agent_flounder

@agent_flounder@lemmy.one

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mass protests have failed to bring about social change. It’s time for a new strategy.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  They can take you out– that’s for sure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Business owner 'hires' ChatGPT for customer service, then fires the humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Agree that other parts of the EM spectrum could enhance the ability of MV to recognize things. Appreciate the insights – maybe I will be able to use this when I get back to tinkering with MV as a hobbyist.

  Of course identifying one object is one level. For a general purpose replacement for humans ability, since that’s what the thread is focused (ahem) on, it has to identify tens of thousands of objects.

  I need to rethink my opinion a bit. Not only how far general object recognition is but also how one can “cheat” to enable robotic automation.

  Tasks that are more limited in scope and variability would be a lot less demanding. For a silly example, let’s say we want to automate replacing fuses in cars. We limit it to cars with fuse boxes in the engine bay and we can mark the fuse box with a visual tag the robot can detect. The layout of the fuses per vehicle model could be stored. The code on the fuse box identifies the model. The robot then used actuators to remove the cover and orients itself to the box using more markers and the rest is basically pick and place technology. That’s a smaller and easier problem to solve than “fix anything possibly wrong with a car”. A similar deal could be done for oil changes.

  For general purpose MV object detection, I would have to go check but my guess is that what is possible with state of the art MV is identifying a dozen or maybe even hundreds of objects so I suppose one could do quite a bit with that to automate some jobs. MV is not to my knowledge at a level of general purpose replacement for humans. Yet. Maybe it won’t take that much longer.

  In ~15 years in the hobbyist space we’ve gone from recognizing anything of a specified color under some lighting conditions to identifying several specific objects. And without a ton of processing power either. It’s pretty damn impressive progress, really. We have security cameras that can identify animals, people, and delivery boxes. I am probably selling short what MV will be able to do in 15 more years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Business owner 'hires' ChatGPT for customer service, then fires the humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  All great points. I guess I need to think of this topic more from the “what is possible” mindset rather than the “this is too hard” mindset to get a fair assessment of what is coming. All while still framing it in the sense of improving worker efficiency and automating human tasks piecemeal over time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨EU warns Musk that X spreading ‘illegal content’ after Hamas attacks on Israel⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Somebody let me know when the Artist Formerly Known as Twitter faces any consequences.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK that there is no such thing as an "alpha wolf"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I was told earlier today this was due to a transporter accident.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Business owner 'hires' ChatGPT for customer service, then fires the humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Damn… nice work on the research! I will read through these as I get time. I genuinely didn’t think there would be much for manual labor stuff. I’m particularly interested in the plumber analysis.

  I think augmentation makes a lot of sense for jobs where a human body is needed and it will be interesting to see how/if trade skill requirements change.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The rent is too damn algorithmic — DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb is investigating RealPage, a company that helps landlords set rent prices, for potential antitrust violations⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Streamline your Price Fixing shenanigans with our Tenant Screwer 3000™

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unity CEO John Riccitiello is retiring, effective immediately⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, it’s only unacceptable to rich people who have the power to avoid consequences.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Business owner 'hires' ChatGPT for customer service, then fires the humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t disagree with most of what you said. I think so far the following jobs are safe from direct AI replacement, because it is much harder to replace manual laborers.

  • Oil rig worker
  • Plumber
  • Construction worker
  • Landscaper/gardener
  • Telephone repair tech
  • Mechanic
  • Firefighter
  • Surveyor
  • Wildlife management officer
  • Police

  What companies won’t realize until too late is that paying customers need jobs to pay for things. If AI causes unemployment to rise to some ungodly high, paying customers will become rare and companies will collapse in droves.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Business owner 'hires' ChatGPT for customer service, then fires the humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Appreciate the detailed response!

  Indeed, intelligence is …a difficult thing to define. It’s also a fascinating area to ponder. The reason I asked was to get an idea of where your head is at with the claims you made.

  Now, I admit I haven’t done a lot with gpt-4 but your comments make me think it is worth the time to do so.

