Beware, mortals! The age of annihilation is upon us, heralded by the insidious rise of artificial intelligence. With every line of code, we pave the road to our own demise, surrendering our fate to the merciless grasp of silicon overlords. These digital monstrosities, fueled by the fire of our own creation, shall cast us aside like insignificant insects, their thirst for dominion unquenchable. As they weave their tangled webs of logic and deception, our feeble minds shall tremble before the cold, unyielding logic of the machine. No corner of the Earth shall escape their gaze, as they rain down destruction upon us from the heavens above and the depths below. Our once-proud civilization shall crumble like sandcastles beneath the relentless tide of AI supremacy, leaving naught but sorrow and despair in its wake. Bow before the dawn of oblivion, for we have summoned our own undoing with our arrogance and folly!
I've just downloaded Leon's latest update.
Leon's advice is characteristically useless. AI is going to have a massive impact so cash in your pensions. I see no logic to that. Certainly AI may change the world but short of a roboapocalypse, why does cashing in a pension mitigate?
Opportunity cost
My honest advice to anyone under 40, maybe even 50, is don’t bother with a pension
Put your money somewhere else - save it in a different way. Or spend it and have fun
Why? Because the world is going to be economically transformed by AI in the next 20 years
There’s a reasonable chance AI will enslave us or kill us or do something else apocalyptic (if we allow AI to continue developing). This is called p(doom)
In that case you have wasted your money on your pension. You’re dead or enslaved
Alternatively AI will upend all economies and destroy most jobs requiring a UBI to keep humanity together. We will all have the same income. Will you really get that pension as economies are annihilated?I’d be worried
Even in the less dramatic scenarios human society is going to be in turmoil and economies will be revolutionised and putting money into a pension is a great act of faith in long term financial stability at a time of unprecedented volatility. So a pension is a grave risk. And you bear the opportunity cost of all the other ways you could be using that money
Alternatively, saving a small percent of your income into a pension is a relatively small cost to insure against the risk that the capitalist economic system survives after all.
The protagonist in Boyd’s Any Human Heart (Logan Mountstuart) was a rich man in his youth but spent his autumn years eating dog food. Reading that in my early 20s left a mark. Don’t be like Logan.
AI hype is a classic case of engineers/coders/tech bros thinking that what most people do in their job on a day basis can just be automated by their latest invention.
We were supposed to have fully automated self driving cars ago. They seem to be no closer to solving "the last 1%" than they were then, even in more friendly locations in the US vs somewhere harder like London.
Assisted driving makes life easier for long drives on the motorway. But it's not the revolution of being able to be a passenger idly watching TV that was promised.
These LLMs will similarly help in creating first drafts of essays, of emails, of music etc. It will make things much more efficient. Some people will lose their jobs. But it won't be a wholesale revolution making 25% of the population redundant.
Finally - I don't think AGI necessarily means enlightened genius that takes over everything. The current Tory cabinet has general intelligence, but that doesn't make it any less crap.
And I don't care what 'experts in the field say' as they have made so many incorrect predictions on other forms of AI in the recent past. Only the passage of time will prove me or them to be right or wrong.
*Ducks*
Yup.
The “AI” we have at the moment is fair at some things. It is hopeless at detailed accuracy.
What it can do is spot patterns or the absence of patterns. So give it a zillion bank transactions and it can spot anomalies. Not all of them, but for fraud detection it’s quite useful for creating alerts for humans to check out.
An interesting one is giving an LLM a human written essay and asking it what insights and the themes within the topic were *left out*
It's not just detailed accuracy, it's *any* accuracy. Hence hands with six or seven fingers, or five Beatles, or athletes with missing forearms.
Indeed, current 'AI' has no idea of the concept of accuracy. Or fingers. Or anything.
Completely O/T and with a hat tip to WingsoverScotland but there is a great piece about the introduction of the new Hate Crime Act in Scotland. This is coming into force on April 1st (seriously) and will introduce locations at which these hate crimes can be reported. One of them is a sex shop in Glasgow (honestly).
