AI fails

[briantrumpet]

A possibly even bleaker view. An intern working at my company doing an engineering course says that the lecturers know LLMs will be used so pile on the homework to the point that not using LLMs is not an option - there is simply too much. It seems the wrong answer to the wrong question.

That's just nuts. The joy of education is being given the privilege of moulding young brains to be hungry, curious machines making some sort of sense of the world their host body is exploring for them. It's utter madness to give up that privilege to soulless circuits that are completely uninterested in moulding brains to the limit of their capacity. It's turning education into a sausage machine.

 

[PurplePenguin]

That's just nuts. The joy of education is being given the privilege of moulding young brains to be hungry, curious machines making some sort of sense of the world their host body is exploring for them. It's utter madness to give up that privilege to soulless circuits that are completely uninterested in moulding brains to the limit of their capacity. It's turning education into a sausage machine.

It's good that you've now got a new hobby horse and can finally move on from Brexit.

 

[briantrumpet]

It's good that you've now got a new hobby horse and can finally move on from Brexit.

It's not that new. I've been playing with other people's brains for quite a long time, and this is a good excuse to think in different ways about the happy task.

And I'm quite happy to multitask.

 

[briantrumpet]

I'll have to see if I can get the full article*, as it's a promising start:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03313-7?linkId=64166291

The temptation to conflate intelligence and consciousness probably reflects baked-in psychological biases — anthropocentrism, viewing the world through a human lens, and anthropomorphism, attributing human characteristics to things that merely resemble people. Consider, for example, the seductive power of language, a capacity that humans have long felt makes us special. When LLMs talk to us, it’s natural to project onto them properties that accompany our linguistic fluency, such as intelligence and consciousness.

But LLMs are trained on vast quantities of human-written text, much of it explicitly or implicitly concerned with thoughts, feelings and conscious experiences. LLMs are mirrors that reflect an image of our collective digitized past. We gaze into them and all too readily confuse the reflections with our own conscious minds.

*Ha, there are advantages to working for a university, even if I'm not in a teaching role. (Article found via Browzine.) Actually, maybe there is an advantage in not having a teaching role, in current circumstances.

 

[matticus]

Pink Panther in France is AI generated.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c6y93ne31gvvo

Boooo!

Now, Mr Beebo, don't you DARE give me your views on Santa Claus

 

[PurplePenguin]

It's not that new. I've been playing with other people's brains for quite a long time, and this is a good excuse to think in different ways about the happy task.

And I'm quite happy to multitask.

I think your resistance to AI affecting their brains is the new bit.

I'm loving my ability to code anything I want now.

 

[AndyRM]

 

[briantrumpet]

I think your resistance to AI affecting their brains is the new bit.

I'm loving my ability to code anything I want now.

I don't think I've ridiculed your ability to do coding stuff via without learning to do coding (if that's what you are doing), but maybe even taking that as an example of what it does well, what happens when humans don't understand how to do coding, because they've outsourced it all to AI? But I agree, it is extraordinary that you can do that.

If you look back at the thread, it's been one of those subjects where the more I've read about it, the more sceptical I've got, as the many implications become clearer. I'm not sure why you find it curious that it increasingly interests and concerns me, not least as that's the natural course of learning about stuff, and my job has been about helping people learn and understand stuff. Just because something can do extraordinary things doesn't mean that it can't also do extraordinarily risky/negative things too. Human history is littered with plentiful examples. Being aware of, and mitigating the worst outcomes is an essential process of any new discovery or technology.

 

[swee'pea99]

I do have to temper my cynicism by remembering that once upon a time I thought the Internet would be useful but probably a bit niche...

I once scoffed at a friend's notion that mobiles would ever be more than a yuppy toy. He said: "You're wrong. Our grandchildren will look at us in disbelief and say, "What, you had to be connected to a wall, by a wire, to talk to someone?"

 

[Psamathe]

I once scoffed at a friend's notion that mobiles would ever be more than a yuppy toy. He said: "You're wrong. Our grandchildren will look at us in disbelief and say, "What, you had to be connected to a wall, by a wire, to talk to someone?"

I wonder if part of that is because they do so much more than just a phone. When working I used to have to carry one and I always forced my company to buy me the smallest one available (and would lose it at every opportunity). But these days always carry mine because it records my cycling tracks, plays my music, backup for credit cards when I forget my wallet, navigates me to places I don't know, finds me camp sites when cycle touring, etc. Were it only capable of making a phone call most of the time it would just stay in a drawer at home.

 

[briantrumpet]

I wonder if part of that is because they do so much more than just a phone. When working I used to have to carry one and I always forced my company to buy me the smallest one available (and would lose it at every opportunity). But these days always carry mine because it records my cycling tracks, plays my music, backup for credit cards when I forget my wallet, navigates me to places I don't know, finds me camp sites when cycle touring, etc. Were it only capable of making a phone call most of the time it would just stay in a drawer at home.

I resisted a smartphone for quite a long time (indeed, scoffed at them) because my Nokia 1100 battery would last about a fortnight on one charge, and "I could do everything I needed to do on the internet at home on the laptop". I think my first smartphone (well, notdimphone) was in 2012, when I rode from Exeter to Die, and thought that a bit of internet connectivity en route might be helpful.

 

[stowie]

I once scoffed at a friend's notion that mobiles would ever be more than a yuppy toy. He said: "You're wrong. Our grandchildren will look at us in disbelief and say, "What, you had to be connected to a wall, by a wire, to talk to someone?"

When cameras started to be a big thing on phones, I ridiculed the whole concept. A friend thought it was a wonderful idea, so easy to take photos. My attitude was who the hell wants to be taking loads of photos? Then I start to see facebook posts of people's breakfasts. And I realise that I am the one out of sync with the world.

 

[Pblakeney]

When cameras started to be a big thing on phones, I ridiculed the whole concept. A friend thought it was a wonderful idea, so easy to take photos. My attitude was who the hell wants to be taking loads of photos? Then I start to see facebook posts of people's breakfasts. And I realise that I am the one out of sync with the world.

That is not necessarily a bad thing.

 

[Pross]

I resisted a smartphone for quite a long time (indeed, scoffed at them) because my Nokia 1100 battery would last about a fortnight on one charge, and "I could do everything I needed to do on the internet at home on the laptop". I think my first smartphone (well, notdimphone) was in 2012, when I rode from Exeter to Die, and thought that a bit of internet connectivity en route might be helpful.

View attachment 17866

It appears you weren't successful in that quest.

 

[briantrumpet]

It appears you weren't successful in that quest.

It's an irrestitable joke for English speakers.

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/die-in-france.139683/