25+ yr Java/JS dev
Linux novice - running Ubuntu (no windows/mac)

  • 1 Post
  • 687 Comments
Joined 4 months ago
cake
Cake day: October 14th, 2024

help-circle





  • Cool. Sorry if that all seemed like a lecture. A friend and I have been working for years on a dungeon master chatbot that can run games on discord for people/groups without a GM.

    It works about exactly as well as you think: pretty decent, inconsistent, and with a frequent need to tweak prompts to permit bad guys to be bad guys, have swords fights, etc.

    I really want to run an uncensored model or at least one better trained on adventure stories and not at all concerned by a party of bloodthirsty heroes facing down bad guys who gleefully commit actual crimes. However to my consternation, OAI has the best response quality and understanding of game world lore.

    So I’m hopeful the state of the art continues to expand so that we have more options. It’s pretty damn fun and we run small Chatbots that simulate real and fictional people (Harlan Ellison has some things to say about Paramount that would make a sailor blush).

    It’s just a good bit of fun and something that keeps us all entertained. A total waste of money and silicon, but a lot of human pastimes are the same. And none is that even touches actual niche tools that actually are kinda decent (code completion isn’t replacing coders, but it’s a significant boost in some cases.)

    It seems to me the only real grift is them convincing folks that replacing actual workers with AI is just around the corner (and how fucking awful would that be, anyway?) I think money invested in OAI might be reasonable but money invested in any company developing products based on LLMs is the real loser.

    But I respect your opinion, and appreciate the response.



  • I get where you are coming from. From what I see there are a lot of folks genuinely excited about AI and genuinely think it is the future.

    I also agree with you that it’s not for mass market. It’s a tool. I can be used by anyone. It can be helpful in a limited capacity for damn near anyone. But like a tablesaw, not everyone needs one and if you try to use it without understanding the tool, it’s liable to do more harm than good.

    I’m actually really excited for LLMs because I was into them and using them way before ChatGPT, and now that everyone is excited there is all of this interest and investment and the costs for doing what I enjoy are socialized over a large number of people. It’s like if the whole world decided everyone needs a replica lightsaber. Instead of paying $600 for one, I could pick one up for $120 due to economy of scale.

    I still think it’s a terrible business model. Everyone is trying to integrate it into mass market products, but it is uncontrollable. Your automated CSR bot might just tell your biggest client to go fuck himself. The chance is low, but it is never zero. That’s not a product.

    When 25 phones out of a production run of hundreds of thousands catch fire, they recall the whole fucking lot. Anyone adopting LLMs on a large scale is begging to be sued into oblivion.

    I would not invest in OAI. I might invest in a smaller, leaner competitor. I wouldn’t invest in an AI-based company. You’re right that it’s a sucker’s game, I’m just not sure it’s grift. Looks to me like rich idiots who don’t really understand it (well, and maybe grifters who don’t want them to).

    That all being said, it’s a fun, cool technology. It has its niche uses. And who knows, we might just accidentally invent something really cool out of it. It has replaced Google for me ~80% of the time. Because Google is also full of shit, but it takes a lot longer to sift through. I’m not staking my life or livelihood on anything ChatGPT says, but if you know how to use it, and if you are skeptical about the results, it’s pretty amazing. IMO




  • I could write a fucking book here and I had to delete about a chapter just to get to the point here so this would be readable.

    The current Russian and US gov’ts are forces for evil in the world. If they say jump, I’m looking for a shovel.

    You’re not wrong that corporations are also a real problem—they are the surveillance arm of world governments. That doesn’t really intersect with what I was trying to say.

    Until recently, I had the luxury of knowing my government doesn’t give a shit if I have queer kids. But now they do, at the same time that there is a push against encrypted communication. And I’m really paying attention to the signals (hah!) they are sending, because I’m mentally preparing for shit to turn really dark, really fast, and I don’t want to be caught with my pants down.


  • Maybe you’re not conscious of it but there is an element of:

    <identifies problem> -> <adds to the problem>

    It also feels like you are passive-aggressively telling everyone to just stop bitching about things you think they have no right to bitch about. You’re gate-keeping complaining, basically.

    “grocery prices” … fuck, my friend, not long ago I used to be able to feed my family on $600/mo and now I’m hovering around $1k. That’s a car payment. I get it, my son, who is 26 and lives by himself, can feed himself for $100/week because he can choose the stuff that is important to him and if he chooses to eat beans and rice for a week to save money he can. Meanwhile there are 4 of us living in this home, and my autistic daughter has food issues, which means I can’t just say, “Oh the good spaghetti sauce has gone up to $8 per jar, time to buy Prego which tastes like ass but sauces your pasta.”

    You can’t know the pain points in other peoples’ lives. I shouldn’t have to go around explaining to everyone about my autistic daughter to justify why I might complain about grocery prices, you know?

    Before you get defensive about it, as is some folks’ ways, please understand I know you probably aren’t aware you are doing it. You’re young and you have experienced just a small slice of life. Hell, youth be damned, some folks go through their whole lives that way.

    The way to deal with it isn’t to complain about it. It isn’t to judge it. It’s just to accept it, don’t engage, and move on. Maybe redirect the conversation if that’s appropriate. You aren’t asking a stupid question, you are asking a judgmental question, and you should look inward and try to stop that.

    Good luck, mate. Hope this helps in some way.