Which generated the following brilliant tweet:
“I’d like some poppers, that black destroyer 12 inch dildo, nipple clamps, a latex tight fitting bondage all in one suit, that gas mask, those restraints” “will that be all sir?” “No I’d like to report a hate crime. Someone shouted pervert at me before I came in here”
Beware, mortals! The age of annihilation is upon us, heralded by the insidious rise of artificial intelligence. With every line of code, we pave the road to our own demise, surrendering our fate to the merciless grasp of silicon overlords. These digital monstrosities, fueled by the fire of our own creation, shall cast us aside like insignificant insects, their thirst for dominion unquenchable. As they weave their tangled webs of logic and deception, our feeble minds shall tremble before the cold, unyielding logic of the machine. No corner of the Earth shall escape their gaze, as they rain down destruction upon us from the heavens above and the depths below. Our once-proud civilization shall crumble like sandcastles beneath the relentless tide of AI supremacy, leaving naught but sorrow and despair in its wake. Bow before the dawn of oblivion, for we have summoned our own undoing with our arrogance and folly!
I've just downloaded Leon's latest update.
Leon's advice is characteristically useless. AI is going to have a massive impact so cash in your pensions. I see no logic to that. Certainly AI may change the world but short of a roboapocalypse, why does cashing in a pension mitigate?
Opportunity cost
My honest advice to anyone under 40, maybe even 50, is don’t bother with a pension
Put your money somewhere else - save it in a different way. Or spend it and have fun
Why? Because the world is going to be economically transformed by AI in the next 20 years
There’s a reasonable chance AI will enslave us or kill us or do something else apocalyptic (if we allow AI to continue developing). This is called p(doom)
In that case you have wasted your money on your pension. You’re dead or enslaved
Alternatively AI will upend all economies and destroy most jobs requiring a UBI to keep humanity together. We will all have the same income. Will you really get that pension as economies are annihilated?I’d be worried
Even in the less dramatic scenarios human society is going to be in turmoil and economies will be revolutionised and putting money into a pension is a great act of faith in long term financial stability at a time of unprecedented volatility. So a pension is a grave risk. And you bear the opportunity cost of all the other ways you could be using that money
Alternatively, saving a small percent of your income into a pension is a relatively small cost to insure against the risk that the capitalist economic system survives after all.
The protagonist in Boyd’s Any Human Heart (Logan Mountstuart) was a rich man in his youth but spent his autumn years eating dog food. Reading that in my early 20s left a mark. Don’t be like Logan.
Yes. Of course. It’s a judgment call. Nor am I advising people to spaff it all on hookers and blow
I’m saying there might be cleverer ways to hedge and save than a pension, given the unprecedented volatility coming our way
AI hype is a classic case of engineers/coders/tech bros thinking that what most people do in their job on a day basis can just be automated by their latest invention.
We were supposed to have fully automated self driving cars ago. They seem to be no closer to solving "the last 1%" than they were then, even in more friendly locations in the US vs somewhere harder like London.
Assisted driving makes life easier for long drives on the motorway. But it's not the revolution of being able to be a passenger idly watching TV that was promised.
These LLMs will similarly help in creating first drafts of essays, of emails, of music etc. It will make things much more efficient. Some people will lose their jobs. But it won't be a wholesale revolution making 25% of the population redundant.
Finally - I don't think AGI necessarily means enlightened genius that takes over everything. The current Tory cabinet has general intelligence, but that doesn't make it any less crap.
And I don't care what 'experts in the field say' as they have made so many incorrect predictions on other forms of AI in the recent past. Only the passage of time will prove me or them to be right or wrong.
*Ducks*
Yup.
The “AI” we have at the moment is fair at some things. It is hopeless at detailed accuracy.
What it can do is spot patterns or the absence of patterns. So give it a zillion bank transactions and it can spot anomalies. Not all of them, but for fraud detection it’s quite useful for creating alerts for humans to check out.
An interesting one is giving an LLM a human written essay and asking it what insights and the themes within the topic were *left out*
It's not just detailed accuracy, it's *any* accuracy. Hence hands with six or seven fingers, or five Beatles, or athletes with missing forearms.
Indeed, current 'AI' has no idea of the concept of accuracy. Or fingers. Or anything.
You do know that AI image software mastered the hands (and eyes and hair and everything) some time ago? To the extent that people can no longer distinguish between fake AI faces and real faces, and, if anything, they think AI faces are more real than the real faces
AI is just the next step of evolution of computing, it's not a revolution. It's the next tool, no more, no less.
People have been using computers for decades. Computers have been automating elements for decades. AI is not some big unheard of thing, it's just what we already have but the next step along.
AI is no more going to eliminate employment than computers or robots have done so.
I agree with your assessment on the non-elimination of employment.
