Trying to think of any previous technology that needed this many people out there telling everyone that they're wrong about how it stinks and it is very good and helpfully actually
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it's also speedrunning the destruction of the planet, and even if EVERYTHING it was promised to be were true, well now we're talking about a robot slave chained up in Microsoft's basement forced to write emails or something? even the fantasy they're selling is actually a nightmare
I had a guy telling me "fire can cook food but it can also be used in war," as if this glorified auto-compete shit was in any way like the discovery of fire.
I also don’t know how you can look at it in a vacuum. This is after NFTs, after the metaverse, after crypto. None of those had real world use cases and all of them were hyped and the people who hyped them just keep hyping the next thing. Bot who cried wolf and all that
do you own an apple watch? A smart thermostat? connected appliance? IOT is all over. Big Data is fundamental to all internet advertising, underpining all of Meta, Google, TikTok, SnapChat and a million other businesses.
No. No. And No. But I did see Google dropping support for older Nests and pulling out of Europe. And the argument is about hype. All those platforms ran before it and will now that no one talks about it anymore. Agree to disagree.
I have worked in product management for 25 years at a database company. Hype is hype is hype. Big Data was evolutionary not revolutionary. Cloud? That was a revolution. IPhones. Sure. Its a nice buzz word to describe something that had happened organically already.
Excellent point. They just coming up one vaporware scheme after another, built around zero real world use cases. And then they’re baffled: why aren’t people buying the hype?
that dude makes like $20 mill a year - must gave some big gambling debts. I can’t name any commercials from a late night host like this - Carson used to do in show ads but nothing like this.
I have no idea what you're talking about. Vaccinations were widely celebrated when they finally arrived. Imagine not having to worry about your children becoming paralyzed. The government also had to advertise and push the message out there that, yes, you should get your child vaccinated
Yeah but the AI is decades older than those. The only reason AI is happening now and not in the 1970s is because computers back then were too expensive and too slow. With those factors changing, the ai revolution was inevitable, and I say that as a skeptic.
Not quite. The idea of Artificial Intelligence does go back to early science fiction but the current generative models are a new concept hitching their wagon to the established reputation.
AI isn't a singular field, it's a buzzword attached to certain techniques and algorithms that are in vogue. An AI researcher pre-AI winter and modern ML researchers aren't really performing the same type of work.
And the "use cases" they cite are non-writers exclaiming how well it writes; non-coders exclaiming how well it codes; non-medical people exclaiming it's access to medical uses, etc etc etc.
The original Macintosh showed us computers were supposed to have a a graphical display of windows and menus that you point at with a mouse. It wasn’t until 11 years later the world said yeah I guess that doesn’t stink it makes sense
Also: TV remotes, seat belts, air bags, microwaves, telephone answering machines, cell phones, the telephone itself, the internet… honestly if you think any successful technology was instantly welcomed with universal adulation I’ll need you to make that case
Oh yeah, for sure. I was on-board from the moment I used a Mac in 1984. But it was all uphill until Windows 95. Even Windows 3.1 was accepted reluctantly, with most software taking over the screen for its own UI (often text).
My fellow comp-sci majors made fun of my Mac’s GUI in 1990.
They invited a select group of people to preview the Segway in private and they reported that this then-secret, revolutionary tech device would cause entire cities to be redesigned.
Panoramic cameras come to mind. They were a huge thing for all of a year back around 2003. It took that short of time to be outdated. I always think about that when there's a new technology that's all the rage.
Actually, it's the opposite. Its the fear-mongering anti-nuclear factions that try sell you on the idea that nuclear is dangerous when it is actually the safest form of power generation measured in deaths per unit of energy generated.
I don't know if you can use murder to light your home, but a lot of 19th century capitalists did use it to run their factories, so it's at least partially accurate.
This is the best comparative example I think I’ve seen - pushed heavily by the big companies, hailed as the thing that would save movie theaters from home movies, dependent on tech developments that were changing too quickly for standardization, AND didn’t really work for most people….
