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We need to talk about ChatGPT


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2023 Feb 28, 8:32am   776 views  13 comments

by Shaman   ➕follow (4)   💰tip   ignore  

So in the last three months, ChatGPT the AI service has exploded into public consciousness, and people are increasingly finding it useful for writing things. People are using it to create books and short stories (of dubious quality), using it to write love poems for Valentine’s Day, using it to do writing assignments for school and college, and even using it to do statistical analysis. My sister used it to find the “best recipe for chocolate cake” which she swears was actually the best cake she’s ever had.
My wife is a college professor and she’s been seeing tons of students quite obviously using ChatGPT to complete assignments. She’s taking steps to mitigate the cheating, even without the support of administrators who seem to be completely asleep at the switch. There are currently ZERO policies to deal with AI-created submissions, so she’s taking advantage of the fact that there are usually more than a couple GPT users and their submissions are remarkably similar being created by the same AI program. This allows for plagiarism rules to kick in and she gives those students zero on their assignments. This is fair as they did zero work and learned nothing except how to cheat!

Now, remember that ChatGPT is currently in its very first version. The next version is supposed to release within months and be 100 times better.

Now consider that other companies are doing AI as well, seeing the success of ChatGPT. Bing and Google have AI of their own, and OpenAI has been tantalizing users for months with access to AIs which can have an actual conversation with a user.

This market for AI is about to explode!

But it’s going to have many negative effects.
1)degradation of the college/university system to the point where accreditation is meaningless. Institutions of higher learning have one thing to sell: a certificate of achievement for its customers that asserts that they have learned useful skills and are ready for skilled labor. When so many students are cheating with AI (which may soon become undetectable!), then the certificate becomes WORTHLESS. If higher Ed doesn’t fix this problem quickly, it will soon be obsolete. I predict that institutional inertia and leftist priorities will ensure that it will not save itself, and instead go down in flames 🔥
2)All media will soon be AI-generated. This means not only news articles, but opinion columns, financial reports, sports reports, film scripts, and even novels will be created by AI!
At first, these will be fairly easy to spot, low quality and sub standard. But given time (maybe a few years), the AI-generated scripts will be BETTER and more entertaining than scripts generated by Hollywood writers and producers. Why then would anyone be interested in substandard HUMAN writing?
Only the very best, most artistic, and articulate writers will retain viewership and prestige.
In short: if you’ve ever planned to write a novel someday, don’t bother! By the time you could write it and get it published, the AI takeover will be complete.

This is just the beginning!
AI is going to be like the electric technology revolution. Electricity was invented and understood, and then for the next 100 years we invented electrified products which used it to do new and useful/interesting things.
Now, every new product will come with a link to an AI that will make the product “smart” in a way that has been unimaginable up until now. The smart house will be simple for any median wage earner to put together. Just buy certain appliances and lights which are tied to an AI and then you talk to the AI on your phone and it makes you coffee, vacuums the rugs, feeds your dog, and makes you toast. All while adjusting temperature and humidity in your house to an optimum and playing some smooth jazz on demand.

It’s no longer just coming: it’s already here.


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1   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2023 Feb 28, 8:38am  

That's why I only chat at Patnet. Are we all expected to believe that the Troll Army the government has been employing the last 8 years or so, have all gotten new jobs?
I suspect THEY are ChatGPT, I mean who will dispute AI?
2   🎂 Tenpoundbass   2023 Feb 28, 8:56am  

AI will be just like all of the other over used and abused technologies.

Remember Digital? The first iteration of it, simply meant a navigational nomenclature. Pressing a 0-9 numerical selection, and then adjusting the parameters at that setting.
It eventually evolved into anything that can be read by a computer. Computer Output is now the common understanding of Digital, where as it started out to describe User Input.
We started associating "Digital" with Output or all things Computerized, thanks to the CD. Digital Compact Disk. Digital in the original naming of that technology started out to describe the tracks, you would select with the devices hardware or software cursors, changing the digit, to select the track.

Then look at what "Hi-Def" has gone through. I mean as I would have understood it at the time a 1985 Hi-Def Sony Trinitron television was as good as it was ever going to get.
But for every year since then Hi-Def has been redefined. While they never considered 3-D technologies Hi-Def, you would have thought that would have been the new Gold standard of Hi-Def. But it wasn't, it went on to be it's own thing. And ultimately failed because most people get headaches or even seizures. So at the end of the day, we're back to calling the latest Screen advances in screen refresh Hi-Def. Which in the last 10 or more years, they just keep playing with the software that drives 120hz that still today most Screens have, but use software to boast higher refresh rates.

My point is what AI is, and what they keep branding AI as, are two complete different things. Most any smart or intelligent computer program or system now is considered AI. Fuck just yesterday they were saying we would need the elusive Quantum computers to achieve the AI they are selling us now. We still don't have our Quantum computers, and they seem to have given up on it. Just reassigning all of the asinine claims associated that it would be able to do, to the AI systems instead. Even though just as unrealized now as it were on the Quantum computers.

