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Posted by Amontillado
Oct 2, 2025 at 02:39 AM
Whether or not I’m a Luddite is a question I respectfully defer to others. I prefer to write with a fountain pen over a ballpoint, so feel free to have harsh opinions.
I would rather create with the goo between my ears and remain unknown than enjoy success thanks to AI.
Maybe I should open an AI account and see what it does or what I could do with it. On the other hand, a day without AI doesn’t disappoint me, although I recognize every time I do a Google search I’m using the product of AI.
Geoffrey Hinton’s recent interviews are alarming.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Oct 2, 2025 at 09:13 AM
Well, I must say I’m delighted to hear about such positive experiences.
My own tests of AI translation have been disappointing, although I continue to use MT systems as a kind of super-thesaurus (i.e. to give me ideas I might not have thought of re: formulation, terminology etc.).
My colleague uses AI to enhance articles on management and communication, and finds it useful for structuring and expressing thoughts. But she frequently complains that ChatGPT Pro refers to research sources which, on checking, don’t exist (consequently, she has devised a kind of double feedback loop to speed up the checking process here) and that it doesn’t follow prompting properly (when e.g. asked to rewrite something in slightly different terms, or summarise a thought). So a useful support, but not to be relied on.
Which is why it’s good to hear about your positive experience. On the other hand, it might be worth casting an eye on this interesting interview with Hagen Blix: https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-is-an-attack-from-above-on-wages
As I said before, we haven’t yet started to properly evaluate the social implications of AI, nor indeed the potential mental impact (cf. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-ai-chatbots-may-be-fueling-psychotic-episodes/)
The thing people forget about the Luddites: it wasn’t the machinery as such they were objecting to – it was the latter’s impact on workers and their communities following the wholesale adoption by profit-driven entrepreneurs.
What’s the point of “productivity” if it doesn’t improve the human condition? Or only improves the condition of a very, very few?
What if the point of AI is not productivity as such, but replacement? Right-wing anti-immigration arguments pale (or rather, are shown up as what they are: a major and useful distraction) in the face of general disempowerment.
Sorry, getting on my high horse here. Shutting up now!
satis wrote:
Some technological skepticism is understandable, but Luddism is
>misplaced. My own experience with AI-driven tools proved just how
>transformative they can be.
>
>A relative needed help making sense of a thick stack of medical reports,
>including bloodwork and details from a thoracic echocardiogram. I spent
>hours researching the results, trying to understand the terminology so I
>could explain what I could in plain language.
>
>Only afterward did I think to try out an LLM. I inputted all the data to
>my Pro ChatGPT account (data which ChatGPT does not retain). I asked it
>to analyze the results, explain them in simple, non-technical language,
>summarize the findings, and then generate follow-up questions for the
>relative’s cardiologist based on the data.
>
>I was seriously shocked: in less than ten seconds ChatGPT delivered far
>clearer, more comprehensive insights than I was able to produce in hours
>(with zero errors on subsequent verification). It provided concise
>summaries of the tests and useful follow-up questions to the
>cardiologist that logically flowed from the data, which I would have
>been unable myself to compose.
>
>I’ve also used LLMs to collate and analyze tens of thousands of words
>I’ve written and collected and I’ve been satisfied by the results, and
>sometimes startled by the emergent capabilities of the service - able to
>comprehend inferences in writing that weren’t spelled out, able to
>detect nuances like sarcasm, and able to make insights and unanticipated
>connections from sometimes far-flung text from different sections of the
>writing.
>
>Like it or not, this technology is the real deal, and it’s improving at
>an extraordinary pace
Posted by Steve
Oct 2, 2025 at 02:27 PM
Fountain Pens! Yup. I prefer the analog approach, and I do not mind ink on my fingers.
Amontillado wrote:
Whether or not I’m a Luddite is a question I respectfully defer to
>others. I prefer to write with a fountain pen over a ballpoint, so feel
>free to have harsh opinions.
>
>I would rather create with the goo between my ears and remain unknown
>than enjoy success thanks to AI.
>
>Maybe I should open an AI account and see what it does or what I could
>do with it. On the other hand, a day without AI doesn’t disappoint me,
>although I recognize every time I do a Google search I’m using the
>product of AI.
>
>Geoffrey Hinton’s recent interviews are alarming.
Posted by Chris Murtland
Oct 2, 2025 at 05:00 PM
I willingly use AI about once per month, usually for writing a little utility script for something. After the brief initial novelty phase, I have had very little enthusiasm for it, although I keep telling myself to get with the program so I don’t get left behind.
I don’t know if it’s my age or my personality, but I just feel a little gross every time I use it (or it uses me, as the case may be).
It would be very slightly more appealing to me if they dropped the fake friendliness (e.g., “Great question, Chris!”). If your entire premise is fake, no need to double down. At least it’s still called artificial.
Posted by Chris Murtland
Oct 2, 2025 at 05:50 PM
To clarify, I shouldn’t say the entire premise is fake. The ability to do pattern recognition on vast amounts of data isn’t fake. If we can use that cure cancer, sounds good.
The part that seems fake to me is calling remixing the stolen output of humans “generative.”