“Built to do my art and writing so I can do my laundry and dishes” – Embodied agents is where the real value is. The chatbots are just fancy tech demos that folks started selling because people were buying.
I’m a lead software dev, and when deadlines are close, I absolutely divvy up tasks based on ability. We’re a webapp shop with 2D and 3D components, and I have the following on my team:
2 BE devs with solid math experience
1 senior BE without formal education, but lots of knowledge on frameworks
1 junior fullstack that we hired as primarily backend (about 75/25 split)
2 senior FE devs, one with a QA background
2 mid level FEs who crank out code (but miss some edge cases)
1 junior FE
That’s across two teams, and one of the senior FEs is starting to take over the other team.
If we’re at the start of development, I’ll pair tasks between juniors and seniors so the juniors get more experience. When deadlines are close, I’ll pair tasks with the most competent dev in that area and have the juniors provide support (write tests, fix tech debt, etc).
The same goes for AI. It’s useful at the start of a project to understand the code and gen some boilerplate, but I’m going to leave it to the side when tricky bugs need to get fixed or we can’t tolerate as many new bugs. AI is like a really motivated junior, it’s quick to give answers but slow to check their accuracy.
Compare it to the microwave. Is it good at something, yes. But if you shoot your fucking turkey in it at Thanksgiving and expect good results, you’re ignorant of how it works. Most people are expecting language models to do shit that aren’t meant to. Most of it isn’t new technology but old tech that people slapped a label on as well. I wasn’t playing Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast against AI openents… Yet now they are called AI opponents with no requirements to be different. GoldenEye on N64 was man VS AI. Madden 1995… AI. “Where did this AI boom come from!”
Marketing and mislabeling.
Online classes, call it AI.
Photo editors, call it AI.
I wasn’t playing Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast against AI openents…
Maybe terminology differs by region, but I absolutely played against AI as a kid. When I set up a game of Command and Conquer or something, I’d pick the number of AI opponents. Sometimes we’d call them bots (more common in FPS) or “the computer” or “CPU” (esp in Civ and other TBS), but I distinctly remember calling RTS SP opponents “AI” and I think many games used that terminology during the 90s.
What frustrates me is the opposite of what you’re saying, people have changed the meaning of “AI” from a human programmed opponent to a statistical model. When I played against “AI” 20-30 years ago, I was playing against something a human crafted and tuned. These days, I don’t play against “AI” because “AI” generates text, images, and video from a statistical model and can’t really play games. AI is something that runs in the cloud, with maybe a small portion on phones and Windows computers to do simple tasks where the network would add too much latency.
That said, I think the comment is constructive. It used to be that websites, textbooks, etc would pay artists or pay for stock photos (which indirectly pays artists), but now they can gen a dozen or so images and pick their favorite.
I’m not saying this is good or bad, but I do agree that art will never be the same.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. No, we’re not there yet, may never be. Compare what Jesar, one of my favorite artists, can do - and that was in the oh-so-long-ago 2000s - and what an AI can do. It’s simply not up to the task. I do use AI a lot to create what is basically utility art. But it depends on pre-defined textual or visual inputs whereas only an artist can have divine inspiration. AI is more of a sterile tool, like interactive clipart, if you will.
I think “interactive clipart” is a great description. You are, I believe, totally correct that (at least for now) GenAI can’t do what professionals can do, but it can do better than many / most non-professionals. I can’t do art to save my life, and I don’t have the money to pay pros to make the mundane, boring everyday things that I need (like simple, uncluttered pictures for vocabulary cards). GenAI solves that problem for me.
Similarly, teachers used to try to rewrite complex texts for students at lower reading levels (such as English Learners). That took time and some expertise. Now, GenAI does it prolly many tens of thousands of times a day for teachers all over the USA.
I think, at least for the moment, that middle / lower level is where GenAI is currently most helpful - exactly the places that, in earlier times, were happy with clipart.
“Built to do my art and writing so I can do my laundry and dishes” – Embodied agents is where the real value is. The chatbots are just fancy tech demos that folks started selling because people were buying.
Eh, my best coworker is an LLM. Full of shit, like the rest of them, but always available and willing to help out.