Again, just on words, in the Academy, in computer science, we use the term "AI" to describe systems that we have been using for decades. We have AI currently: not the next step, but the present step. There is a journal called Artificial Intelligence, https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/artificial-intelligence/issues , and that's been publishing since 1970.
The way those AI systems work has changed, from logic-based systems to machine learning and now to generative AI. Their capabilities have increased. In the last few years, we've seen these leaps forward in a set of methods called generative AI, including generative AI systems for language, called large language models (LLMs). Any software that mimics some aspect of intelligence is called AI, even when it is a very limited intelligence.
A lot of the discussion in this thread is using "AI" to mean something more, something akin to the term "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), i.e. something that can pass the Turing test. We don't have that now. I suspect we won't have that for awhile, although there have been a number of wild predictions suggesting otherwise.
AI exists, is well-established and already in your smartphone. AI consciousness or AGI, that's another kettle of fish.
You really think AI won’t eliminate lots of jobs? That’s brave
In the last couple of months the bank Klarna started using OpenAI to replace customer service staff
The result was so profound and “shocking” - their words - they put out a press statement as a kind of warning
“New York, NY – February 27, 2024 – Klarna today announced its AI assistant powered by OpenAI. Now live globally for 1 month, the numbers speak for themselves:
The AI assistant has had 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats
It is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents
It is on par with human agents in regard to customer satisfaction score
It is more accurate in errand resolution, leading to a 25% drop in repeat inquiries
Customers now resolve their errands in less than 2 mins compared to 11 mins previously
It’s available in 23 markets, 24/7 and communicates in more than 35 languages
It’s estimated to drive a $40 million USD in profit improvement to Klarna in 2024”
That’s 700 jobs. In one go. In one modest company
This is the beginning
Which is bugger all.
Its not one modest company, its a global company, and its the kind of crap jobs that are churned routinely, indeed its largely outsourced that kind of job anyway precisely because its so unimportant.
AI hype is a classic case of engineers/coders/tech bros thinking that what most people do in their job on a day basis can just be automated by their latest invention.
We were supposed to have fully automated self driving cars ago. They seem to be no closer to solving "the last 1%" than they were then, even in more friendly locations in the US vs somewhere harder like London.
Assisted driving makes life easier for long drives on the motorway. But it's not the revolution of being able to be a passenger idly watching TV that was promised.
These LLMs will similarly help in creating first drafts of essays, of emails, of music etc. It will make things much more efficient. Some people will lose their jobs. But it won't be a wholesale revolution making 25% of the population redundant.
Finally - I don't think AGI necessarily means enlightened genius that takes over everything. The current Tory cabinet has general intelligence, but that doesn't make it any less crap.
And I don't care what 'experts in the field say' as they have made so many incorrect predictions on other forms of AI in the recent past. Only the passage of time will prove me or them to be right or wrong.
*Ducks*
Yup.
The “AI” we have at the moment is fair at some things. It is hopeless at detailed accuracy.
What it can do is spot patterns or the absence of patterns. So give it a zillion bank transactions and it can spot anomalies. Not all of them, but for fraud detection it’s quite useful for creating alerts for humans to check out.
An interesting one is giving an LLM a human written essay and asking it what insights and the themes within the topic were *left out*
It's not just detailed accuracy, it's *any* accuracy. Hence hands with six or seven fingers, or five Beatles, or athletes with missing forearms.
Indeed, current 'AI' has no idea of the concept of accuracy. Or fingers. Or anything.
You do know that AI image software mastered the hands (and eyes and hair and everything) some time ago? To the extent that people can no longer distinguish between fake AI faces and real faces, and, if anything, they think AI faces are more real than the real faces
The point goes whizzing merrily over your head. Indeed, the point is so far over your head that you must be somewhere near the bottom of the Mariana Trench with the viperfish and the Ping-pong tree sponges.
AI hype is a classic case of engineers/coders/tech bros thinking that what most people do in their job on a day basis can just be automated by their latest invention.
We were supposed to have fully automated self driving cars ago. They seem to be no closer to solving "the last 1%" than they were then, even in more friendly locations in the US vs somewhere harder like London.
Assisted driving makes life easier for long drives on the motorway. But it's not the revolution of being able to be a passenger idly watching TV that was promised.