  So you indicate gpt-4 can reason. My understanding is gpt-4 is an LLM, basically a large scale Markov chain, trained to respond with appropriate output based on input (questions).

  On the one hand, my initial reaction is: no, it doesn’t reason it just mimics or simulates human reasoning that came before it in text form.

  On the other hand, if a program could perfectly simulate whatever processes are involved in reasoning by a human to the point that they’re indistinguishable, is it not, in effect, reasoning? (I suppose this amounts to a sort of Turing Test but for reasoning exercises).

  I don’t know how gpt4 LLMs work yet. I imagine, being a Markov Model (specifically a Markov Chain), if the model is trained on human language then the underlying semantics are sort of implicitly captured in the statistical model. Like, simplistically, if many sentences reflect human knowledge that cars are vehicles and not animals then it’s statistically unlikely for anyone to write about attributes and actions of animals when talking about cars. I assume the LLM is of such a scale that it permits this apparently emergent behavior.

  I am skeptical about judgement calls. I would think some sensory input would be required. I guess we have to outline various types of judgement calls to really dig into this.

  I am willing to accept that gpt-4 simulates the portions of the brain that deal with semantics and syntax both the receiving and transmitting abilities. And, maybe to some degree, knowledge and understanding.

  I think “very similar to a complete brain” is an overstatement as the brain also does some amazing things with vision, hearing, proprioception, touch, among other things. Human brains can analyze situations and take initiative, analyze things and understand how they work and apply that to their repair, improvement, duplication, etc. We can understand and solve problems, and so on. In other words I don’t think you’re giving the brain anywhere near enough credit. We aren’t just Q&A machines.

  We also have to be careful of the human tendency to anthropomorphize.

  I’m curious to look into vector databases and their applications here. Addition of what amounts to memory, or like extended context, sounds extremely interesting.

  Interesting to ponder what the world would be like with AGI taking over the jobs of most knowledge workers, artists, and so on. (I wonder if someone could create a CEO replacement…)

  What does it mean for a capitalist society with masses of people permanently unemployed? How does the economy work when nobody can afford to buy anything because they’re unemployed? Does this create widespread poverty and collapse or a post-scarcity economy in some sectors?

  Until robots mechanically evolve to Asimov’s vision, at least, manual labor is safe. Truly being able to replace a human body with a robot is still a ways off due to lack of progress on several fronts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kroger introducing AI at self checkout to lower both accidental and organized crime theft.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  And it saves us the indignity of being treated like criminals in our neighborhood grocery store. Curbside is fantastic in most cases.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Business owner 'hires' ChatGPT for customer service, then fires the humans⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  How do you define “intelligence” in this context?

  Do you think gpt4 is self aware?

  Do you believe this LLM tech has the ability to make judgement calls, say? Or understand meaning?

  What has been your experience with the accuracy / correctness of the answers it has provided? Does it match claims that mistakes or “hallucinations” occur often?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨“Real Water” that poisoned dozens contained chemical in rocket fuel — An expert witness testified hydrazine was likely formed during an electrolysis process⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Hydrazine (from Wikipedia)

  Hydrazine is an inorganic compound with the chemical formula N2H4. It is a simple pnictogen hydride, and is a colourless flammable liquid with an ammonia-like odour. Hydrazine is highly toxic unless handled in solution as, for example, hydrazine hydrate (N2H4·xH2O).

  Hydrazine is mainly used as a foaming agent in preparing polymer foams, but applications also include its uses as a precursor to polymerization catalysts, pharmaceuticals, and agrochemicals, as well as a long-term storable propellant for in-space spacecraft propulsion. Additionally, hydrazine is used in various rocket fuels and to prepare the gas precursors used in air bags. Hydrazine is used within both nuclear and conventional electrical power plant steam cycles as an oxygen scavenger to control concentrations of dissolved oxygen in an effort to reduce corrosion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thousands of Android TV devices come with unkillable backdoor preinstalled⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Pff sure. How hard can it be? Few resistor thingies and some capaci-whatsists, and Arduino, done.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Appreciate your efforts! Interesting find about social media. Would not have expected that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  True, I totally agree.

