I have a more nuanced take. AI is simultaneously untrustworthy and useful. For many queries, DuckDuckGo and Google are performing considerably worse than they used to, while Perplexity usually yields good results. Perplexity also handles complex queries traditional search engines just can’t.
About a third of the time, Perplexity’s text summary of what it found is inaccurate; it may even say the opposite of what a source does. Reading the sources and evaluating their reliability is no less important than with traditional search, but much of the time I think I wouldn’t have found the same sources that way.
Of course there are other issues with AI, such as power usage and Perplexity in particular being known for aggressive web scraping.
Nuance and depth isn’t as popular as I’d like on or off Lemmy.
I think current state-of-the-art AI is useful for when you are not having a novel thought.
I believe that AI, at least in the form of LLMs, is currently incapable of novelty in the sense of creating a new concept or a new thought with reason and purpose behind it.
For instance, if I was going to write a book, I might consult with LLMs about how to fill in the slow gaps or the dead spaces in my storyline and to fully come up with a completely fleshed out story that I would then write without its assistance.
My assumption is that anything that it fills in is going to be cobbled together from literally hundreds of thousands of other similar stories, and therefore it will not be new or unique in any way.
If I was really trying to push the envelope, I would then assume that the right thing to do would be that whatever it says is ordinary and common, and if I want to be extraordinary and uncommon, then I need to use that as a launch point for my own gap-filling content.
Therefore, I could use an LLM to write a good story with a new concept, a new premise, a new storyline that is relatively unique and original by using the LLM to clearly identify those things that are not.
I think ddg and Google are performing worse because of AI. Pushing their AI services and the tsunami of AI slop make a search harder than SEO did and deprioritizes fixing it.
Ah, but you see, I never claimed AI isn’t useful. In fact, you can check my comment history. I’ve agreed AI is a very useful tool, I still think it shouldn’t be used for ethical, social, and personal reasons
A problem with nuance is that people want to discuss the specifics and nuances of what they care about but for the most part won’t do that on subjects for other people. So you need to tailor your responses to your audience. FWIW on Lemmy I see a lot more instances of people with specificly opposed takes where both sides have similar vote counts. So while it’s not perfect it’s better than most
Would it? I run a science fiction book club and there’re a lot of arguments that if something achieved human level intelligence that it would immediately try to kill us, not become our perfect servants
As a software developer I fully agree. People bash on it constantly here but the fact is is that it’s required for our jobs now. I just made it through a job hunt and every tech screen I did they not only insisted on me using AI, but they figured how much I was using too.
The fact is is that like it or not it does speed us up, and it is a tool in our toolbelt. You don’t have to trust it 100% or blindly accept what it does, but you do need to be able to use it. Refusing to use it is like refusing to use the designer for WinForms 20 years ago, or refusing to use an IDE at work. You’re going to be at a massive disadvantage to your competing jobseekers who are more than happy to use AI.
AI is untrustworthy and shouldn’t be used
I have management talking about copilot usage rates and I hear people casually refer to “what ChatGPT told them” in conversation
The other day on Reddit someone was saying they just fact checked something with ChatGPT.
I have a more nuanced take. AI is simultaneously untrustworthy and useful. For many queries, DuckDuckGo and Google are performing considerably worse than they used to, while Perplexity usually yields good results. Perplexity also handles complex queries traditional search engines just can’t.
About a third of the time, Perplexity’s text summary of what it found is inaccurate; it may even say the opposite of what a source does. Reading the sources and evaluating their reliability is no less important than with traditional search, but much of the time I think I wouldn’t have found the same sources that way.
Of course there are other issues with AI, such as power usage and Perplexity in particular being known for aggressive web scraping.
Nuance and depth isn’t as popular as I’d like on or off Lemmy.
I think current state-of-the-art AI is useful for when you are not having a novel thought.
I believe that AI, at least in the form of LLMs, is currently incapable of novelty in the sense of creating a new concept or a new thought with reason and purpose behind it.
For instance, if I was going to write a book, I might consult with LLMs about how to fill in the slow gaps or the dead spaces in my storyline and to fully come up with a completely fleshed out story that I would then write without its assistance.
My assumption is that anything that it fills in is going to be cobbled together from literally hundreds of thousands of other similar stories, and therefore it will not be new or unique in any way.
If I was really trying to push the envelope, I would then assume that the right thing to do would be that whatever it says is ordinary and common, and if I want to be extraordinary and uncommon, then I need to use that as a launch point for my own gap-filling content.
Therefore, I could use an LLM to write a good story with a new concept, a new premise, a new storyline that is relatively unique and original by using the LLM to clearly identify those things that are not.
I think ddg and Google are performing worse because of AI. Pushing their AI services and the tsunami of AI slop make a search harder than SEO did and deprioritizes fixing it.
Ah, but you see, I never claimed AI isn’t useful. In fact, you can check my comment history. I’ve agreed AI is a very useful tool, I still think it shouldn’t be used for ethical, social, and personal reasons
A problem with nuance is that people want to discuss the specifics and nuances of what they care about but for the most part won’t do that on subjects for other people. So you need to tailor your responses to your audience. FWIW on Lemmy I see a lot more instances of people with specificly opposed takes where both sides have similar vote counts. So while it’s not perfect it’s better than most
I have people telling me how to do my work because “That’s what ChatGPT suggested, and they’re always accurate”.
🤷
Actual AGI would be trustworthy. The current “AI” is just a word salad blender program.
It could be argued that people are AGI. Are they always trustworthy?
Would it? I run a science fiction book club and there’re a lot of arguments that if something achieved human level intelligence that it would immediately try to kill us, not become our perfect servants
I believe in the Grand Plan, and I have faith in The Director. Begone, faction scum.
That was a good show.
As a software developer I fully agree. People bash on it constantly here but the fact is is that it’s required for our jobs now. I just made it through a job hunt and every tech screen I did they not only insisted on me using AI, but they figured how much I was using too.
The fact is is that like it or not it does speed us up, and it is a tool in our toolbelt. You don’t have to trust it 100% or blindly accept what it does, but you do need to be able to use it. Refusing to use it is like refusing to use the designer for WinForms 20 years ago, or refusing to use an IDE at work. You’re going to be at a massive disadvantage to your competing jobseekers who are more than happy to use AI.
This is not a fact at all.
Fine it speeds me up.