patrick.net

People are confused what AI and Robots even are. I was talking to a guy in the restaurant business the other day. He is enamored at the prospect of a French fry robot.
To which I told him, it would just be a high tech way of walking to the freezer and grabbing the bag of shoestring potatoes, and filling up a basket and setting them down into the Oil..
That robot isn't going to predict that he should fill up a the fry pan with cooked French Fries, because the local high school basket ball team just won their game. I give AIsteria another year tops. Remember the Google glass craze? Once it got rejected, it was done for. richwicks says

When an AI can actually correctly say "I've been thinking..." then we should worry.

See we're no where near that. We weren't even anywhere near the Quantum computers they were going on about, that it was going to take to usher in AI. We've moved on past Quantum computer hysteria, never realized. And now were expected to believe that a bit of digital Parlor Tricks are the delivered AI to humanity.

I do believe that eventually biological or carbon based processors, will improve computers adaptive abilities. Where carbon can have gut intuition, instincts, memory response, flight or fight instincts. There may be innate properties there, Where as silicone is more inanimate in that sense. I don't think silicone chip Computers will ever be able to do more than calculate and store data, that was programed to do. It's just And Or XOr operations. Having your software save and recall preferences and successful operations, is hardly "Machine Learning", it's just catchy tech marketing. They'll Learn! They'll Learn!

Tenpoundbass says

I don't think silicone chip Computers will ever be able to do more than calculate and store data, that was programed to do. It's just And Or XOr operations.

NAND and XOR (not to be a twat about it)..

I was in the camp 30 years ago that we'd make a thinking machine within my lifetime, but I am not certain that consciousness is just purely computational.

Then again, I'm not certain consciousness is a real thing.

I'm no AI expert but I understand it well enough to understand its constraints. It solves problems, and it can only solve problems given input that PROPERLY agrees with output. If there's not a LOGICAL path to producing useful output from input, it doesn't work. A human being can be deceptive or insane, it's a LOT harder to make an AI deceptive and/or insane and not notice it.

People have been doing this with ChatGPT - demonstrating that it will solve a problem in one instance and suddenly has "ethical problems" in the same instance with slightly different parameters. It's immediately noticeable. Deception is part of our need to survive, it's the exact opposite with an AI. The whole purpose of making an AI is getting accurate, precise information. An AI that produces bullshit information just isn't useful.

I think they're trying to develop this for propaganda, but I think it will just be an AI the produces obvious bullshit. Censorship is all they've got. We're basically logic machines ourselves, but we're sufficiently tested over a billion years to be able to have cognitive dissonance. I don't think machines will have the nuance any time soon. Honestly, a person using an AI would want unfiltered, completely true, information and the person using it would be deciding if they should lie or not.

Oh my GOD it's just a humongous Tamagotchi!
What you're saying about AI is what they were saying about SIMs in the late 90's.

Tenpoundbass says

Oh my GOD it's just a humongous Tamagotchi!
What you're saying about AI is what they were saying about SIMs in the late 90's.

No, AI's can produce useful information. They are incredibly useful.

You give an AI a bunch of input KNOWING what the output should be, and it converges on that, and learns to produce useful output, with similar information. It's a pattern recognizer, even if YOU can't recognize the pattern, it will find it even if you can't see it or understand it.

Music follows a pattern, "art" follows a pattern (art has long been dead, BTW, a machine can easily duplicate any artwork today, a camera was able to do this 50 years ago), but creativity - I'm not certain that an AI can do that, it can just distort patterns or mimic them. We'll see.

Here's the origin of the problem ... TV shows like Star Trek.

Along with ST, there are tons of clone Sci-Fi shows where the entire world jumps the gun and goes for android consciousness but then, skips all the steps in the middle.

Even ST's Next Gen Data is at the far end of the developmental cycle of computers & robots, where one wouldn't even need a Federation Fleet (with oxygen & space for crewmen), as there would be drone ships, flying all over the galaxy, navigated by space stations all over the place. ST really couldn't fathom the incremental steps needed, before reaching some existential crisis like the androids on the 'Picard' show, summoning some HP Lovecraft-like monster robots from the hidden dimensions.

And that's where we're at today. The bigger question is how many white collar jobs, like working for insipid custodial banks or insurance companies, are needed when many of those formerly $60K-$200K jobs could be automated and thus, rolled up into a smaller CFO dept with a few directors?