The Metaverse and general concept of virtual reality replacing actual.
You knew Meta was a trash company run by an underseasoned clownboy when, after billions sunk into their fake matrix, Zoom cornered the videochat market.
TF were they programming? They forgot “talking to other actual humans”?
Vaccines would be a big example.. they've had critics and knee-jerk reactions from day 1, and some people use the same arguments against them as people did 200+ years ago.
I'm not old enough to remember the time when experts said the world would only ever need 7 digital computers, but I'm old enough to remember people telling Steve Jobs that there was no demand for computers in homes.
They keep casting around for excuses for how this is better than a search engine. Reminds me of explanations of how 'blockchain' is better than a database because trust me bro
THERE ARE ACTUALLY A LOT OF NUANCED REASONS BEHIND USING IT YOU STUPID COW!!!!!! BEND TO MY FOOT!!!! YOU FUCKING LUDDITES
Me: Oh, absolutely. I'll be sure to use this in my historical research even if it's wrong all the time and eats a thousand trees per second. Thank you so much.
I used to make NFT bros frame all of their value arguments in Bored Apes context and they‘d all try to dodge it and take refuge in blockchain. NO. EXPLAIN IT IN APES.
And crypto is just an ongoing racket that’s an unholy union of gambling and fraud.
Before that it was AR/VR. They even made little cardboard headsets you could slide your phone into, if you couldn’t afford the ludicrously expensive headsets.
All of these technologies DO have valid use cases, by the way; it’s just that none of them make money commercially. Womp-womp.
Hm. AR/VR seem rough to include in this. I agree that it probably won't be a daily thing for most folk, but it certainly has a niche for gamers, and the tech can be helpful for other fields like assistive tools and I've seen some cases for medical use which is neat.
Granted, all of the others you mentioned have found their way into gaming as well, but not in a way that anyone sane cares to explore. Mostly scam shenanigans, and none have any use to other fields that I'm aware of.
Social media should just be an upgrade to the email protocols. All they really did was change killfile to block, contact list to friends and added pictures to your mailbox.
I got paid good money in the early '80s to help people work up the courage to interact with their very first desktop "personal computer." I had them start with plugging it in. Including some of my own professors. Everyone was grateful. And I earned enough to give myself a grad trip around Europe.
My mom bought a Word Processor in the mid 80s. It came within its own furniture (a special shelf for the dot matrix printer!) & had a bigger/taller footprint than our upright piano. She never figured out how to do more than type basic documents - as if using a typewriter. It vanished w/in a year 🫥
It’s a tool we didn’t need and objectively made life worse, just like AI. It doesn’t matter what we think though, all the richest people in the world agree with you, so more of our jobs will be gone as soon as feasible
Respectfully I would’ve never had any communication with the queer community if it wasn’t for social media and I’m sure I never would’ve figured out my identity. Social media isn’t all bad. It’s what kept my Republican parents from brainwashing me.
In 2005 many ppl did not agree with me, did not adapt and lost their jobs. Those who are willing to adapt will be just fine. We don't "need" any innovation. We could go back to hunting and gathering.
It's a tool that helped folks find community. That in of itself isn't bad, its the double edged nature of the sword that also allowed folks like fascists to find one another.
A hammer could kill a man in one persons hand and it can help build a house in other, it’s not about the tool itself it’s about how it’s used. AI is causing so much grief cause 90% of its users are using it for evil rather then good.
Hand washing! In the 1800s, Ignaz Semmelweis found handwashing reduced deaths. Doctors mocked him, refusing to believe they could carry germs, and rejected his life-saving discovery.
fair point. I believe AI is incredibly useful and incredi ly dangerous. But either way it is definitely inevitable. I guess like germs are useful, dangerous, and inevitable
the bullshit machine helped me diagnose a health problem no one was able to diagnose for over 6 years and now I don't live in pain. There are several other healthcare case studiss. Decades and untold amounts of money has gone into getting technology to this level. There is no turning back.