We're at the point where every new slick technology will be called AI, it's the new "Digital" marketing moniker.
Most of what is being called AI now, will be called something else, or AI will be abandoned all together. I remember in the late 90's built in extra logic was called "Fuzzy Logic".
Eventually most of it was renamed to other better suited names, like Auto Fill, Auto Correct, and other Intelisense functions.
3   Shaman   2023 Feb 28, 10:35am  

While you are correct that the AI currently available for public consumption isn’t great, it won’t be that way for long. And it’s a transformational technology, perhaps as significant and DISRUPTIVE as the invention of electricity or motor cars.
4   GreaterNYCDude   2023 Feb 28, 1:42pm  

I find it useless. Perhaps it's my questions but either refgurgitates stuff on the internet I could have found myself in two mouse clicks..clocks... or has no idea what I'm asking. That and it's too darn polite! It's attempt to be "human" seems disingenuous.

For example:

Me: You apologize alot.

ChatGPT: As an AI language model, I'm programmed to be polite and respectful in my interactions with users. Apologizing when appropriate is one way I try to express this politeness. However, I'm sorry if it seems excessive or unnecessary. Please let me know if there is anything specific I can help you with.

*

I could be wrong, but I don't see this more as a passing fad. Same as the Metaverse. Or NFT Artwork. If there has one things the lock downs have taught us, we still want real communication with real people, preferably face to face.
5   Shaman   2023 Feb 28, 3:47pm  

Let’s just say that I HOPE it’s a passing fad! The implications for our society are very dystopian otherwise.

But I think you’re as wrong as the people who said the “horseless carriage” wouldn’t catch on.

There’s trillions to be made and saved here. So it will happen.
6   Shaman   2023 May 2, 3:38pm  

And it begins. Even earlier than I suspected.

May 1 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) expects to pause hiring for roles as roughly 7,800 jobs could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the coming years, CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg News on Monday.

Hiring specifically in back-office functions such as human resources will be suspended or slowed, Krishna said, adding that 30% of non-customer-facing roles could be replaced by AI and automations in five years.

His comment comes at a time when AI has caught the imagination of people around the world after the launch of Microsoft Corp-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI's viral chatbot, ChatGPT, in November last year.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/ibm-pause-hiring-plans-replace-7800-jobs-with-ai-bloomberg-news-2023-05-01/
7   Shaman   2023 May 2, 3:41pm  

And Dropbox!

Cloud-based file sharing provider Dropbox Inc. today announced plans to let go 500 employees, or about 16% of its workforce.

Affected employees will receive 16 weeks of severance pay and one more week of pay for every year they worked at the company. Additionally, Dropbox will continue to provide health insurance for six months. The company also plans to accelerate stock vesting for the affected employees, as well as offer access to free job placement and career coaching services.

In an internal memo, Dropbox Chief Executive Officer Drew Houston wrote that there are two main drivers behind the workforce reduction.

The first factor cited by the CEO is the company’s slowing revenue growth. “While our business is profitable, our growth has been slowing,” Houston wrote to employees. “Part of this is due to the natural maturation of our existing businesses, but more recently, headwinds from the economic downturn have put pressure on our customers and, in turn, on our business.”

https://siliconangle.com/2023/04/27/dropbox-cut-500-jobs-amid-ai-push/
8   1337irr   2023 May 2, 4:23pm  

IBM and Dropbox are companies at the mature stage of their growth, no one should be surprised about layoffs at those companies. I be more concerned about layoffs in other parts of the economy.
10   RWSGFY   2023 Nov 21, 12:32pm  

Couple of days ago I needed a quick answer to a question which I could totally find myself, but since I was constrained for time, I asked the Chat. The question was: out of the list of 17 colleges, which ones require CSS profile filled in before Nov 15th. The result was absolutely idiotic: the fucking thing found ONE document listing colleges requiring CSS and, based on it and nothing else, hallucinated that ALL 17 require CSS by Nov 15th deadline. All attempts to make it dig deeper and revise the results via prompt engineering went nowhere - it kept apologizing and spewing out the same incorrect list over and over again.

It's the 3rd time I'm trying to use the fucking thing for something practical and 3rd time it proves itself useless in cases when the correct answer is not known.
11   FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden   2023 Nov 21, 12:57pm  

ai powered bots will be frighteningly good at manipulating public
12   1337irr   2023 Nov 21, 5:25pm  

FortwayeAsFuckJoeBiden says

ai powered bots will be frighteningly good at manipulating public

https://www.synthesia.io/
13   B.A.C.A.H.   2023 Nov 21, 5:41pm  

Tenpoundbass says

We're at the point where every new slick technology will be called AI, it's the new "Digital" marketing moniker.
Most of what is being called AI now, will be called something else, or AI will be abandoned all together. I remember in the late 90's built in extra logic was called "Fuzzy Logic".


Yeah.

And in the aught decade (or is it ought?, 2000-2009) nanotechnology was the buzzword.

In those days I worked in the trenches of tech on a daily basis with nanometer-scale stuff. Homie was not impressed. Nano was just another buzzword.

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