posted in Technology
Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
www.thenerve.news/p/cory-doctorow-ai-business-incentive-to-lie-useless-chatbots-report-nikhil-suresh
The NerveCory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lyingIt has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our tech columnistReplying to @floofloof@lemmy.ca
It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful.
This is stupid. The tools are helpful. Overhyped? Sure. But to pretend they are in no way helpful is just wrong.
Replying to @AgentSeven@lemmy.zip
Part of the problem is AI isn’t a literal thing with a fixed definition. It’s more of a marketing term that translates into “I want you to buy this thing”. So some things are considered AI that are legitimately useful and others are not and then there’s the debate if wether it’s because it really is AI or if it is and AI just sucks.
Replying to @muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
In other words, corporate leadership is starting from the premise that AI has (or will) radically change the business, and they’re working backwards from that premise to find the evidence to support this article of faith.
This quote is quite funny in this context, because it’s literally what people do with AI. Half of the frontpage of lemmy is AI. The other half is people saying AI is bad with no realization of the irony, because they don’t see good AI. It’s like CGI. Everybody hates CGI, except they don’t. CGI is everywhere. They just hate bad CGI.
Replying to @TheLegendaryAssholeOfJushinLiger@sh.itjust.works
What is AI? Explain as if i just woke up from a coma. We don’t have flying cars, we have dumpster deloreans, but everyone is talking about AI. What is it?
Replying to @muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
AI is a vague term used colloquially to describe a variety of dissimilar and unrelated technologies each carrying a unique mixture of pros and cons.
Replying to @rezifon@lemmy.world
So it doesn’t actually mean anything.
Replying to @muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
Like most things, meaning depends on context. In the most common context of “news about AI” we’re talking about generative AI: image/video generators, LLMs, and to a lesser degree coding assistants. If you want to know more about what these technologies share in common, look up what a “perceptron” is and how it works.
More generally AI could mean anything from a neural network based approach to problem solving, to a completely deterministic, hand coded heuristic. A pure decision tree could be AI in the case of video game NPCs, for example.
Replying to @underisk@lemmy.ml
So it’s a new synonym for algorithm.
Replying to @muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
Not quite. Algorithms are definite, you get the same guaranteed output if you give the same input every time. AI is generally more fuzzy logic.
Replying to @AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
If it can run on a computer, its an algorithm. Definitionally.
Replying to @AppleTea@lemmy.zip
Great, Linux is an algorithm.
It might be accurate, but it’s also vague enough that it’s a pretty useless definition.
Replying to @AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
I mean, yes. Linux is an algorithm. The programmes called AI are also still algorithms - they’re still deterministic, just too much of a tangled mess, too complex, for a anyone too realistically break it down step by step.
There are some math problems that cannot be described algorithmically, but because of that they’re also non computable. Uh, some thermodynamics and quantum stuff from what I’ve heard.
Replying to @AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
That’s my point.
Replying to @muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
I’d say it’s more like a way to describe a certain kind of algorithm. One that adapts in some way to inputs that defy simple classification. Ultimately you’re probably just safe to replace AI in modern news and internet discussion with LLM or CNN.
Replying to @underisk@lemmy.ml
I agree with that, but others don’t. And that’s the problem. It’s not a fixed definition. It’s marketing.