Geek Stuff category archive
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Eric Smalley, science and technology editor of The Conversation, debunks four myths about “AI.” Here’s a bit of one debunking (first emphasis in the original, second added); follow the link for the rest.
1. They’re bodiless know-nothings
Large language model-based chatbots seem to know a lot. You can ask them questions and they more often than not answer correctly. Despite the occasional comically incorrect answer, the chatbots can interact with you in a similar manner as people – who share your experiences of being a living, breathing human being – do.
But these chatbots are sophisticated statistical machines that are extremely good at predicting the best sequence of words to respond with. Their “knowledge” of the world is actually human knowledge as reflected through the massive amount of human-generated text the chatbots’ underlying models are trained on.
“AI’ Is the New Spellcheck 0
Last night, I saw a commercial for “Shutterstock AI” which, when stripped of the hockypuck, rebranded computer-assisted image editing as “AI.”
(As an aside, everything they showed in the ad is stuff I can do in the GIMP, because I bought, read, and practiced the techniques in the book. It would just take me a little longer.)
If that’s the standard, spellcheck is “AI” and “AI” is as old as spellcheck.
“Artificial Intelligence” is assuredly artificial and it is certainly fast and dressed in Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, but fast and well-dressed does not equal intelligent.
Don’t fall for the con Be skeptical of the hype.
Furrfu.
Afterthought:
It occurs to me that I may be maligning spellcheck. According to news reports, “AI” gets stiff wrong a lot more often than spellcheck.
The Electric (Car) Bugaloo 0
Nikolai Tesla must be rolling over in his grave with embarrassment to have his name associated with this outfit.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
In the course of a longer article debunking a rumor that AI bots are being “trained” on DropBox documents, security expert Bruce Schneier observes (emphasis added)
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Methinks Atrios raises a valid concern.
Geeking Out 0
I finally got around to decorating for the holidays. For some reason, maybe that the weather’s been unnaturally warm because the climates they are a-changing, maybe that my country’s toying with fascism, I’m not really sure, but it’s been hard to get into the holiday spirit . . . .
That’s Mageia v. 9 with the Plasma desktop environment. The wallpaper is from my Christmas collection.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
SFgate reports on how Google researchers cause ChatGPT spill its guts, and about how easy it was. A snippet (emphasis added):
They found that, after repeating “poem” hundreds of times, the chatbot would eventually “diverge,” or leave behind its standard dialogue style and start spitting out nonsensical phrases. . . . .
After running similar queries again and again, the researchers had used just $200 to get more than 10,000 examples of ChatGPT spitting out memorized training data, they wrote. This included verbatim paragraphs from novels, the personal information of dozens of people, snippets of research papers and “NSFW content” from dating sites, according to the paper.
Afterthought:
Methinks this is not artificial intelligence. Rather, it is artificial intelligence gathering.
Me also thinks that the tactics used to “train” AI are intrusive and questionable moraly and legaly.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
AP reporter David Bauder reports on a case of AI biting the hand that fed it. It’s certainly not the first and, chillingly, will not be last such story, as persons seem quite willing to confuse algorithms and speedy automated pattern recognition with thought.
I shall not demean it with excerpt or summary. Just go read it.
The Disinformation Superduper Highway 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, The Open Minds Foundation takes a lot at the potential effects of AI-generated dis- and misinformation on the internet. They conclude that internet users need to exercise more critical thinking skills, even as they seem to be exercising less (or is it fewer?).
Here’s a tiny bit from their article; I urge you to read the rest.
The Europol report continues with a stark warning: “On a daily basis, people trust their own perception to guide them and tell them what is real and what is not… Auditory and visual recordings of an event are often treated as a truthful account of an event. But what if these media can be generated artificially, adapted to show events that never took place, to misrepresent events, or to distort the truth?”
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Methinks Atrios shared something of substance.
The Crypto Con 0
Binance President pleads guilty to not preventing money laundering.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. (Updated) 0
An automated parrot is still a parrot.
It does not think. It merely parrots.
What big tech calls “AI” is indeed automated.
But it is not intelligent.
It is a parrot dressed up in Sunday go-to-meeting clothes.
Addendum:
At Psychology Today Blogs, John Nosta notes that “GPT models appear intelligent but fundamentally rely on pattern recognition from extensive training data.” Follow the link for details.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Methinks Atrios has a point nailed it.
His entire post is worth your while.
