"AI" is a failed technology, in the sense that it's neither fit for purpose, nor a likely path to its stated end goal of "AGI", but a lot of people's profits currently depend on pretending it's not.
-
@Gargron
I am fascinated by your ad hominem attack, but I'm not here to score points or win a right-or-wrong debate.Why not address the substance of my response and engage in a fair debate based on facts and experiences?
Let me start:
What if a technology doesn't need to provide 100% reliable information to be useful, provided its limitations are understood and appropriately managed?And what if future developments improve the reliability of these models and address some of their current limitations? Would AI still be inherently dangerous and irresponsible as a technological tool?
I'm genuinely interested in the reasoning behind your conclusion that AI is a failed technology.
@Luminous_J
"If it was something else, would it still be the same?"We can talk about that when it is that something else. For now, and for any moment in the present, it is what it is.
@Gargron -
"AI" is a failed technology, in the sense that it's neither fit for purpose, nor a likely path to its stated end goal of "AGI", but a lot of people's profits currently depend on pretending it's not. I am curious to see how long the hype will last once the Nvidia ouroboros ends and money stops being pumped into marketing.
@Gargron The business case for building a superhuman AI never really stood up: https://findthethread.blog/Artificial-Investment/
On the other hand once the worst of the hype fades, there is value there that can be salvaged. We saw this cycle play out with drones, 3D printing, and even (Cthulhu help us all) blockchains. -
@clayote LLM output depends heavily on who is using it. a bad engineer will produce bad code with an LLM, just faster. a great engineer can use it to produce great code, faster.
@Gargron may have reviewed plenty of LLM-generated code. that doesn't mean he has seen what these tools can do in the hands of someone who knows how to use them. that is precisely my point: if you have never used the tools yourself, you are judging them from the outside, without understanding what you're missing.
While it is possible for a good engineer to produce good code with an LLM, it requires a significant amount of back and forth, a lot of patience, and ends up not saving as much time. Much of the savings is eaten up in the careful review and iteration on the solution. It is not clear that you actually save money doing this.
On the flip side. Generating spaghetti code that works is way faster. So when people are operating on a deadline, what do they do? They generate spaghetti code and shop for reviewers who will stamp it.
The biggest difference post LLM? The speed of spaghetti generation.
-
@dandean @skavish these two posts sums it up for me, you both get a star
For what is wurth: @skavish your point is being pulled out of context a couple of times and that is a shame. You are genuielly trying to provide a perspective/insight.
And you’re wright: ‘only if you open-mindly try it.. ‘
@dandean thx for the clearity
@theatredesvarietes @skavish to clarify, my critique is on the point @skavish is trying to make. We are stuck living in the real world. In the real world, the incentives produced by LLMs encourage bad outcomes. It’s possible to work in spite of those incentives at the individual level, but the broader reality is the nature of the system, and that reality is a firehose of slop.
-
"AI" is a failed technology, in the sense that it's neither fit for purpose, nor a likely path to its stated end goal of "AGI", but a lot of people's profits currently depend on pretending it's not. I am curious to see how long the hype will last once the Nvidia ouroboros ends and money stops being pumped into marketing.
@Gargron
here's a little something to hopefully help it end sooner:
https://thoughtlost.org/nosingularity/ -
@Gargron counterpoint: we are well past the point of no return for agentic engineering. There will always be purists who insist on writing code by hand but we aren’t returning to that being the default even after the bubble pops. And I think quiet use of AI as glue will propagate more or less unseen through a lot of tech until it is the expected/desired thing vs a bolted-on buzzword.
Are there myriad problems with both of these? Of course. But that much is not “failure” in any meaningful sense.
@mellowfish @Gargron rapist take
-
@mirabilos @mellowfish Like moths to a flame. Happy to be of service.
@Gargron @mirabilos @mellowfish or flies to a turd 🪰
edit: I am talking about AI-bros drawn to defending LLM usage, no shade intended or implied on you Eugen
-
@Gargron counterpoint: we are well past the point of no return for agentic engineering. There will always be purists who insist on writing code by hand but we aren’t returning to that being the default even after the bubble pops. And I think quiet use of AI as glue will propagate more or less unseen through a lot of tech until it is the expected/desired thing vs a bolted-on buzzword.
Are there myriad problems with both of these? Of course. But that much is not “failure” in any meaningful sense.
-
@Gargron @imhotep @skavish On the other hand you say in another post, that you have never used AI, but maintaining one of the biggest FOSS project on GitHub is enough expertise.
Im no Dev, but I assume Linux may be a even bigger FOSS project and Linus explored AI. According to your argumentation, he is as capable as you, if not more, to make guesses about GenAI.
