The common ancestor thing is hard to wrap my brain around. Dawkins gives a cool thought experiment where he says imagine a card catalog with photos of you and your ancestors in chronological order. If you look back 10 generations, you’ll find a human. If you go back 100 generations, you’ll find a human. If you go back 5,000 generations, you’ll still see a human! However, they probably won’t look exactly like a moden human. If you go back 15,000 generations, you’ll find something human-like, but not really a modern homo sapiens. All of those cards along the way have miniscule,imperceptible differences. If you go back far enough, you’ll find something like a rodent. But the number of cards you need to flip through to find that rodent is extremely large. Something like 200 million generations. Keep in mind the more ancient animals had shorter life spans.
So t-rex and chickens may have come from the same branch, but there are millions of “cards” between them.
The research from Purdue University, first spotted by news outlet Futurism, was presented earlier this month at the Computer-Human Interaction Conference in Hawaii and looked at 517 programming questions on Stack Overflow that were then fed to ChatGPT....
I honestly don’t know how well AI is going to scale when it comes to power consumption vs performance. If it’s like most of the progress we’ve seen in hardware and software over the years, it could be very promising. On the other hand, past performance is no guarantee for future performance. And your concerns are quite valid. It uses an absurd amount of resources.
The usual AI squad may jump in here with their usual unbridled enthusiasm and copium that other jobs are under threat, but my job is safe, because I’m special.
Eye roll.
Meanwhile, thousands have been laid off already, and executives and shareholders are drooling at the possibility of thinning the workforce even more. Those who think AI will create as many jobs as it destroys are thinking wishfully. Assuming it scales well, it could spell massive layoffs. Some experts predict tens of millions of jobs lost to AI by 2030.
To try and answer the other part of your question…at my job (which is very technical and related to healthcare) we have found AI to be extremely useful. Using Google to search for answers to problems pales by comparison. AI has saved us a lot of time and effort. I can easily imagine us cutting staff eventually, and we’re a small shop.
The future will be a fascinating mix of good and bad when it comes to AI. Some things are quite predictable. Like the loss of creative jobs in art, music, animation, etc. And canned response type jobs like help desk chat, etc. The future of other things like software development, healthcare, accounting, and so on are a lot murkier. But no job (that isn’t very hands-on-physical) is 100% safe. Especially in sectors with high demand and low supply of workers. Some of these models understand incredibly complex things like drug interactions. It’s going to be a wild ride.
I think Microsoft’s planned recall feature where they screenshot everything you do so that it can be analysed by AI isn’t as bad as everyone makes it sound. It’s only bad because Windows is closed source and nobody can verify if what they say is true....
This “feature” is like a cop following you or your vehicle 24x7. Sure, you aren’t planning on doing anything illegal. But do you really want a cop following you 24x7?
Haven’t used it in many years. But I remember having a lot of fun with it in the 90s. A friend from the UK told me about it, and we used it to stay in touch.
A New Zealand man has been fined over a social media video in which he tries to “body slam” an orca swimming next to his boat, in what officials called “stupid” and “extremely irresponsible” behavior....
It’s been a tremendous help to me as I relearn how to code on some personal projects. I have written 5 little apps that are very useful to me for my hobbies.
It’s also been helpful at work with some random database type stuff.
But it definitely gets stuff wrong. A lot of stuff.
The funny thing is, if you point out its mistakes, it often does better on subsequent attempts. It’s more like an iterative process of refinement than one prompt gives you the final answer.
Programming jobs will be safe for a while. They’ve been trying to eliminate those positions since at least the 90s. Because coders are expensive and often lack social skills.
But I do think the clock is ticking. We will see more and more sophisticated AI tools that are relatively idiot-proof and can do things like modify Salesforce, or create complex new Tableau reports with a few mouse clicks, and stuff like that. Jobs will be chiseled away like our unfortunate friends in graphic design.
Exactly. And for me, being in middle age, it’s a big help with recalling syntax. I generally know how to do stuff, but need a little refresher on the spelling, parameters, etc.