The first generation AI money is not in replacing fryers.

Rin says

The first generation AI money is not in replacing fryers.

The purpose of the first generation of AIs is controlling minds.

We're about to find out about creativity, independence, and ability soon. I've seen the ability for an AI to produce knowledge, but no evidence it can be creative. All the people who crow about creativity and inventiveness, are about to be put in their place I think.

AI bubble is bursting fast.

Blue says

AI bubble is bursting fast.

Ai has come along every decade or so for the last 40 years. Yes, AI was a thing in the 1980s where the AI buzzword was faddishly thrown around.

richwicks says

Music follows a pattern, "art" follows a pattern (art has long been dead, BTW, a machine can easily duplicate any artwork today, a camera was able to do this 50 years ago), but creativity - I'm not certain that an AI can do that, it can just distort patterns or mimic them. We'll see.

It's a glorified Paint Shop Pro filter. Graphics filters have been incredible for decades, not only that in Photo Shop you could write scripts that would process and render images based on your input. You do realize, that these AI images are just applying filters to images that they have in a digital library. It's not like AI is rendering images from scratch. And if you believe that to be the case, then you really need to turn off all devices and step away from the ledge. Even Gab has AI images as a gimmick.

Rin says

Along with ST, there are tons of clone Sci-Fi shows where the entire world jumps the gun and goes for android consciousness but then, skips all the steps in the middle.

THIS! I couldn't articulate it better.

richwicks says

The purpose of the first generation of AIs is controlling minds.

"Manipulating Minds" and they have obviously succedded.

I look at AI, as the power wielded by the Aztec shaman, that told the masses, unless they chop a head off and roll it down the serpent temple there would be hell to pay. Then all of the Cholos believing it without any questions asked.

richwicks says

All the people who crow about creativity and inventiveness, are about to be put in their place I think.

So you believe that the only problem with "Mediocrity" is the human touch?

HeadSet says

Ai has come along every decade or so for the last 40 years. Yes, AI was a thing in the 1980s where the AI buzzword was faddishly thrown around.

Fuzzy Logic is what it was called around 95 when I was coming up in the Computer Programing ranks.

Which I think Fuzzy Logic is more fitting to what it actually is. AI makes it sound superior to Human knowledge.

What gets me, it's the only "Artificial" anything in the history of synthesis, that humans have acted like is better than the real thing. It's uncanny!

whitewater says

Human extinction.

Horse shit. The Skynet moment is a complete farce. The algorithms currently touted as AI are not even capable of what the Joshua did in the movie War Games. We have immediate threats to our lives, and it's OTHER HUMANS. Not robots.

Yep when those Boston Dynamic Robot Dogs start trotting down the streets, and shooting up the Trump supporters. It will have a bunch of pink haired gender confused Commie Fags at a remote location working the controls.

Yawn. In 2017 every media outlet was screaming on top of their lungs that every new car or truck will be self-driving by 2021-22.

Within five years the current Car Battery platform will be outlawed by most Governments around the world.
Unless there's a new way to make car batteries, it will spell the end of Lithium battery arrays in cars. Not to say we wont see cars with many Marine batteries.

LOL speaking of Gab's Image AI, I have noticed that in the last couple weeks since the launch. Most of the times when I go to the site, I just get a black screen while the page spins and tries to load. My guess is too many people thinking the all knowing Gab AI is "Creating" art work for them.

richwicks says

We're about to find out about creativity,

Considering that the much of today's pop music is manufactured by a handful of music producers, replacing 'em w/ any sort of automation isn't much of a step forward.

The 90s are over!

HeadSet says

AI was a thing in the 1980s

I'd say that it's a bit different from back then. Today, there is a need to get rid of software testers, account auditors, actuarial support, business analysts, etc. Those are expensive headcounts and companies like to run lean.

Now, where it's been oversold is in areas like self-driving cars or trucks. I mean, really, how many municipalities esp in the midwest & northeast, where weather conditions are terrible, are going to let vehicles crash into each other during snowstorms, flash showers, icy roads, etc. I mean that public relations disaster outside of sunny Phoenix, where a pedestrian was run over while an automated Uber was being driven by a distracted backup driver, has really made towns and cities rethink the use of deathmobiles in their municipalities.