You're not saying that or was an LLM that diagnosed your health problem, are you?
Having spent a lot of money on something does not in any way guarantee that it's inevitable or will continue to improve
The problem is the bullshit hype that only exists because of late-stage capitalism that requires growth in spite of reality.
It's a big advancement in data structures and algorithms. It's meaningful. It only requires massive piles of coal if you're using it for parlor tricks like ChatGPT/etc do.
I like how many of the responses are thinking that this means like AI is actually an unfairly maligned technology like cellphones, but rather it is more like essential oils where it is obviously garbage but it has rabid defenders.
Maybe Bill should admit he was hoodwinked by Sam which led to everyone else being conned into believing AI is more than a money grab for software salesmen
Do MOOCs count? I sat through years of being told they were awesome and The Future of Higher Ed until they finally just went away because no one likes them. Maybe not a Technology but definitely hyped as an Innovation.
Some of them are competently crafted, but they take WORK to do that, I think?
(Aalto University has some free-for-everyone MOOC's that I was using to teach myself Python when unemployed, for instance, and seem to be laid out in a very comprehensible and helpful manner.)
Yeah, the only real innovation they offered was massive upscaling of class size, but they were sold as a new pedagogy. Then it became clear 99.9% of people who enrolled in them didn't even complete them. Turns out delivering content -/= teaching.
At the time it seemed like criminally large amounts of (educational) funding were being wasted on The MOOC Revolution, but obviously it pales in comparison to the black hole of AI funding.
I missed them being a hype thing, mind, I just came across them when looking for ways to teach myself some programming skills to expand my employment options/hack together small things as a researcher.
(I did used to know Assembler once, looonggg ago.)
You're missing what was problematic about them. The successes were always anecdotes of 1, and with the background to pull it off. The failures were the people the hypesters said would benefit.
The fact that all of the commercials for consumer-facing AI stuff are so desperately trying to convince you that there’s something you can use it for is kind of a giveaway that there’s nothing you actually need it for.
One of the first early media lessons I taught my kids was that if you see a lot of advertisements for something, it's because you don't need it. No one's advertising for like, hairbrushes, or oxygen.
Same vein: I'll never hire a plumber, HVAC company, etc that has the budget to run tv spots. If they can only afford that level of marketing, they're ripping people off.
This isn't exactly true. The majority of ads are for things you very much need but only purchase infrequently, like cars and insurance. It's all about name recognition.
Thisss! Don't remember the source but recently saw something along the lines of "have you ever seen an advert for microwaves? No. But literally everyone has one."
Microwaves, specifically, are probably not the best example here, because they *were* heavily advertised until they became ubiquitous and fairly standardized in the mid-80s or so, a process driven heavily by advertising.
Yes, actually. In addition to the infrastructure concerns - the first microwaves were huge, heavy, and needed water-cooling - people were concerned that microwaves used “nuclear radiation”, or somehow “sucked the nutrients out”. Some people *still* believe that stuff.
With AI you can make a reservation at a restaurant not in the pouring rain! And it will tell you what food you like! As if restaurants are currently seating people in the rain and we can't figure out how to get food we like.
The interview prep commercials for the AI-encumbered chromebook floored me. Like, ask gemini to prep you for your *current* job and see if it does better than you would.
Matthew McConaughey sitting in the pouring rain with the wrong food and going “i DiDnT uSe Ai”
like you people literally think we all have single digit IQs
3dTV had a similar feel, but not this magnitude. The VR metaverse thing was basically just Facebook Meta but had the same sheen of desperation. Self-driving cars trucks and everything was THE future in 2015-2017 and you were dumb if you didn't agree. These things just end, and no mea culpas.
Anyone who believes unequivocally in a utopian future state of *something* brought about as fast as possible by technology and technology alone is always wrong. Good rule of thumb.
Near miss. AI ought to be chased out of town on a rail, but steam power drew similar objections. Those objections helped make it safer and more efficient, which AI can never be. But the public discourse resembled today's about AI.
