On AI mania

[Bodhitree]

I just came across this essay on AI mania in the business community, which I found very interesting. It’s like investors have found it so enticing, that it is being forced on everyone from board of directors down to CEOs, executives and employees, without real proof that it is effective.

It seems to have become a fervour in an almost religious style, where people who don’t believe end up getting fired, and all kinds of inefficient behaviour is being encouraged to keep the push for AI in the workplace intact. The article goes into various types of behaviour at various levels.

AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making — Ludicity

What do you all think? Do these claims of massively increased productivity actually hold water, or is it like the writer of the essay says, largely overblown sales hype?

 

[Scepticalscribe]

The latter, - very much the latter - in my view.

 

[Bodhitree]

It certainly seems that way… as the first article stated, a 10% error rate may be acceptable when searching for a peanut sauce recipe, but imagine your CFO getting the wrong number one time in ten when compiling your financial year report.

According to The Guardian the jobs market certainly doesn’t seem to be transforming as quickly as some had predicted.

The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn’t coming anytime soon

Artificial intelligence may not deliver on its promise of vast economic opportunity at a price that humanity is willing to pay

www.theguardian.com

 

[KaliYoni]

At the risk of sounding glib, I'd say Suresh has "meme envy" plus something he's trying to sell. If we were in 2017, not halfway to 2027, he'd be sounding a similar alarm about blockchain.
🙂

‘A feedback loop with no brake’: how an AI doomsday report shook US markets

Shares in Uber, Mastercard and American Express fall on back of apocalypse scenario posted on Substack

www.theguardian.com

Skittish investors spooked as dystopian AI outlooks go viral

A recent huge bet on the technology is starting to show cracks.

www.reuters.com

 

[Bodhitree]

I think he sounds like he is trying to explain what he is seeing, this crazy behaviour of AI at any cost. I think Apple’s take, of gradually introducing the technology, is the state of the art in actual working implementation.

Suresh is operating from a limited view of business, and he may be overly pessimistic about where this will go in say 5 years. But certainly right now, the term ‘AI mania’ seems appropriate.

 

[throAU]

What do you all think? Do these claims of massively increased productivity actually hold water, or is it like the writer of the essay says, largely overblown sales hype?

The truth is somewhere in the middle

• There's a huge amount of hype
• The higher end models have massive capabilities when used correctly.

For my work:

• LLMs make finding and filtering information from the web much faster
• LLMs can write proof of concept code, or single use code. much, much faster to get work done
  • This means testing an idea is much easier, and you're far less tied to the code due to the sunk cost fallacy. Instead of being multiple days/months/weeks to test an idea in code, its minutes or hours. If the idea doesn't work, the project can be thrown out, rather than becoming attached to it and trying to make it work due to the sunk cost in labour.

On the flip side

• LLMs are still massively prone to hallucinations, and output NEEDS to be vetted by a human

Think of them more as a tool like a hammer or a screwdriver and less as a human replacement and they're and extremely powerful force multiplier.

Companies getting rid of humans for AI are missing the point. AI companies themselves are on a hiring spree, if current AI could replace humans they would not be doing this.