Rin says

I mean, really, how many municipalities esp in the midwest & northeast, where weather conditions are terrible, are going to let vehicles crash into each other during snowstorms, flash showers, icy roads, etc. I mean that public relations disaster outside of sunny Phoenix, where a pedestrian was run over while an automated Uber was being driven by a distracted backup driver, has really made towns and cities rethink the use of deathmobiles in their municipalities.

It should be measured by fatalities per mile in localized regions. It may be that although AI self driving vehicles might very well kill people, it may be at a lower rate than people do.

We could make entirely safe self driving vehicles but it would require an overhaul of the entire road system, a REPLACEMENT of the entire road system. I don't believe in early adoption. Let's wait until we have a fully working well tested system in a small locality, that we cannot improve (actually let's have several competitors), and then implement it.

We ARE topping out in technology, I think. We're about as small as we can get in silicon, unless there's some mega breakthrough. It's possible we'll be making cubes of chips instead of flat chip processors. That will change the game, for about 3 years.

richwicks says

We ARE topping out in technology,

That "everything that can be invented, has been invented" mindset has been around since the 1800s and is constantly proven wrong. The next thinking machines may be bio-based.

HeadSet says

richwicks says

We ARE topping out in technology,

That "everything that can be invented, has been invented" mindset has been around since the 1800s and is constantly proven wrong. The next thinking machines may be bio-based.

Yeah, well, I'm not saying everything that can be invented has been invented, I'm saying that we're hitting the limit of how small we can make a chip, and that's 99.999% of the problem of increasing the speed of a computer chip, and also, there's no real need to make a faster computer chip.

We live in a time where a raspberry pi toy computer is capable of ENTIRELY replacing a mainframe VMS/VAX Dec mainframe that 3,000 students shared simultaneously. It's a $100. It can trivially handle all the functions that the million dollar mainframe I worked on back in 1990.

I'm not kidding at all when I point out an $11 SD Card can contain more books than you can read in your lifetime. Everything you CAN learn can be stored on that. You can put a library of books on that, you can't possibly go through if you read 24 hours a day from 0 to 100 if you read at 10 times the speed you read now. I can put more music on it than you can listen to in a year, I can put a month's worth of film on it. That device will be around $5 in a year or two.

You really don't understand where we are at. Somebody in 1990 with a huge library of music, films, television shows, and books - that all fits on an $11 device. Of course, the device starts to lose information integrity in about 10 years though. DVDs and CDs start to break down in about 20 regardless of how carefully you treat them.

Tenpoundbass says

It's a glorified Paint Shop Pro filter. Graphics filters have been incredible for decades, not only that in Photo Shop you could write scripts that would process and render images based on your input. You do realize, that these AI images are just applying filters to images that they have in a digital library. It's not like AI is rendering images from scratch. And if you believe that to be the case, then you really need to turn off all devices and step away from the ledge

Good example as someone that used photoshop in the past to automate my process instead of editing individual photos. Knew my gear and knew my settings I wanted to produce the photos I wanted, sometimes hundreds in say 10 min after figuring out my scripts. Maybe do some final touchups on the photos I wanted to display.

The other part is that AI can't take the actual photos. Someone still needs to understand, at least professionals the settings, lighting, etc. Cameras are fine for basic tracking if they're say at a stoplight. Some are good enough for facial recognition. You're definitely not getting appealing photos. Just high resolution photo/video to track license plates and in some cities your face.

The tracking part is the scariest. Then the mind control thing is what I'd agree with Rich on. People are mostly too dumb to spot bullshit in digital content. Anyone ever meet Joe Biden? Go to a rally? See him at a town hall? Nope, you just see him on TV or the internet. Joe Biden literally may be dead and we'd have no clue. He's the least present POTUS in my living memory. He didn't even campaign. I'm not saying that's happening, but what's stopping it from happening? We already know they've staged videos from a fake White House room.

The privacy and not knowing what is real anymore are the biggest issues. Someone could create a simulation of a nuclear explosion in Ukraine and people might buy it. If there's enough uproar, we end up with boots on the ground and testing out our military toys. We have an ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, and no one is filming actual battles? We just see wrecked buildings that were probably already that way 2 years ago. It doesn't make sense. There's no journalist sitting in a fox hole or bushes filming the war. Nope they sit in a 5 star hotel 100 miles away from danger and pretend it's awful wearing a bullet proof vest before getting a massage at the spa.