If “AI” was really half of what it was cracked up to be, here’s how I would imagine it would have gone down:
AI Co: “Hello everyone. We would like to present our AI code writer. “AI, please write the code behind Google’s search engine.”
AI: “Here ya go: <splort>”
Google: “That’s very impressive.”
AI Co: “AI, please fix all the bugs in Google Voice that make it run slow as dog feces.”
AI: “Done. <splort>”.
Google: “Ok, we will give you $50B right now for 100% of everything you own. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone.”
6 months later: “In today’s news, Google Inc. has just released it’s 30th major product. The industry is shocked and suspects perhaps Google has figured out some type of AI program to write code. Google has announced it has purchased AI Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Google has also announced it is laying off 60% of its staff worldwide. Only CEOs and marketing personnel remain.”
In reality, Sam Altman appears to be a man who has created a machine that allegedly points out massive gold deposits. But rather than mining gold, he insists on selling machines that find gold mines.
This is why they disguised it as philanthropy early on. They suspected it would look silly if they granted everyone access to unlimited intelligence or whatever. They realized later on that people are much more stupid than initially thought so they dropped the act and became openly profit oriented in no time. It‘s crazy what you can get away with if you‘re bold enough.
It‘s crazy what you can get away with if you‘re bold enough.
That’s the key to con(fidence) men. If you state anything confidently enough, some number of rubes will believe you.
That’s a good point- if they were truly making a superintelligence, it wouldn’t be for sale, just like Coca-cola wouldn’t sell their recipe. They’re selling the shovels while insisting to corporate executives there’s a gold rush going on.
I recently also said basically the same thing. If it was actually AI you could just describe an app and it would spit out a polished finished program in minutes. Instead it can write a few blocks of code at a time maybe, that might be complete garbage code or might work fine, total toss up.
might be complete garbage code or might work fine, total toss up.
Many state that the “AI hallucinates 30% of the time”. I really appreciate the observation of someone else online who observed, “No, it hallucinates 100% of the time, only sometimes the output happens to be useful.”
Yeah that’s a good point. For it to be useful at all, I think that frame of reference is necessary
Yes, LLMs are only good for hustling rubes. And making boring images. And adding propaganda to educational materials. And smelling out non-conformists. And convincing narcissists of anything you want…
In reality, Sam Altman appears to be a man who has created a machine that allegedly points out massive gold deposits. But rather than mining gold, he insists on selling machines that find gold mines.
I can’t tell if I should be hearing George Carlins voice, or Jon Stewart.
