AIs gunning for our precious freelancers

[Torco]

If there are a lot of raindrops on a camera lens, can AI remove the raindrops from the resulting footage? I'm asking because I just watched a game where that might have been useful.

that's actually a task they're very good at, and fairly easy to be coerced into performing.

[Raphael]

I'm a bit surprised to hear that - I would have thought all the paper (or, while we're at it, parchment) books that could potentially be digitized would already have been digitized.

There' some good information in this r/askhistorians thread. Basically: we are always finding new manuscripts; there's a backlog; transcription/translation is required; it's a difficult process (you do not want to manhandle a half-millennium-old manuscript).

If we go back to cuneiform, the backlog is humongous— hundreds of thousands of tablets.

With manuscripts, there's also the question of variability. E.g. there is no one Egyptian Book of the Dead. There are about 3000 versions, all different in their selection of material. They copy from each other but no one manuscript is 'complete'. If we find a new one, there's always a chance it's different in a way interesting to scholars. Well, a very very small subset of scholars.

Ah, thank you!

[Raphael]

that's actually a task they're very good at, and fairly easy to be coerced into performing.

Thank you!

[Torco]

you're most welcome.

as to the backlog of translation, i'm told there's like a vaaaast number, tens of thousands, of untranslated manuscripts in classical chinese alone.

what linguisticat says illustrates AI is not intelligence: it's extremely good at putting letters or other tokens in an order humans will find correct, valuable, helpful, arousing or whatever else, but it's really bad at directing a body towards food and away from harm. this is because, well, it's an autocomplete, not an animal's brain. "intelligence" does no work here but confuse.

These are all good points. The thing is, humans have not till now had to deal with things with the particular set of capabilities and deficits that LLMs have. They trigger the "that's a human" tests that worked when we were only dealing with humans vs. animals. Then they do stuff that equally triggers the "that's not a human" tests.

Agreed. and the "that's a human" tests they can pass are kind of the thing with he most potential to cause harm about them for me, tbh. eventually, the internet will be 50% ai slop. 80% ai slop. 99.99999% ai slop, and then it will be unusable: you'll google what's the capital of burundi and get infinite ai generated listicles about the importance of capitals and knowing geography, each shilling for a different integrated AI experience where you'll learn about geography for only 99.999 bezosbucks.

[alice]

¹ I have colleagues who routinely digitise thousand-page books as part of their job, and turning the pages has to be done by hand, for several very good reasons.

I'm a bit surprised to hear that - I would have thought all the paper (or, while we're at it, parchment) books that could potentially be digitized would already have been digitized.

It's like the Law of Cybernetic Etymology ("there's always one more bug"): there are always more books to be digitised.

[Travis B.]

¹ I have colleagues who routinely digitise thousand-page books as part of their job, and turning the pages has to be done by hand, for several very good reasons.

I'm a bit surprised to hear that - I would have thought all the paper (or, while we're at it, parchment) books that could potentially be digitized would already have been digitized.

It's like the Law of Cybernetic Etymology ("there's always one more bug"): there are always more books to be digitised.

I assume you mean the Law of Cybernetic Entomology.

[zompist]

Interesting article on what AIs know about their users.

LLMs make assumptions about the person they're dealing with (gender, socioeconomic status, etc.), and respond differently based on that.

The article gets into interpretability— figuring out what the heck is going on inside the LLM. The anecdote about tweaking the Golden Gate Bridge weight is pretty amusing.

[malloc]

Interesting article on what AIs know about their users.

LLMs make assumptions about the person they're dealing with (gender, socioeconomic status, etc.), and respond differently based on that.

That sounds quite sophisticated to me. Surely people here would concede that detecting the demographics of their user and tailoring their response accordingly qualifies as some form of intelligence.

[keenir]

Interesting article on what AIs know about their users.

LLMs make assumptions about the person they're dealing with (gender, socioeconomic status, etc.), and respond differently based on that.