Conventional economists spinning deflation as “almost always bad” has always felt like pro-corporate voodoo bullshit to me. Especially when the inflation that proceeded it was driven by boardroom greed and pathological profit-seeking.
I’m not saying deflation is always good. But right now it would likely just be a correction back to the usual Reaganomics greed instead of the post-pandemic let’s-burn-it-all-down levels of greed.
Absolutely. There’s a nice sit-down restaurant close to where I work. I go there and get a much better meal for less than I would pay at the shitty McDonald’s half a mile away.
Meanwhile, McDonald’s: Where did everybody go? IS THIS DEFLATION!?
I’ve been struggling with sleep issues for over a decade now. My Doctor has prescribed me all sorts of medication, all of which has had many adverse side effects. What I do know that works, is Xanax. My wife was prescribed it for some stress issues and occasionally will give me one so I can finally sleep. Obviously asking my...
And I should have included exercise. The best sleep I ever get is when I get in a really good amount of exercise during the day. I won’t lie to you, I’m pretty lazy about it myself. You don’t want to do this close to bedtime, either. Go for a really long walk / jog / whatever in early afternoon if you can squeeze that in somehow.
I wasn’t aware of this. That is discouraging. I think there are like 30-something sleep disorders. Though apnea is extremely common. Some insurance plans will also push hard for an “at home” sleep study first, which is fine if you just need a CPAP machine. But it’s no bueno if you need someone to monitor you and hook you up to all those Star Trek devices like they did to me.
With the lastest news of AI layoffs, I’m struggling to understand how the idea of a career still holds. If careers themselves effectively become gambles like lottery tickets, how do we maintain drive and hopes in the longterm endgame of our struggles?...
Do you avoid discussing some topics online even if you have something you'd like to say about them?
I’ve been doing this for some time now. Even if it’s something that I consider important....
Why do they say that the tyrannosaurus rex is a long ancient ancestor of modern day chickens?
Did they determine this by comparing what DNA fragments they’ve managed to recover, or by physical skeletal structure similarities, or what?...
ChatGPT Answers Programming Questions Incorrectly 52% of the Time: Study (gizmodo.com)
The research from Purdue University, first spotted by news outlet Futurism, was presented earlier this month at the Computer-Human Interaction Conference in Hawaii and looked at 517 programming questions on Stack Overflow that were then fed to ChatGPT....
Microsoft's screenshot everything feature isn't so bad
I think Microsoft’s planned recall feature where they screenshot everything you do so that it can be analysed by AI isn’t as bad as everyone makes it sound. It’s only bad because Windows is closed source and nobody can verify if what they say is true....
ICQ, One of the Oldest Instant Messengers, Is Shutting Down (www.pcmag.com)
ICQ will stop working on June 26. It’s encouraging users to migrate to a messaging app from Russia-based VK, its parent company....
Would you rather be stuck in the woods with an updated Windows 11 or a Windows 7?
Man is fined after trying to 'body slam' killer whale (www.nbcnews.com)
A New Zealand man has been fined over a social media video in which he tries to “body slam” an orca swimming next to his boat, in what officials called “stupid” and “extremely irresponsible” behavior....
Study Finds That 52 Percent of ChatGPT Answers to Programming Questions Are Wrong (futurism.com)
Deflation Never Happens, Except Right Now (nymag.com)
Kabosu dies: Shiba inu dog was meme and face of Dogecoin (www.bbc.com)
Massive issues with sleep and desperate for a solution.
I’ve been struggling with sleep issues for over a decade now. My Doctor has prescribed me all sorts of medication, all of which has had many adverse side effects. What I do know that works, is Xanax. My wife was prescribed it for some stress issues and occasionally will give me one so I can finally sleep. Obviously asking my...
In our post-AI era, is job security strictly mythical? Or How to believe in careers as a concept worth doing?
With the lastest news of AI layoffs, I’m struggling to understand how the idea of a career still holds. If careers themselves effectively become gambles like lottery tickets, how do we maintain drive and hopes in the longterm endgame of our struggles?...