Oh, AI can be very useful. Just not the generative stuff that is currently trying to consume all resources of the entire solar system for nebulous potential benefits.
A good example of AI that just works is document scanning. Get a picture of a document, locate text, OCR it, figure out which parts of the text correspond to entry fields, auto-populate the fields. That works pretty well and can greatly speed up manual data entry. It’s not perfect but the success rate is pretty good due to the constrained problem space and even if you have to check all fields and manually correct 10% of them you still save a lot of time.
An early example of this is the automated parsing of hand-written postal codes. That iteration of the tech has been in productive use since the 90s! (Yes, that’s just OCR but OCR is considered a field of AI.)
It’s one of those unexciting applications of tech that don’t make major waves but do work.
I can usually tell the PRs that have been written by AI though. They look like they were written by a junior and there’s comments and emoji fucking everywhere
In all seriousness, I still feel like there are limited use cases for AI. I don’t think it was smart to go all in on it with our energy and natural resources, especially for implementations in which nobody knows exactly what it’s doing, how, and there’s not a human in the loop. Unfortunately, I think that describes the majority. I kinda wish research for AI had been treated more like nuclear energy research.
This is why at art school we weren’t taught on computers. They said by the time we graduated, the programs they would have taught would be obsolete. If you know the concepts and the critical thinking skills you can quickly learn the program any potential employer will use.
I make enclosures on boats. I make patterns out of paper and cut and sew everything by hand. Many people want to get into the trade and buy $100k plotter/cutters and sit at the bottom of the learning curve pulling their hair out. They should all start with a $50 pair of shears and figure out the concepts and understand what they’re building before worshiping at the alter of technology.
I design the technologies themselves and their integration, and I still try to get new people to work with the tech at around a 1980s-1990s level so they can understand whats happening under the hood on modern ones.
I disagree about not teaching the applications - there may be new versions, but the concepts carry through - but the crucial part is the foundational knowledge, I agree.
Use AI, get burned. Even the slowest monkey would get that eventually…
Oh, AI can be very useful. Just not the generative stuff that is currently trying to consume all resources of the entire solar system for nebulous potential benefits.
A good example of AI that just works is document scanning. Get a picture of a document, locate text, OCR it, figure out which parts of the text correspond to entry fields, auto-populate the fields. That works pretty well and can greatly speed up manual data entry. It’s not perfect but the success rate is pretty good due to the constrained problem space and even if you have to check all fields and manually correct 10% of them you still save a lot of time.
An early example of this is the automated parsing of hand-written postal codes. That iteration of the tech has been in productive use since the 90s! (Yes, that’s just OCR but OCR is considered a field of AI.)
It’s one of those unexciting applications of tech that don’t make major waves but do work.
it’s really good at RTFMing on my behalf.
I can usually tell the PRs that have been written by AI though. They look like they were written by a junior and there’s comments and emoji fucking everywhere
But…but…banana.
In all seriousness, I still feel like there are limited use cases for AI. I don’t think it was smart to go all in on it with our energy and natural resources, especially for implementations in which nobody knows exactly what it’s doing, how, and there’s not a human in the loop. Unfortunately, I think that describes the majority. I kinda wish research for AI had been treated more like nuclear energy research.
I think it can be useful, lile you said, but the user needs to understand the work before offloading it imo.
This is why at art school we weren’t taught on computers. They said by the time we graduated, the programs they would have taught would be obsolete. If you know the concepts and the critical thinking skills you can quickly learn the program any potential employer will use.
I make enclosures on boats. I make patterns out of paper and cut and sew everything by hand. Many people want to get into the trade and buy $100k plotter/cutters and sit at the bottom of the learning curve pulling their hair out. They should all start with a $50 pair of shears and figure out the concepts and understand what they’re building before worshiping at the alter of technology.
I design the technologies themselves and their integration, and I still try to get new people to work with the tech at around a 1980s-1990s level so they can understand whats happening under the hood on modern ones.
I disagree about not teaching the applications - there may be new versions, but the concepts carry through - but the crucial part is the foundational knowledge, I agree.
This was the late 90’s and I think it’s quite different now. Still analog to begin though.