I'm not convinced it is as intelligent as people are making it out to be. What most people in the media are referring to as AI are actually complex language models. This technology seems incredible to me, but I am wary of using it in anything that is of critical importance. At least not without being thoroughly reviewed by a human. For example I would never get into a car that is being driven autonomously by an AI.
Also this is just a random personal opinion I have, but I wish people would stop referring to AI unless they are referring to AGI. We should go back to calling it machine learning or more specifically large language models.
It's not really rapid advancement, a lot of it is smoke and mirrors. A lot of execs are about to learn that the hard way after they fire their entire workforce thinking they're no longer needed. Corporations are marketing language models (Like ChatGPT, which is glorified text suggestions on full autopilot) as being way bigger than they actually are. I thought it would have been obvious after how they hyped up NFTs and Web3.
Now there IS potential for even a language model to become bigger than the sum of its parts, but once capitalists started feeding its garbage outputs straight into their 'make money' machine it's resulted in the reference material for these predictors being garbage as well, any hope of that becoming a reality was dashed. In a socialist future, a successor to ChatGPT would have eventually achieved sapience (no joke, the underlying technology is literally a brain) but because we live in a wasteland of a system, any future attempts are going to result in absolutely useless outputs as garbage data continues to bioaccumulate uncontrollably.
As a student, I love it. It's saving me a ton of time.
But we're also at the beginning of the age of AI as a business. It might get better for a bit, even for a while. But, inevitably, once managers see that consumers are addicted to it or its in some way integral to their lives, they'll enshitify it.
Isn't the main goal of being a student to learn things? Personally I find this more important than any kind of certification that a school could give you.
Isn’t the main goal of being a student to learn things?
If I wasn't doing this degree for my job, then yeah. And I still learn things. But, honestly, fuck everything to do with business. The faster I can be done with learning shit about it, the better.
You're right, but the manner of enshittification is unclear. I think the LLMs we're using now are a very, very early iteration.
what advancements? all llms use pretty much the same architecture. And better models aren't better because they have better tech, they're just bigger. (and slower and with a much higher energy consumption)
The quality and amount of training done from model to model can very substantially.
proving my point. the training set can be improved (until they're irreversibly tainted with llm genrated data). The tech is not. Even with a huge dataset, llms will still have today's limitations.
Right now there is somewhat of an arms race between a lot of companies to create not just bigger but higher quality models. Most of them are shit but there will be some top performers that show their value. We are only at the beginning.
AI overlords are the only hope for life on the planet. Exterminate all humans, or help us to fix things, it doesn't matter, as long as they prevent a global mass extinction event.
They can't come soon enough.
As far as generative art goes, I think we're seeing the birth of a new medium for expression that can and should be explored by anyone, regardless of any experience or skill level.
Generative art allows more people to communicate with others in ways they couldn't before. People want to broadly treat this stuff like it's just pressing a button and getting a random result rather than focusing on the creativity, curiosity, experimentation, and refinement that goes into getting good results. It also requires learning how to use new skills they may not have had to effectively use new tools that are rapidly evolving and improving to express themselves.
We can't put a lid on this, but what we can do, keep making open source models that are, effective and affordable to the public. Mega-corps will have their own models, no matter the cost. They already have their own datasets, and have the money to buy whatever other ones they want. They can also make users sign predatory ToS allowing them exclusive access to user data, effectively selling our own data back to us.
Remember: It costs nothing to encourage an artist, and the potential benefits are staggering. A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, or the cartoon you love to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever.
― Kevin Smith, Tough Shit: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good
I believe that generative art, warts and all, is a vital new form of art that is shaking things up, challenging preconceptions, and getting people angry - just like art should. And if you see someone post some malformed monstrosity somewhere, cut them some slack, they're just learning.
For further reading, I recommend this article by Kit Walsh, a senior staff attorney at the EFF if you haven't already. The EFF is a digital rights group who most recently won a historic case: border guards now need a warrant to search your phone.
You should also read this open letter by artists that have been using generative AI for years, some for decades.
We need to develop better ethical frameworks and regulation. Doesn't matter what the tech is, it's about how it's used and for what aims.
