I’ve never met an artist who really wanted to be a (prompt) engineer.
2 Likes
1 Like
But if we call it spellcrafting it sounds so much better.
/s
2 Likes
The future described in OpenAI’s mission statement, in which autonomous systems “outperform humans at most economically valuable work,” sounds like a hellscape to MIT economics professor David Autor.
A world where humans supply only generic, undifferentiated labor and wealth flows to AI system owners and rights holders would look something like “WALL-E” meets “Mad Max,” he says.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In an paper released through the National Bureau of Economic Research, “Applying AI to Rebuild Middle Class Jobs,” Autor argues that fears of a future in which AI will leave humans with nothing to do are misplaced and in fact, AI can improve the lot of the middle class.
[…]
2 Likes
Maybe using an Indifference Engine to generate what seems like advice isn’t a good idea?
4 Likes
Good on him able to get his money, but they should have been slammed a lot harder than that. You need to make the errors of the bot more than “cost of doing business”.
3 Likes
Consumers and companies are already facing a crisis in finding professionals with the skills they need. Using tech to fill that gap is risky*, and using healthcare providers as an example of a successful transition isn’t a good one. More of a specific type of nurse doesn’t mean there isn’t a shortage in general, and if you need a RN, having more nurses with different credentials doesn’t solve that issue.
*Whether watching videos for mechanical work or performing surgery
3 Likes
Waymo cars apparently really hate vehicles that are being towed:
3 Likes
The idea of a robotaxi is quite appealing.
Is it, though?
3 Likes
Stories like this make me glad I didn’t work in legal or the insurance industry. They probably give the experts headaches. Unfortunately, more cases in the courts, clauses in service contracts with specific references to AI, and increasing insurance premiums to cover situations where the responsibility for mistakes is unclear might cause everyone else to experience migraines.
4 Likes
You wouldn’t think people would want the future from Total Recall, but we already know someone started making angular vehicles and has been daydreaming about a totalitarian Mars colony.
5 Likes
We know that self-driving cars are wildly divisive, especially in cities where they’ve begun to share the streets with emergency responders, pedestrians and cyclists. Public confidence in the technology has actually been declining as they’ve rolled out, owing as much to general anxiety over driverless cars as to high-profile incidents like a GM Cruise robotaxi trapping, dragging, and critically injuring a pedestrian last fall. Just over a third of Americans say they’d ride in one.
We also know that the pyrotechnic demolition can be seen as the most dramatic act yet in a series of escalations — self-driving cars have been vocally opposed by officials, protested, “coned,” attacked, and, now, set ablaze in a carnivalesque display of defiance. The Waymo torching did not take place in a vacuum.
To that end, we know that trust in Silicon Valley in general is eroding, and anger towards the big tech companies — Waymo is owned by Alphabet, the parent company of Google — is percolating. Not just at self-driving cars, of course, but at generative AI companies that critics say hoover up copyrighted works to produce plagiarized output, at punishing, algorithmically mediated work regimes at the likes of Uber and Amazon, at the misinformation and toxic content pushed by Facebook and TikTok, and so on.
It’s all of a piece. All of the above contributes to the spreading sense that big tech has an inordinate amount of control over the ordinary person’s life — to decide, for example, whether or not robo-SUVs will roam the streets of their communities — and that the average person has little to no meaningful recourse.
4 Likes
4 Likes
2 Likes
You know what algorithms and heuristics are just awful at? Edge cases.
You know what just about every critical moment in driving is, and probably 1/3 of the non-critical moments?
4 Likes
a backward-facing pickup truck being “improperly towed.” The truck was “persistently angled across a center turn lane and a traffic lane.”
Even if true (let’s see the videos), So What?
It hired its first chief safety officer this week.
That should be mandatory, day one, for federal regulatory compliance. Some schmuck should be putting their professional standing on the line by signing off on this and Musk’s Full Speed Death.
2 Likes
1 Like
… the Uncanny Valley bits are becoming more subtle, like when Cat Mom here has to finish growing her left arm back before she gets up
5 Likes
And she’s gonna be shocked to see that her cat has grown another leg.
5 Likes
3 Likes