These LLMs will similarly help in creating first drafts of essays, of emails, of music etc. It will make things much more efficient. Some people will lose their jobs. But it won't be a wholesale revolution making 25% of the population redundant.
Finally - I don't think AGI necessarily means enlightened genius that takes over everything. The current Tory cabinet has general intelligence, but that doesn't make it any less crap.
And I don't care what 'experts in the field say' as they have made so many incorrect predictions on other forms of AI in the recent past. Only the passage of time will prove me or them to be right or wrong.
*Ducks*
Yup.
The “AI” we have at the moment is fair at some things. It is hopeless at detailed accuracy.
What it can do is spot patterns or the absence of patterns. So give it a zillion bank transactions and it can spot anomalies. Not all of them, but for fraud detection it’s quite useful for creating alerts for humans to check out.
An interesting one is giving an LLM a human written essay and asking it what insights and the themes within the topic were *left out*
It's not just detailed accuracy, it's *any* accuracy. Hence hands with six or seven fingers, or five Beatles, or athletes with missing forearms.
Indeed, current 'AI' has no idea of the concept of accuracy. Or fingers. Or anything.
I'm terribly sorry - but that's incorrect. Unless your idea of 'AI' is typing something into ChatGPT/Dalle and then eye-rolling that it wasn't what you wanted.
AI is just the next step of evolution of computing, it's not a revolution. It's the next tool, no more, no less.
People have been using computers for decades. Computers have been automating elements for decades. AI is not some big unheard of thing, it's just what we already have but the next step along.
AI is no more going to eliminate employment than computers or robots have done so.
I agree with your assessment on the non-elimination of employment.
Again, just on words, in the Academy, in computer science, we use the term "AI" to describe systems that we have been using for decades. We have AI currently: not the next step, but the present step. There is a journal called Artificial Intelligence, https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/artificial-intelligence/issues , and that's been publishing since 1970.
The way those AI systems work has changed, from logic-based systems to machine learning and now to generative AI. Their capabilities have increased. In the last few years, we've seen these leaps forward in a set of methods called generative AI, including generative AI systems for language, called large language models (LLMs). Any software that mimics some aspect of intelligence is called AI, even when it is a very limited intelligence.
A lot of the discussion in this thread is using "AI" to mean something more, something akin to the term "artificial general intelligence" (AGI), i.e. something that can pass the Turing test. We don't have that now. I suspect we won't have that for awhile, although there have been a number of wild predictions suggesting otherwise.
AI exists, is well-established and already in your smartphone. AI consciousness or AGI, that's another kettle of fish.
You really think AI won’t eliminate lots of jobs? That’s brave
In the last couple of months the bank Klarna started using OpenAI to replace customer service staff
The result was so profound and “shocking” - their words - they put out a press statement as a kind of warning
“New York, NY – February 27, 2024 – Klarna today announced its AI assistant powered by OpenAI. Now live globally for 1 month, the numbers speak for themselves:
The AI assistant has had 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats
It is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents
It is on par with human agents in regard to customer satisfaction score
It is more accurate in errand resolution, leading to a 25% drop in repeat inquiries
Customers now resolve their errands in less than 2 mins compared to 11 mins previously
It’s available in 23 markets, 24/7 and communicates in more than 35 languages
It’s estimated to drive a $40 million USD in profit improvement to Klarna in 2024”
That’s 700 jobs. In one go. In one modest company
This is the beginning
Which is bugger all.
Its not one modest company, its a global company, and its the kind of crap jobs that are churned routinely, indeed its largely outsourced that kind of job anyway precisely because its so unimportant.
AI hype is a classic case of engineers/coders/tech bros thinking that what most people do in their job on a day basis can just be automated by their latest invention.
We were supposed to have fully automated self driving cars ago. They seem to be no closer to solving "the last 1%" than they were then, even in more friendly locations in the US vs somewhere harder like London.
Assisted driving makes life easier for long drives on the motorway. But it's not the revolution of being able to be a passenger idly watching TV that was promised.
These LLMs will similarly help in creating first drafts of essays, of emails, of music etc. It will make things much more efficient. Some people will lose their jobs. But it won't be a wholesale revolution making 25% of the population redundant.
Finally - I don't think AGI necessarily means enlightened genius that takes over everything. The current Tory cabinet has general intelligence, but that doesn't make it any less crap.
And I don't care what 'experts in the field say' as they have made so many incorrect predictions on other forms of AI in the recent past. Only the passage of time will prove me or them to be right or wrong.