The comments to this post makes me think that there’s actually still hope for a part of humanity. AI can be really useful in small niche areas like detecting cancer in x-rays but it seems to fail so badly at being a generic do-everything tool.
We were not born, but I remember reading about the anti-electricity movement or the Luddites. And their opponents.
Also, I had a first hand experience about GMO's and the opposition movement in Europe.
What do you think about these three subjects and the fuss they generated?
I know what the Luddites were. And what was the cause of unemployment that led to their movement: automation that diminished the need for human workers.
You can turn it any way you want, at the end of the day they fought automation. Abd lost. Badly.
Except the automation didn't diminish the need for human workers. It just enabled the factory owners to steal labor by using enslaved orphans for tasks that previously required skilled craftsmen.
The problem with 'Artificial Intelligence' is it is being oversold.
It is very useful for the knowledgeable user in some use cases.
But it is being deployed as an all purpose solution for the average person.
That is misleading at best and dangerous at worst.
Believe it or not, the modern carriage biz relies on the interwebs. And no I don't want to use AI for what I do, but more and more websites and apps are encouraging or even requiring me to.
There's no PROOF this is true, but they can try to pry the conspiracy theory from my cold dead hands.
And they'll have to HOPE doing so doesn't invoke some sort of heavily caffeinated mummy's curse.
Isn’t that what they’re kind of doing with AI though? Talking about how it’s so smart it’s going to kill humanity and/or replace all human workers in order to inure us to the lesser indignities of having shitty politicians with genAI housing plans and supposedly highbrow mags with mid genAI covers
I broke my hip a few months ago, entailing many people's work to make it better. The hospital's billing was so screwed up I was tempted to believe they were using AI. I am going to try very hard to stay well from now on.
I'm a writer. I'm totally against it. But to answer your implied question: TV, radio, automobiles, airplanes, vaccines, all of Western medicine, electricity... to name the few I'm personally aware of.
What about computers? For most of their history they were seen as novelties. When the first electronic calculators were created people asked "what's the point?" The president of IBM said there's a world market for only 5 computers. The people advocating for computers were seen as weirdos and nerds.
Not to say I'm advocating for AI (I'm not), but let's not pretend like it's some useless shit akin to NFTs. People and companies are using it because it IS useful. Focus on regulating it instead of on smugly pretending like it'll go away in a year or two if we ignore it hard enough.
Imagine the struggle of convincing outside sales reps to enter customer orders on an internal web site and stop faxing them… or to leave a voicemail because we no longer have a team admin taking messages.
Voicemail, email, web sites, word processing (vs typewriter) were all hard transitions
Yeah, and like AI ,it was hyped as a radical social transformation that would end cars. Instead it was a permission slip for a bunch of jerks to drive motorized vehicles on crowded sidewalks (or indoors, like that article's lead anecdote). Billed as convenience, deployed as annoyance.
my unironic answer is inoculation, but like, in the 18th century, at which point the specific social interplay you're thinking of doesn't really exist and also people believe in witches and shit
It was sooo statistically unlikely that we would discover and understand germs and yet we did and now somehow we’re going back to “if I can’t see it myself It doesn’t exist”
Were I personally of the belief that many people overlook the numerous use cases for my beloved computer friend I would simply provide an example of one, instead of constantly scolding others for being too negative
I use one locally to process documents and help me code. Also general tech support is nice, and writing emails for claims etc. It's significantly improved my quality of life.
I don't know what you mean by "process documents"(I personally know how to read) and yes, I have seen socially unpleasant software engineers tell me they like it for vague QoL reasons.
I already know you people like AI. But I am neither of those things. Provide a use case or stop whining.
Sincere question. Why are you so hostile? You said no one has given you an example. I offered a few. I have a couple mental disorders that make dealing with documents hell. I don't hurt the environment. I don't pay tech bros. It's a computer program that makes my life easier. So why?