Or what’s the difference, that make your opinion superior to his one?
-
Sea Lion
️ -
@Gargron this got boosted into my timeline.
You are conflating some llms with the umbrella of ai technologies in an apparent reaction to how those companies train and market their llms.
The problem isn't the technology. It's people who are lumped up in trenchcoats of corporations.
Be critical, but be accurate. You're half there.
@knowprose "not all men"-ass take
-
@oldguycrusty @Gargron you think the extra half trillion a year for the pentagon is intended for humans?
I take your point.
But still, I understand the industry investment to be on the order of $2.5 trillion in data center infrastructure alone.
As huge a taxpayer handout as that may be, it still doesn't even come close to covering cost, much less get the industry to profitability.
So what is the revenue model? What's the plan?
I don't get it.
-
@skavish @Gargron We live in very... Curious times at the moment.
There's a massive hype to adopt something that many don't want to adopt, nor should they have to do so, but equally there's a hype train that says 'do this thing or else...'
There's a middle ground where you can use it quietly, and not use it quietly, and it really doesn't matter.
It's the either siders I'm concerned about.When those that hate it hear about it 24-7 it's like passive smoking. It sucks, it's bad for you and you wish you could escape it.
Equally when you use it for something meaningful and before you've had a chance to explain, you've been shut down because tolerance is 'agree with me or else' that equally sucks.I haven't stated which side of the fence I fall on, and I won't here without being asked. I'm not here to persuade or dissuade, just to make a point.
Moderation is good.You can see my thoughts by looking at my personal posts.
Both of you in this conversation have made your decision and that's OK, but there's nuance in everything and dismissing either side out-of-hand means you aren't thoughtful enough to know where that nuance lies.
You = general you, not you two personally.
I see a lot of love and hate recently, sadly more hate than love, more intolerance than tolerance, and that's not really the fedi I signed up for.
If we could step back about 6 years and show one another just a tad more respect, the world would genuinely be a nicer place to live in.@FreakyFwoof @skavish @Gargron
I agree with this. I oppose irresponsible use of AI, and there's a lot of that around, but I think it's also possible to use it responsibly. Responsible use gets overshadowed by the "use more AI" people that are way too common in many corporations that love mediocrity, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
I use it myself on a project that would otherwise be way too large for me, and I think I've found an effective way to use it and get it to produce well-structured code. That does require constant code review, and clearly that code review is not perfect, because every model upgrade results in new issues being found that make me wonder how it ever missed those before. But on the whole, the end result is pretty good, and far better than the mediocre crap I often run into at big corporations. It's not as if AI is unique in bringing poorly written code to corporate projects.
But to get good code out of an LLM requires good software engineers who deeply understand how code should be structured and how to use agents to avoid the many pitfalls.
I have no doubt the future holds enormous amounts of slop.
So, pro or con? I use it myself, but I have more sympathy for anti-AI people than for "use AI everywhere" people. Am I overconfident in my ability to produce quality code with AI? Possibly. I remain critical, but will continue to use it as long as it seems to work for me.
My advice if you're not sure: don't let the AI write your code, but let it review it. It's much more thorough at review than most people are (who just skim over it and approve it). Make it an extra layer of defense, rather than a replacement.
-
-
Assuming you are correct that it can be made to produce quality code, what are the odds that, given the speed with which bad code can be created and that management definitely has no idea what good code looks like, they won't push their people to produce huge piles of crap with near zero chance that the few people who do know what they're doing will be able to fix it?
@joeinwynnewood @Gargron @skavish
what are the odds that, given the speed with which bad code can be created and that management definitely has no idea what good code looks like, they won't push their people to produce huge piles of crap
I would say those odds are very high. But management also pushes people to produce piles of crap without AI. I just spent most of last year fighting management on a poorly designed project where they just wanted to add more features before considering allowing a redesign, despite my proposed redesign making those features a lot easier to add. I've held multiple presentations on code quality that mostly fell on deaf ears. And this was before they switched to pushing AI.I'm not sure AI will make their code worse, because it is already really bad. The code quality of many corporate projects is atrocious. Despite their many automated code quality tools.
-
@FreakyFwoof @skavish @Gargron
I agree with this. I oppose irresponsible use of AI, and there's a lot of that around, but I think it's also possible to use it responsibly. Responsible use gets overshadowed by the "use more AI" people that are way too common in many corporations that love mediocrity, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
I use it myself on a project that would otherwise be way too large for me, and I think I've found an effective way to use it and get it to produce well-structured code. That does require constant code review, and clearly that code review is not perfect, because every model upgrade results in new issues being found that make me wonder how it ever missed those before. But on the whole, the end result is pretty good, and far better than the mediocre crap I often run into at big corporations. It's not as if AI is unique in bringing poorly written code to corporate projects.
