News sucks

[DrZoidberg]

So I'm, among other things, responsible for the AI implimentation at the very large corporation I work for. So I need to keep myself abrest of AI news and follow up on how it's working out.

What I've learned is that AI is universally positive. It doesn't fix all our problems, but makes life easier for most of our staff. But there's so far no down sides (arguably negative to the reqruiters). It has explosively increased productivity, and cut down on bullshit mistakes. Humans working in concert with AI is a damn awesome combo as a management tool.

But here's my issue, when reading news about AI it's almost all negative. Even IT industry news is negative. I don't know how many articles I've read about productivity gains being illusory. But they're not. I have access to our internal numbers. AI is awesome. Even though AI introduces plenty of errors. AI tools are also used to find errors. Which overall means less errors. The most accurate news on AI comes, absurdly, from press releases. Ie, ads for AI. Typically they're supoosed to oversell their products. Not give us straight facts. But that's the situation now for AI.

I meantioned this to an international mailinglist of my peers around the world. They said stuff like, "yeah of course, doom generates clicks. Positive stuff doesn't". A venture capitalist who works with convincing journalists all day, said "journalists have the greatest group think of any proffession".

This just makes me depressed about news coverage for everything else in the world. If this is the reality within a domain where I have near perfect ability to validate the news, how can I judge how bad the news coverage within stuff I don't have that ability.

Here's a fun fact I just learned, 2020 was the strongest the world economy has ever been. Never before in world history has the living standard among the poorest been better. Never before had wealth generation beeen greater. That of course took a pause with Covid. But I have no doubt that economic growth will be back. Anyway... I was around in 2020. I can't remember any magazine running that article. The last time I remember people were happy about the economy was in the 90'ies. Back when we were much worse off than today.

To my question:

If the journalists of the world conspire to scare us, what news can we trust... if any? And what do we do about it? Just checking out and ignoring the news doesn't feel like the responsible choice.

 

[Bronzeage]

It's interesting to see you trust AI over the collective minds of journalists. You say they are conspiring, rather than believe a large group of Natural Intelligence powered brains have evaluated the data and come to a similar conclusion.

Most news is negative because that is the nature of news. No one is really interested in a story about a man who ate breakfast and arrived at work on time. It's not actually anything new, and more importantly, has no impact on anyone outside his immediate circle.

A joke from the 70's about new technology:
A (insert your favorite ethic minority here) goes to a car dealership and buys a "party van". It is equipped with a plush interior and all the latest options. It's seen a few hours later running off the road and tumbling into a ravine. A rescue squad arrives and extracts him from the wreck. They ask him what happened and he says, "I don't know. I just set the cruise control and went to the back to take a nap."

It's easy to believe a technology can deliver more than it actually can, and there are plenty of reasons why people do.

Today, it is possible for a fully informed person to set their van on cruise control, and go lie down for a nap, with no expectation of running off the road. If it does, we will certainly see it in the news. If the driver/passenger is not part of the engineering team which designed the self driving system, they will have to rely on someone else's judgment about safety.

We've had the simplest form of AI in the workplace for more than a century. It's called automation. A machine performs a task as a result of information inputs. AI is just a progression of the hardware from inputs of contact switches, to laser sensors, to binary code. It all still depends on inputs. There are AI machines in use which can laser scan and measure an item, then program itself to use various processes to duplicate the item by either building up material, or cutting it away. It works great if everything is where the machine thinks it is, but all the inputs are from a limited data set. The machine doesn't need to on the internet to learn the air speed of an unladen swallow.

The problem AI has to yet overcome is it can't distinguish fact from bullshit in an unlimited data. This is not surprising, since many people can't do it either. It collects information which is available, organizes it into a grammatically correct form and gives it to a human. There might be some element of bullshit in the input, and thus in the output as well. This bullshit contaminated output is now on the internet for fellow AI to collect and process. Again, this is no surprise because this is how humans do it.