You responded to me to whine, and now you're sobbing and you still haven't given one example.
I absolutely do understand that AI lets the dumbest and laziest shut-in dweebs cosplay as Business Guy, I simply do not regard that as a use case for the general public.
You have spent so much time arguing online that you've grouped individuals to save attentional energy. I'm in Group X with people you hate because I said something that reminds you of them. Look at your replies - you literally think I'm the enemy in your head because I use a computer program. Muted.
I used ChatGPT to provide fully contextual Greek-only restaurant menu translations into English.
Google Translate would only give things like "Red Fish" whereas ChatGPT knew the Red Fish mentioned was a type of local delicacy, the Red Mullet, which was in season.
No man I’m with you it absolutely has equaled the functionality Google Translate had 15 years ago and “asking the waiter” has always had. Life changing stuff
And yeah, I get severe social anxiety when writing emails too but you know what? I still manage to pull through and I get to feel proud of myself for confronting that anxiety. All that passing the writing off to the slop machine will give you is the cold, hollow comfort of giving up.
Because of errant AI corrections that sometimes change the meaning of sentences, I find myself rereading outgoing emails and texts 2 or 3 times to make sure the little elf didn't "fix" it.
Things get s-l-o-w. Working with multiple secretaries during the 1980s-90s, I found working thru our various misreadings and typos often delayed important letters for days. Then came word processing and I could do it all myself, instantly. AI seems like working thru three error prone secretaries.
I’m trying to think of any previous technology where the people that liked it got wealthy and the people that hated it stayed poor, and then when the people that liked it (who were wealthy) said, “c’mon you should learn about this!”, the people that hated it (who were still poor) said, “nah”
I’m trying to think of why I should give a shit about what some crypto lover has to say about anything. Congratulations on having all of that internet money that is every bit as easy to use as normal money.
I can think of 94 thousand reasons you should care. I’ll give you $94,000 for a bitcoin right now. Banks are closed. Markets are closed. Post office is closed. I don’t care what country you’re in. Drop me an address, I can have it to you in 10 minutes, 60 minutes to confirm.
LLMs exist mainly to support anti-anti-LLM discourse (from tech reporters, neckbeards, and “long time internet guys”). Perfect combo of form and content
Is the polyester homegrown or sustainably sourced under a fair trade agreement? Can I harvest my own polyester? Big PolyPharma is just in it for the money. It’s not making naked people clothes, it’s making customers.
Questions need answers.
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"AI" isn't just a pump-and-dump scam, a sad fraud on investors and regular people, it's a cult.
Terrible examples.
Is there any legit innovation that also didn't suffer from ridiculous hype?
Perhaps it's because they can only promise what will *not* happen, and nothing more.
My point was that the presence of hucksters and charlatans is not a meaningful predictor of whether or not a tech has value.
An enormous improvement on being sold shit and told its chocolate.
My fellow comp-sci majors made fun of my Mac’s GUI in 1990.
I don't think the defensive rationalization period lasted that long, take some hope in that.
There are reactors that literally CAN'T enrich nuclear materials, that are safer, and that generate less waste than those.
(And even the weapons ones generate VERY little waste compared to any other energy source.)
but then everyone else just used it for cheap gimmicks instead
The proprietary AI on spider-verse that adds wrinkles to the models is one example of such a tool.
You knew Meta was a trash company run by an underseasoned clownboy when, after billions sunk into their fake matrix, Zoom cornered the videochat market.
TF were they programming? They forgot “talking to other actual humans”?
Also a lot of ppl posit that Edison successfully pushed DC power despite it being a roundly worse alternative to AC!
Can’t remember who wrote abt the picaresque (“”) snake oil salesman as the central figure of American mythology, but it’s hard to argue
https://archive.org/details/GiveYour1954
uh whoops
Me: Oh, absolutely. I'll be sure to use this in my historical research even if it's wrong all the time and eats a thousand trees per second. Thank you so much.