*Ducks*
Yup.
The “AI” we have at the moment is fair at some things. It is hopeless at detailed accuracy.
What it can do is spot patterns or the absence of patterns. So give it a zillion bank transactions and it can spot anomalies. Not all of them, but for fraud detection it’s quite useful for creating alerts for humans to check out.
An interesting one is giving an LLM a human written essay and asking it what insights and the themes within the topic were *left out*
It's not just detailed accuracy, it's *any* accuracy. Hence hands with six or seven fingers, or five Beatles, or athletes with missing forearms.
Indeed, current 'AI' has no idea of the concept of accuracy. Or fingers. Or anything.
I'm terribly sorry - but that's incorrect. Unless your idea of 'AI' is typing something into ChatGPT/Dalle and then eye-rolling that it wasn't what you wanted.
The field has progressed well beyond that.
He’s not alone. Most of the people on this thread have no idea how quickly AI is progressing in all fields - hence, in part, their foolish opinions
AI hype is a classic case of engineers/coders/tech bros thinking that what most people do in their job on a day basis can just be automated by their latest invention.
We were supposed to have fully automated self driving cars ago. They seem to be no closer to solving "the last 1%" than they were then, even in more friendly locations in the US vs somewhere harder like London.
Assisted driving makes life easier for long drives on the motorway. But it's not the revolution of being able to be a passenger idly watching TV that was promised.
These LLMs will similarly help in creating first drafts of essays, of emails, of music etc. It will make things much more efficient. Some people will lose their jobs. But it won't be a wholesale revolution making 25% of the population redundant.
Finally - I don't think AGI necessarily means enlightened genius that takes over everything. The current Tory cabinet has general intelligence, but that doesn't make it any less crap.
And I don't care what 'experts in the field say' as they have made so many incorrect predictions on other forms of AI in the recent past. Only the passage of time will prove me or them to be right or wrong.
*Ducks*
Yup.
The “AI” we have at the moment is fair at some things. It is hopeless at detailed accuracy.
What it can do is spot patterns or the absence of patterns. So give it a zillion bank transactions and it can spot anomalies. Not all of them, but for fraud detection it’s quite useful for creating alerts for humans to check out.
An interesting one is giving an LLM a human written essay and asking it what insights and the themes within the topic were *left out*
It's not just detailed accuracy, it's *any* accuracy. Hence hands with six or seven fingers, or five Beatles, or athletes with missing forearms.
Indeed, current 'AI' has no idea of the concept of accuracy. Or fingers. Or anything.
I'm terribly sorry - but that's incorrect. Unless your idea of 'AI' is typing something into ChatGPT/Dalle and then eye-rolling that it wasn't what you wanted.
The field has progressed well beyond that.
Firstly, don't assume that I don't know what I'm talking about.
Secondly, try reading what I wrote.
But to treat your comment with the same disdain that you wrote yours: I'm terribly sorry, but people who are getting so bed-wettingly excited over the current 'AI' are blind to its limitations, and what those limitations mean.
Comments
The protagonist in Boyd’s Any Human Heart (Logan Mountstuart) was a rich man in his youth but spent his autumn years eating dog food. Reading that in my early 20s left a mark. Don’t be like Logan.
Indeed, current 'AI' has no idea of the concept of accuracy. Or fingers. Or anything.
It is insane when you think of the natural wealth of the place
It *feels* poorer than Cambodia which makes no sense on the GDP per capita stats. Colombia is $7k but Cambodia is $2k
https://twitter.com/scotlandyes2/status/1767703705011249395
I’m saying there might be cleverer ways to hedge and save than a pension, given the unprecedented volatility coming our way
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/19/technology/artificial-intelligence-image-generators-faces-quiz.html
Its not one modest company, its a global company, and its the kind of crap jobs that are churned routinely, indeed its largely outsourced that kind of job anyway precisely because its so unimportant.
Because without one the probability of global annihilation is 1, given long enough
NEW THREAD
The field has progressed well beyond that.
Secondly, try reading what I wrote.
But to treat your comment with the same disdain that you wrote yours: I'm terribly sorry, but people who are getting so bed-wettingly excited over the current 'AI' are blind to its limitations, and what those limitations mean.
There’s no rhythm or sequence. It’s just a jumble of big things and an assertion (and a tentative assertion at that) bolted on the end.
This is irrespective of whether it is right or not