That sounds quite sophisticated to me. Surely people here would concede that detecting the demographics of their user and tailoring their response accordingly qualifies as some form of intelligence.

Sure...its up there with a dog being able to distinguish between its owner and its housesitter - and adjusting canine behavior accordingly.

[Torco]

Interesting article on what AIs know about their users.

LLMs make assumptions about the person they're dealing with (gender, socioeconomic status, etc.), and respond differently based on that.

That sounds quite sophisticated to me. Surely people here would concede that detecting the demographics of their user and tailoring their response accordingly qualifies as some form of intelligence.

some form sure... but then again, plants also have some sort of intelligence in that they react to their environment, signal stuff to each other, seduce bugs into visiting them etcetera.

[alice]

It isn't much more complicated than this:

Code: Select all

10 IF INPUT$ == "AYE" THEN GO TO 40
20 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 1
30 GO TO 50
40 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 0
50 REM continue in like manner

[Raphael]

It isn't much more complicated than this:

Code: Select all

10 IF INPUT$ == "AYE" THEN GO TO 40
20 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 1
30 GO TO 50
40 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 0
50 REM continue in like manner

That doesn't account for the existence of people from Northern/the North of Ireland.

[zompist]

It isn't much more complicated than this:

Code: Select all

10 IF INPUT$ == "AYE" THEN GO TO 40
20 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 1
30 GO TO 50
40 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 0
50 REM continue in like manner

Somebody is thinking in C even when they're thinking in BASIC

[Lērisama]

It isn't much more complicated than this:

Code: Select all

10 IF INPUT$ == "AYE" THEN GO TO 40
20 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 1
30 GO TO 50
40 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 0
50 REM continue in like manner

That doesn't account for the existence of people from Northern/the North of Ireland.

I believe Alice is behaving in the time honoured British tradition¹ of ignoring Northern Ireland in the vain hope all Northern Ireland related problems will somehow go away. See also: Brexit

¹ Exemplified by the very word ‘British’

Edit: misplaced footnote, adding example

[keenir]

It isn't much more complicated than this:

Code: Select all

10 IF INPUT$ == "AYE" THEN GO TO 40
20 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 1
30 GO TO 50
40 LET IS_PROBABLY_SCOTTISH = 0
50 REM continue in like manner

That doesn't account for the existence of people from Northern/the North of Ireland.

I'm not sure I follow -- surely it can be edited easily for N.Ireland and Mann, or Wales.

[Raphael]

I'm not sure I follow -- surely it can be edited easily for N.Ireland and Mann, or Wales.

It can, but it wasn't.

[keenir]

I'm not sure I follow -- surely it can be edited easily for N.Ireland and Mann, or Wales.

It can, but it wasn't.

I figured it was a sample of a larger programing page(s).

[malloc]

Sure...its up there with a dog being able to distinguish between its owner and its housesitter - and adjusting canine behavior accordingly.

It seems that despite taking the strongest line against AI here, I am also the only one willing to credit it with intelligence. All skepticism aside, these LLMs are clearly reacting to subtle cues that their users belong to particular demographics, such as word choice and expressed concerns, and adjusting their responses accordingly. Undoubtedly it all amounts to statistical patterns, like men and women slightly favoring different synonyms or something, but doesn't make it any less impressive.

[zompist]

these LLMs are clearly reacting to subtle cues that their users belong to particular demographics, such as word choice and expressed concerns, and adjusting their responses accordingly.

Did you read the article? Because it wasn't subtle cues at all.

The really surprising thing is that LLMs can communicate in English at all. The data they assume on humans is more like dancing bears: it's not that it's great dancing, it's that a bear is doing it.

[keenir]

Sure...its up there with a dog being able to distinguish between its owner and its housesitter - and adjusting canine behavior accordingly.

It seems that despite taking the strongest line against AI here,

screaming "we're all gonna die! AI will kill and replace us all!" is not taking a strong line.

I am also the only one willing to credit it with intelligence.

that should tell you something.