The result will be the same, though
DIVX
Public AI hype by the Sam Altman types, the Gen AI stuff, which is very clearly limited in potential.
"Plumbing" type backend AI use cases who's impact will be more similar to like ML/IOT, it helps software but the public exposure to that is small.
I used to make NFT bros frame all of their value arguments in Bored Apes context and they‘d all try to dodge it and take refuge in blockchain. NO. EXPLAIN IT IN APES.
And crypto is just an ongoing racket that’s an unholy union of gambling and fraud.
Both things suck.
All of these technologies DO have valid use cases, by the way; it’s just that none of them make money commercially. Womp-womp.
There are no more must-adopts in B2C, only fad diets, but the gravy train must not shut down
Having spent a lot of money on something does not in any way guarantee that it's inevitable or will continue to improve
Beauty products.
Say that again
It's a big advancement in data structures and algorithms. It's meaningful. It only requires massive piles of coal if you're using it for parlor tricks like ChatGPT/etc do.
Still little better than a toy, though.
At least as far as mass adoption by individuals is concerned.
Still are. But especially from the 1920s to 1970s or so.
https://portside.org/2015-01-21/forgotten-history-how-automakers-invented-crime-jaywalking
https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-technology-social-media-business-internet-eb89baf1fa30e245c030992b48a8a0ff
lolllll
May I introduce you to Mr. John Henry?
[I don't like LLMs but your post was inane]
(Aalto University has some free-for-everyone MOOC's that I was using to teach myself Python when unemployed, for instance, and seem to be laid out in a very comprehensible and helpful manner.)
(I did used to know Assembler once, looonggg ago.)
“What if AI could…” ok but it can’t
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=m_bscfynyaE
like you people literally think we all have single digit IQs
"The technology is stupid and immoral? YOU are stupid and immoral."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/12/opinion/senate-cryptocurrency.html
I should’ve known when a lot of the same freaks screaming about NFTs and Cryoto also jumped on the AI bandwagon.
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I know Ai has been in development for a long time, but LLMs went from an experiment to consumer product is very, very fast.
LLMs may have value, but we’re figuring it out in public
(All of which have legit usefulness, suffered ridiculous hype cycles, and brought about obvious and non-obvious negative consequences)
https://www.purplemotes.net/2012/12/23/trithemius-printing-scribes-reason/
Google glasses?
Segways?
Quibi?
I felt such relief learning and doing this.
Also, I had a first hand experience about GMO's and the opposition movement in Europe.
What do you think about these three subjects and the fuss they generated?
The Luddites were the first "labor movement". You should read about it sometime, so you won't be confidently incorrect in public, next time.
You can turn it any way you want, at the end of the day they fought automation. Abd lost. Badly.
It is very useful for the knowledgeable user in some use cases.
But it is being deployed as an all purpose solution for the average person.
That is misleading at best and dangerous at worst.
No, seriously, google it!
And they'll have to HOPE doing so doesn't invoke some sort of heavily caffeinated mummy's curse.
I still have to argue with my father about how electric vehicles aren’t scams.
Because unlike AI masks actually work
Voicemail, email, web sites, word processing (vs typewriter) were all hard transitions
They don’t type, they talk.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/30/tech/segway-history/index.html
Had all this hype, they even called it IT. Was gonna change the world.
“It.”
It is a fucking scooter.
lmao
I already know you people like AI. But I am neither of those things. Provide a use case or stop whining.
I absolutely do understand that AI lets the dumbest and laziest shut-in dweebs cosplay as Business Guy, I simply do not regard that as a use case for the general public.
Google Translate would only give things like "Red Fish" whereas ChatGPT knew the Red Fish mentioned was a type of local delicacy, the Red Mullet, which was in season.
That's neat for you.
Hey, fun fact, you could just ask a scientist for information you want to know, you don't need this fancy "book" technology getting in your way! /s
Because having something that confidently returns incorrect results, even about things that are easily found, is an 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵?
The answer is not to use AI, but to make Google great again
Questions need answers.