Too bad it actively makes all of your work lower quality via the “helping”.
Just like every other coworker, it’s important to know what tasks they do well and where they typically need help
Lmao your stance is really “every coworker makes all product lower quality by nature of existence”? Thats some hardcore Cope you’re smoking.
Every coworker has a specific type of task they do well and known limits you should pay attention to.
Yes and therefor any two employees must never be allowed to speak to each other. You know, because it makes all of their work worse quality. /s
That’s quite the extreme interpretation.
I’m a lead software dev, and when deadlines are close, I absolutely divvy up tasks based on ability. We’re a webapp shop with 2D and 3D components, and I have the following on my team:
That’s across two teams, and one of the senior FEs is starting to take over the other team.
If we’re at the start of development, I’ll pair tasks between juniors and seniors so the juniors get more experience. When deadlines are close, I’ll pair tasks with the most competent dev in that area and have the juniors provide support (write tests, fix tech debt, etc).
The same goes for AI. It’s useful at the start of a project to understand the code and gen some boilerplate, but I’m going to leave it to the side when tricky bugs need to get fixed or we can’t tolerate as many new bugs. AI is like a really motivated junior, it’s quick to give answers but slow to check their accuracy.
This bro should find a new career, they’re completely inept.
Though the image generators are actually good. The visual arts will never be the same after this
Compare it to the microwave. Is it good at something, yes. But if you shoot your fucking turkey in it at Thanksgiving and expect good results, you’re ignorant of how it works. Most people are expecting language models to do shit that aren’t meant to. Most of it isn’t new technology but old tech that people slapped a label on as well. I wasn’t playing Soul Caliber on the Dreamcast against AI openents… Yet now they are called AI opponents with no requirements to be different. GoldenEye on N64 was man VS AI. Madden 1995… AI. “Where did this AI boom come from!”
Marketing and mislabeling. Online classes, call it AI. Photo editors, call it AI.
Maybe terminology differs by region, but I absolutely played against AI as a kid. When I set up a game of Command and Conquer or something, I’d pick the number of AI opponents. Sometimes we’d call them bots (more common in FPS) or “the computer” or “CPU” (esp in Civ and other TBS), but I distinctly remember calling RTS SP opponents “AI” and I think many games used that terminology during the 90s.
What frustrates me is the opposite of what you’re saying, people have changed the meaning of “AI” from a human programmed opponent to a statistical model. When I played against “AI” 20-30 years ago, I was playing against something a human crafted and tuned. These days, I don’t play against “AI” because “AI” generates text, images, and video from a statistical model and can’t really play games. AI is something that runs in the cloud, with maybe a small portion on phones and Windows computers to do simple tasks where the network would add too much latency.
Sometimes I really regret having signed onto an instance that disables downvotes.
It’s easy to switch.
That said, I think the comment is constructive. It used to be that websites, textbooks, etc would pay artists or pay for stock photos (which indirectly pays artists), but now they can gen a dozen or so images and pick their favorite.
I’m not saying this is good or bad, but I do agree that art will never be the same.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. No, we’re not there yet, may never be. Compare what Jesar, one of my favorite artists, can do - and that was in the oh-so-long-ago 2000s - and what an AI can do. It’s simply not up to the task. I do use AI a lot to create what is basically utility art. But it depends on pre-defined textual or visual inputs whereas only an artist can have divine inspiration. AI is more of a sterile tool, like interactive clipart, if you will.
I think “interactive clipart” is a great description. You are, I believe, totally correct that (at least for now) GenAI can’t do what professionals can do, but it can do better than many / most non-professionals. I can’t do art to save my life, and I don’t have the money to pay pros to make the mundane, boring everyday things that I need (like simple, uncluttered pictures for vocabulary cards). GenAI solves that problem for me.
Similarly, teachers used to try to rewrite complex texts for students at lower reading levels (such as English Learners). That took time and some expertise. Now, GenAI does it prolly many tens of thousands of times a day for teachers all over the USA.
I think, at least for the moment, that middle / lower level is where GenAI is currently most helpful - exactly the places that, in earlier times, were happy with clipart.