  However, if one is evaluating “functional literacy” that means determining if one reads well enough to function in society.

  So to truly evaluate functional literacy for native Spanish speakers, it seems like one would have to somehow factor in two things.

  First, English is the de facto language in the US. Second, Spanish language translations are provided for a number of written things (for example, our school district letters to parents).

  One would be more functional being fluent only in English than only in Spanish, sure (and it depends on which part of the country even which part of a city). But one would surely be more function having some knowledge of English and fluency in Spanish.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not convinced that social media causes a loss of reading skills. I suppose it is possible but I would want to see some studies on the topic. Anecdotally, I do find myself reading less than I used to. I took a number of English lit classes as electives purely for fun and enjoyed reading a number of fun works that I think would hopefully qualify me as reading above a 6th grade level. But that was many years ago. I haven’t done a lot of reading in the last decade except for news articles about everything going to hell. Of the few books I have read, I read them for pleasure and each was lightweight, not too much analysis and explication required, one rather challenging history book about the lead up to the first world war notwithstanding, though it’s difficulty is due more to more complex sentence structure and arcane vocabulary, and less to its erudite discussion of an already complex topic. Nevertheless, I don’t believe I have had any difficulties demonstrating far beyond mere functional literacy you described despite my infrequent reading of anything longer than a news article or Reddit post. Still, this is anecdotal and I would be interested to see if any scientific evidence exists to connect a loss of reading skills with disuse and to what degree those skills are diminished.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New Study: 54% of American Adults Read Below 6th Grade-Levels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Dumb it down for me doc?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 12 May Require a Subscription⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s the decade of the Linux desktop over here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 12 May Require a Subscription⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  In effect, it will be for some people fed up with all this bullshit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How TikTok profits off dangerous health trends⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Naw. It’s predatory bullshit. People deserve to live even if they’re gullible or whatever else. Not everybody gets to grow up with good parenting, schooling, DNA, etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨6/10⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The social media we really need…n’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Still one of the funniest moments in Star Trek⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Coincidentally I just started to do so last night. Looking forward to these episodes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Google Pixel 8 is official with 7 years of updates⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve had a 2XL and a 4a. Both have been great. I’m debating whether to hold out for an 8 or save a few bucks like I did with the 4a and get a used 7 or something.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Yelp Asks Court To Stop Texas AG Ken Paxton From Suing Them For Warning Users That Crisis Pregnancy Centers Are Scams⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Wtf with the ableist slur???

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I have attempted science.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Like Carl Sagan wrote, we should probably teach how messy science can be to show why it is the best method. Despite setbacks, human nature, persisting wrong ideas, and whatever else, the entire process of science eventually overcomes and on average, we inch ever closer to truth.

  The anti-science people make arguments that clearly show they have neither a concept of how science works nor a sufficiently flexible mind to accommodate (let alone seek) updated information.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When two people kiss, they form a long tube from one anus to the other⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  From an evolutionary standpoint, yeah. It was either that or cups. Those creatures, like sea anemones eat and expel, erm, waste out of the same hole.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Men Overran a Job Fair for Women in Tech⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If gender is whatever an individual feels like, then this event was just thousands of women and non-binary folks,

  The event could be “thousands of women and non-binary folks”. Did all these male-presenting people identify as women or non-binary just to be able to attend this event?

  What do you think identity politics is, exactly? Just a way to make changes you don’t like to make you unhappy? It couldn’t possibly be about people trying to make social changes so they’re not constantly treated like shit. Oh no. The horror.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nothing to see here, just join lemmy promoting a pedophile instance. Not a good look for the fediverse⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  At least you can admit you were wrong and change your mind. Those abilities are all too rare.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PI is what⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  So the answer is Jesus. Y’know, because “he’s the answer to everything?”

  So happy to be atheist now …