But to get good code out of an LLM requires good software engineers who deeply understand how code should be structured and how to use agents to avoid the many pitfalls.
I have no doubt the future holds enormous amounts of slop.
So, pro or con? I use it myself, but I have more sympathy for anti-AI people than for "use AI everywhere" people. Am I overconfident in my ability to produce quality code with AI? Possibly. I remain critical, but will continue to use it as long as it seems to work for me.
My advice if you're not sure: don't let the AI write your code, but let it review it. It's much more thorough at review than most people are (who just skim over it and approve it). Make it an extra layer of defense, rather than a replacement.
@mcv @Gargron @skavish @fullywoolly
I'm blind so my particular use-case differs from the norm.
I see the use when people don't have the care (or time) to add alt-text and I want to be a part of the conversation.
I see uses for it at describing my surroundings.
I see uses for it when I'm in a hotel room and it's 6 in the morning, there are 3 *identical* bottles attached to the bathroom wall and I don't know which is shampoo, which is shower jell and which is conditioner because god forbid anyone bothers having a bit of difference on bottles, or even adding braille...
so yes. My use is different than most, perhaps.I also live in a world of very, very inaccessible software and web pages, despite the fat we have better standards than ever and the year is 2026.
This should be improving not disproving but sadly that is not the case.
As a result, many blind people (including myself) have decided that 'if people are going to leave us in the dark, make their portals/apps/websites inaccessible, we'll fix it ourselves.'Blind people are possibly some of the best software testers you'll ever have.
When something doesn't work, we'll find it.
You can't reach that one important app with the tab key? Stop, fix it.
Your menu bar doesn't work? Sort it out.
Alt+F for File clashes with Find for some bizarre reason? Nope.Many of us have either through necessity or sometimes lack of choice, become AI coders.
I already see some of you scoffing in the comments, and that's your right, but it's also my right to have a usable, accessible world to live in just as you do.
I fully intend to get that with, or without human help. -
@Gargron I like to ask pro-AI folks, "Where is your closest data center?" "How many acres of land did it use?" and "How much electricity will it consume?"
Many will not know the answers.
Here is a drone fly-over of a data center that's currently under construction and about 30 minutes from me. It answers many of the details everyone should be familiar with, whether you live by one, or simply utilize the technology.
https://youtu.be/52x2qBh4vsM?si=-9w4JBOBP3h1wlgO -
@Gargron
I think it's completely disingenuous to blame ai for all the troubles in the world, especially since all these problems were clearly there before ai.You have a problem with capitalism, not ai. And I do too, don't get me wrong. I'd love to live in a better, cleaner, juster world.
But ai has nothing to do with it.In fact, I think AI requires the end of capitalism. The big SciFi promise of AI is that AI will take care of all the stupid, dangerous, annoying and boring work while we play games and make art. See The Culture novels. But that's never going to happen as long as AI is controlled by powerful profit-seeking corporations.
If AI can indeed replace workers, as they claim (of which I'm very skeptical), then everybody will be poor and at their mercy, unless we completely change our economic system. (Which we should be doing anyway.)
-
@Gargron That's a quite strong stance, that missed proper argumentation. I agree it's not perfect and it has risks, but 'failed"?What is your definition for 'failed'?
Is it the fact that radiologists now can better diagnose breast cancer using AI as a tool to diagnose than without?
Or Is it the fact that it immensely progressed mRNA technology?
Or perhaps is it your fear for a 'new technology' that's alien and could perhaps take over your job and eventually your life?
We need to be careful not to equate all forms of AI. Nobody is using LLMs to diagnose breast cancer (or at least I hope not). AI has proven to be extremely effective within limited fields with clear, measurable goals.
Just like people have tried to get LLMs to play chess, and they're hilariously bad at it. But Stockfish is brilliant at it.
The big problem is the overuse of LLMs. People think that because you can have what looks like a conversation with them, they surely can do anything. They can't. They produce plausible responses, and they do that very well, which makes them extremely convincing. They're the ultimate bullshitters, and that's the big pitfall that over-eager CEOs in bullshit-sensitive industries keep falling into.
It doesn't make all AI useless, but it does make a lot of uses of AI irresponsible and dangerous.
-
@mastodonmigration cocaine is a substance with well-documented effects. AI is a tool whose results depend heavily on how it's used. the analogy doesn't work.
At this point, the cognitive decline cause by use of LLMs is also well documented and reproduced by multiple studies, so I think the analogy holds quite well.
