, what I want to talk about is the idea of software in its current form needing to be as competent as the user.
Simply put: How many of your coworkers have been right 100% of the time over the course of your career? If N>0, say “Hi” to Jesus for me.
I started working in high school, as most of us do, and a 60% success rate was considered fine. At the professional level, I’ve seen even lower with tenure, given how much things turn to internal politics past a certain level.
So what these companies are offering is not parity with senior staff (Ph.D.-level, my ass), but rather the new blood who hasn’t had that one fuckup that doesn’t leave their mind for weeks.
That crucible is important.
These tools are meant to replace inexperience with incompetence, and the beancounters at some clients are likely satisfied those words look similar enough to pass muster.
We are, after all, at this point, the “good enough” country. LLM marketing is on brand.
@Powderhorn@beehaw.org
You questioned about the necessity for AI to be “perfect” in order to do human jobs, implicitly referring to the ongoing problem of AI taking away human jobs.
As someone who likes to think outside the box, I just brought to the ring the root causes (capitalist and anthropocentric hubris) behind the referred problem (loss of jobs due to corp-driven AI), alongside possible solutions based on existing/idealized concepts (such as UBI, Universal Basic Income) and structures (such as the Science and public universities as one unified global institution of knowledge and praxis, non-governmental organizations and independent think-tanks focused on both Nature and technological progress) to improve the fields of Artificial Intelligence as independently and unbiased as possible.
Yeah, there’s some esoteric and mythopoetic language mashed up, because I’m (roughly speaking) an individual who have occult beliefs and philosophical musings intertwined with scientific knowledge (Scientific means to understand/reach metaphysical ends).
As you didn’t further discuss the points I brought to the ring or what led you to see (and dismiss) my reply as the byproduct of some psychoactive substance, I’m not sure whether your dismissal comes from my esoteric language, my anti-capitalist anti-state eco-centric nuanced takes on the subject of AI, my proposal for Science to become fully independent and being the driving force for AI development, or the “atypical” amalgam of all these things.
Anyways, no problem! I’m used to being so different from other humans that I sound like an extraterrestrial when I try to express my syncretic takes on mundane affairs.
I’ve already been living in a van for two years after the collapse of journalism was apparent. I mean, I left in 2020, but the van came later.
Look, I’m a columnist and editorial writer, but instead of using a thesaurus, this is just sort of pompous. I know precisely how far we’ve fallen, and I don’t think the entities would much enjoy your conclusion without evidence. Surprise! They’ve talked to me.