Going back to the 70's once again, my father was engineer and he worked on projects to convert engineering formulas to computer programing language. Up to this time, engineers spent countless hours with a pencil and a slide rule, slowly calculating stresses, loads, and other important things. This would be repeated over and over again, until every part of the construction was correct. Then another engineer had to check the work. The computer programs were entered on punch cards and if a punch hole was in a place the computer did not recognize, it stopped work. My father's assessment was, "A computer is an idiot, but a very fast idiot."

Today, AI is in the "very fast idiot" stage. It can sift very large data sets very quickly. Even though it is very fast, there's no reason to believe it's any better than a human doing the same job, and should be accorded the same level of trust.

 

[steve_bank]

Don't know what you news sources are. All the resorting and analyses I see see says AI has beni9fits, but there are serious downsides.

Nuclear energy and materials have befits, but we do not allowjust anyone to have nuclear materials or build a nuclear reactor.

Dangerous drugs that have medicinal benefits are controlled.

Carried to is logical conclusion AI will have a profound effect and disruption of the economy and people lives.

We are already at the point where it is i8possible to detect fake AI created news video.

It is not just the corporate world. A group of people created AI music and fake music video of a band. They put it on the net and a following developed not knowing it was fake.

Art and music can now be reduced to AI. Combine AI with a machine and you have AI painting and sculpture.

It is being driven by good old capitalist unrestrained greed. Not by good for humanity, that claim is a marketing image.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It's interesting to see you trust AI over the collective minds of journalists. You say they are conspiring, rather than believe a large group of Natural Intelligence powered brains have evaluated the data and come to a similar conclusion.

That's not what said. I'm not using AI to generate news.

At the corporation I work we have an AI department. There's benchmarks and productivity follow ups on AI rollout.

We can track how employee usage of AI increases productivity. It's also reducing reported stress among employees.

What I am talking about is news articles about AI. Based on what I now know those articles are just fear mongering for no reason (other than to generate clicks).

And it has real world consequences. Biden was trying to curtail and regulate AI. I'm guessing it was based on the fear triggered by scary journalists.

Trump wisely took aboard Marc Andreessen as an advisor on this. Andreessen is an actual genius and have killed all attempts to regulate AI. Go Andreessen.

Most news is negative because that is the nature of news. No one is really interested in a story about a man who ate breakfast and arrived at work on time. It's not actually anything new, and more importantly, has no impact on anyone outside his immediate circle.

A joke from the 70's about new technology:
A (insert your favorite ethic minority here) goes to a car dealership and buys a "party van". It is equipped with a plush interior and all the latest options. It's seen a few hours later running off the road and tumbling into a ravine. A rescue squad arrives and extracts him from the wreck. They ask him what happened and he says, "I don't know. I just set the cruise control and went to the back to take a nap."

It's easy to believe a technology can deliver more than it actually can, and there are plenty of reasons why people do.

Today, it is possible for a fully informed person to set their van on cruise control, and go lie down for a nap, with no expectation of running off the road. If it does, we will certainly see it in the news. If the driver/passenger is not part of the engineering team which designed the self driving system, they will have to rely on someone else's judgment about safety.

We've had the simplest form of AI in the workplace for more than a century. It's called automation. A machine performs a task as a result of information inputs. AI is just a progression of the hardware from inputs of contact switches, to laser sensors, to binary code. It all still depends on inputs. There are AI machines in use which can laser scan and measure an item, then program itself to use various processes to duplicate the item by either building up material, or cutting it away. It works great if everything is where the machine thinks it is, but all the inputs are from a limited data set. The machine doesn't need to on the internet to learn the air speed of an unladen swallow.

The problem AI has to yet overcome is it can't distinguish fact from bullshit in an unlimited data. This is not surprising, since many people can't do it either. It collects information which is available, organizes it into a grammatically correct form and gives it to a human. There might be some element of bullshit in the input, and thus in the output as well. This bullshit contaminated output is now on the internet for fellow AI to collect and process. Again, this is no surprise because this is how humans do it.

AI just need to outperform a human. That’s not hard.

