Effects of Generative AI - Big And Small?

jyl · jyl's Garage

This thread is to speculate about how generative AI will be used and change things, in ways big or small.

herr_oberst · 03-04-2023, 04:44 PM

Subscribed and interested.

I can't wait to see how the big thinkers of the board futurescape our brave new world.

jyl · jyl's Garage

Here’s a “small” effect - I think more people will go to Youtube to learn how to do things or figure out what to buy.

A Google search for, say, what ski goggle to buy is rapidly becoming useless, there are dozens if not hundreds of articles and reviews and buying guides on the web that have pretty clearly been cranked out by an AI or with assistance from one. There aren’t AI Youtubers, for the most part, yet. You can look for sources that you recognize as actual experts, but with the death of magazines, most of those expert sources are going to be on Youtube. In this sense, I think it’ll be good for Google (owns Youtube).

Arizona_928 · 03-04-2023, 05:03 PM

I posted a thread in PARF but it got lost in the real outcome.

It'll replace google because Americans are lazy and cannot decipher fact from fiction.

OpenAI is very good with grammar and readability/Flow. The PI I work under uses it to polish his grant proposals, LOR, ect. I have used it for the same and so far have been awarded two grants.

The problem is who owns the writing. If I tell it to polish paragraphs. The material I gave it is mine, but changing a couple sentence structures and punctuation shouldn't be considered plagiarism...

With direct Q&A content. It gives very good answers, and a logical process of how it came to that conclusion. Often the answers are wrong though...

fanaudical · fanaudical's Garage

I see AI taking over a lot of jobs that just require reading email or answering a phone, looking up info, and spitting that info back out. (Customer service, order entry, etc). Probably already there...

zakthor · zakthor's Garage

Is still early dayz. I think what we have now from ai is raw id with no reason. They can’t count, they can’t solve problems. They’re ‘stochastic parrots’.

The chatgpt front ends are now being attracted to problem solvers and we’ll end up with things that can find creative solutions to actual problems. Doing taxes, finding tax cheats, planning supply chains, selling stuff.

Worst case: current chat front ends will be trained to advertise and convince people to buy and do stupid stuff. A small elite will benefit.

cstreit · cstreit's Garage

At this point it seems more like Google with good grammar. I've asked quite specific questions and the responses reminded me if you asked a politician to speak for 5 minutes on a topic they know nothing about. The words all fit, but your question is frequently not answered.

I think it has promise to take over some mundane tasks and actually benefit people. For example an AI assistant that can help me with my work calendar, answer repetitive questions that people ask, etc...

My concern is the generators. Will they essentially fill the internet with fluff making it harder to actually get in depth information as its lost in the sheer volume of AI content.

masraum · 03-05-2023, 06:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jyl

Here’s a “small” effect - I think more people will go to Youtube to learn how to do things or figure out what to buy.

A Google search for, say, what ski goggle to buy is rapidly becoming useless, there are dozens if not hundreds of articles and reviews and buying guides on the web that have pretty clearly been cranked out by an AI or with assistance from one. There aren’t AI Youtubers, for the most part, yet. You can look for sources that you recognize as actual experts, but with the death of magazines, most of those expert sources are going to be on Youtube. In this sense, I think it’ll be good for Google (owns Youtube).

Like you said, there are a slew of sites that "review" or "compare" products, but then when you get there, they have a list of the most popular stuff with a short list of the features as advertised by the manufacturer. Those sites tend to say "product X is the best", but there's no actual testing or reviews other than having looked at the features. Youtube is also full of videos of the same information using a computer generated voice. I have been assuming it was folks in other countries, but it's absolutely possible that those folks are using some sort of AI to create the videos.

masraum · 03-05-2023, 06:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arizona_928

I posted a thread in PARF but it got lost in the real outcome.

It'll replace google because Americans are lazy and cannot decipher fact from fiction.

OpenAI is very good with grammar and readability/Flow. The PI I work under uses it to polish his grant proposals, LOR, ect. I have used it for the same and so far have been awarded two grants.

The problem is who owns the writing. If I tell it to polish paragraphs. The material I gave it is mine, but changing a couple sentence structures and punctuation shouldn't be considered plagiarism...

With direct Q&A content. It gives very good answers, and a logical process of how it came to that conclusion. Often the answers are wrong though...

AI generated Sci-Fi is flooding publishers to the point that they stopped accepting submissions.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/25/23613752/ai-generated-short-stories-literary-magazines-clarkesworld-science-fiction

masraum · 03-05-2023, 06:32 AM

AI can be trained, not only to make art, but to mimic a certain artist's "style". The US has said "you can't copyright AI generated content" but does that keep someone from using to make money it even if it's not copyrighted.
https://www.theverge.com/23444685/generative-ai-copyright-infringement-legal-fair-use-training-data

fastfredracing · 03-05-2023, 07:34 AM

I love these emimen AI generated voice videos . There are dozens of them .
https://youtu.be/wUHf7wUYHvQ

herr_oberst · 03-10-2023, 03:48 PM

I'm unapologetically a fan of pulp fiction westerns. I think AI could probably write as well as many of the authors that I've come across. But, I wonder if in the future, you could plug in a few parameters and have the AI continue a series of stories from an author, 'in the style of' that would be almost indistinguishable from the original author's style. Imagine AI continuing stories of Travis McGee or Spenser (for hire) Not written by McDonald or Parker but good stories nonetheless with the original cast of characters.

wilnj · 03-11-2023, 04:22 AM

Here’s an example.

Like many professionals, I often get unsolicited emails from headhunters. Typically, these are from human beings who’ve been searching LinkedIn and sending out emails to likely candidates.

Last week, I get this from someone named ‘Joey’.

Quote:

I looked at your background and I think your project management experience would make you a great fit for the Senior Project Manager opportunity at XXXXX! Our team is comprised of recognized experts who enjoy the excitement of a forward thinking company.

With over a 100 year legacy, XXXXX recognizes the past to innovate the future. Our state of the art methods have helped shape the world for decades. As the world continues to spin, changes seem to happen faster than ever. There will always be work to do.

I'd love to speak with you and share more details about the company and the role. Are you available in the coming days for a brief conversation?

The signature to the email was also just Joey. No company name, no phone number or website.

I checked out the company that was ‘recruiting’ me and saw they don’t have a presence in the NY market. So looking at the email it was sent from, I found this joey@findemtalent.com.

Searching for that domain, I came upon a company this company https://www.findem.ai/solutions/platform that evidently uses AI to solicit prospective employees. Likely capable of doing the work of hundreds of humans in a fraction of the time.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

1990C4S · 03-11-2023, 04:38 AM

This is a hint of a huge change coming....

masraum · 03-11-2023, 04:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

I'm unapologetically a fan of pulp fiction westerns. I think AI could probably write as well as many of the authors that I've come across. But, I wonder if in the future, you could plug in a few parameters and have the AI continue a series of stories from an author, 'in the style of' that would be almost indistinguishable from the original author's style. Imagine AI continuing stories of Travis McGee or Spenser (for hire) Not written by McDonald or Parker but good stories nonetheless with the original cast of characters.

People have already run into that to some degree. Living artists are not terribly happy about having their style copied, but in original work. And the way that it's done today, is that electronic copies of the author's original work are fed into the AI, and once it's digested enough original work, it can emulate the style in new work. So, while it may be "original" from a certain point of view, it was only able to emulate that work after being fed a bunch of other work and then being asked to essentially copy that style. So I can see how there would be an element of "theft" or "plagarism" that doesn't really fit with the old/current definitions.