What AI can't do is anything that needs an expert. That’s not a problem. We have experts. Our experts can now focus on what they do best and they can let AI deal with menial tasks. Win win.

Going back to the 70's once again, my father was engineer and he worked on projects to convert engineering formulas to computer programing language. Up to this time, engineers spent countless hours with a pencil and a slide rule, slowly calculating stresses, loads, and other important things. This would be repeated over and over again, until every part of the construction was correct. Then another engineer had to check the work. The computer programs were entered on punch cards and if a punch hole was in a place the computer did not recognize, it stopped work. My father's assessment was, "A computer is an idiot, but a very fast idiot."

Today, AI is in the "very fast idiot" stage. It can sift very large data sets very quickly. Even though it is very fast, there's no reason to believe it's any better than a human doing the same job, and should be accorded the same level of trust.

Yeah. Exactly. But its still awesome

 

[Elixir]

We can track how employee usage of AI increases productivity.

So you have already concluded that AI increases productivity. Maybe your attention should shift to what is being produced.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Don't know what you news sources are. All the resorting and analyses I see see says AI has beni9fits, but there are serious downsides.

Nuclear energy and materials have befits, but we do not allowjust anyone to have nuclear materials or build a nuclear reactor.

Dangerous drugs that have medicinal benefits are controlled.

Carried to is logical conclusion AI will have a profound effect and disruption of the economy and people lives.

We are already at the point where it is i8possible to detect fake AI created news video.

It is not just the corporate world. A group of people created AI music and fake music video of a band. They put it on the net and a following developed not knowing it was fake.

Art and music can now be reduced to AI. Combine AI with a machine and you have AI painting and sculpture.

It is being driven by good old capitalist unrestrained greed. Not by good for humanity, that claim is a marketing image.

I can't follow your logic. Why wouldn't greater wealth generation not benefit all humans?

On the music and art. It only sucks for mediocre losers who thought their art was unique and special when it wasn't. I like not having to waste my time kissing an artists ass because I want an sketch of something. I love this new world

 

[steve_bank]

AI is a dangerous technology.

From local reporting on Amazon and Microsoft.

AI will be replacing jobs like customer service, AI will answer emails and phone calls for example.

Lower level jobs. Above that mid level management jobs will be replaced as well.

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it. Your job could be next.

 

[pood]

I love this new world

Yeah, you would.

 

[pood]

Next we can outsource the genocide in Gaza to AI. Fortunately it will be too incompetent to accomplish much.

 

[pood]

On the music and art. It only sucks for mediocre losers who thought their art was unique and special when it wasn't. I like not having to waste my time kissing an artists ass because I want an sketch of something.

How fucking pathetic.

I have quite a bit of experience with AI art. In addition to the fact that it fucking sucks, it is simply heisted from authentic human artists and rearranged by whatever idiot algorithm is being used. I’d just like to know what a genius like Van Gogh would say about this nonsense. Never mind, I already know.

 

[pood]

On the music and art. It only sucks for mediocre losers who thought their art was unique and special when it wasn't.

You reveal so much about yourself in every post, none of it flattering.

 

[pood]

I haven’t dealt with AI generated art in a few years and just went to Magic Studio and typed in some prompts. The returns are technically flawless but for want of a better word, soulless. And of course none of it is original but heisted from data sets. An impressive technical feat devoid of meaning. Visual art is not just about slickness and technique. It is about the expression of a human vision, in all its angst and anxiety and glory, even if someone thinks the artist is a “mediocre loser.”

That is what Van Gogh was basically labeled as. When he produced The Potato Eaters, it was heavily criticized for its lack of “technique.” Today it is hailed as a jewel of art and no AI could produce it until the end of time.

AI has no soul (again, for want of a better word).

 

[pood]

If I ask AI to output some work of art in a particular style — Impressionism, expressionism, cubism, pop art, what have you — it will reliably output some rearrangement of stuff that it basically steals. It originates nothing. Everything it does is dependent on human originators.