Politics & Stuff

[cosmicway 1,323]

8 hours ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

The internet wont die, but it will change fundamentally.


The good thing is, we have lives through multiple iterations of the internet. I am old enough to remember how different it was even this century before social media took over.

What is more realistic is that AI will kill a bunch of jobs. Fields like technical writing, web development, quality assurance(code testers), copywriting, and even business consulting are in the firing zone of being replaced. This will fundamentally change the global economy. You are already seeing ripples of it in Big tech. Back when I graduated from College ~10 years ago you could literally apply for a software engineering job the week of graduation, and the next week walk into an entry level job that was paying 60k back when average household income was 50k. you were middle class from the start. Now? These poor kids are entering a saturated field and going up against machines that can easily take away jobs from many. AI programs very well so when we used to need 10 or so undergrads to work on a system we can hire 2 and use AI to make up the difference. Same story happening in design, writing, data entry...ect.

Prices are going up too.

 

Jobs die all the time.
I remember this scene: I go to the army recrruitment office -they called me rather- and I have to fill certain forms. So out in the street there is a row of small tables where the "application writers" were sitting. It was two rows 500 meters long each. You pay 5 drachmas to one of the old men to fill your forms and then you go upstairs.
The same thing outside the courthouses. In the courthouses it was a neighbourhood of typist offices who were also making photocopies.
Now all those have disappeared - it's vegan restaurants now. 
What made them disappear ? Microsoft word.

What about software engineering ? I wrote a certain app for Amstrad 128 then showed it to the Amstrad representative. As we were chatting I asked what manner of software they have for the Amstrad, other than mine and other than pacman-spaceshiips for three year olds. They had nothing really. The man said to me that he was writing some program for the electric installations of buildings - that exciting.
The computer age was just starting. After some time all manner of developers made their appearance. With a video club management program one could strike it rich.
But after windows xp all this died too. Because using excel one could manage his video collection with a little training - they did n't have to go to the market.
Well software engineering did n't die but it was no longer easy money.

The same with AI. We are like the men with the tea spoons who wanted to dig Trafalgar square.


 

[Vesper 28,796]

The Godfather in Conversation: Why Geoffrey Hinton is worried about the future of AI

Geoffrey Hinton, known to many as the “Godfather of AI,” recently made headlines around the world after leaving his job at Google to speak more freely about the risks posed by unchecked development of artificial intelligence, including popular tools like ChatGPT and Google’s PaLM. Why does he believe digital intelligence could hold an advantage over biological intelligence? How did he suddenly arrive at this conclusion after a lifetime of work in the field? Most importantly, what – if anything – can be done to safeguard the future of humanity? The University of Toronto University Professor Emeritus addresses these questions and more in The Godfather in Conversation.

 

Geoffrey Everest Hinton CC FRS FRSC^[12] (born 6 December 1947) is a British-Canadian cognitive psychologist and computer scientist, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks. From 2013 to 2023, he divided his time working for Google (Google Brain) and the University of Toronto, before publicly announcing his departure from Google in May 2023 citing concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.^[13] In 2017, he co-founded and became the chief scientific advisor of the Vector Institute in Toronto.^[14][15]

With David Rumelhart and Ronald J. Williams, Hinton was co-author of a highly cited paper published in 1986 that popularised the backpropagation algorithm for training multi-layer neural networks,^[16] although they were not the first to propose the approach.^[17] Hinton is viewed as a leading figure in the deep learning community.^{[18][19][20][21][22]} The dramatic image-recognition milestone of the AlexNet designed in collaboration with his students Alex Krizhevsky^[23] and Ilya Sutskever for the ImageNet challenge 2012^[24] was a breakthrough in the field of computer vision.^[25]

Hinton received the 2018 Turing Award (often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing"), together with Yoshua Bengio and Yann LeCun, for their work on deep learning.^[26] They are sometimes referred to as the "Godfathers of AI" and "Godfathers of Deep Learning",^[27][28] and have continued to give public talks together.^[29][30]

In May 2023, Hinton announced his resignation from Google to be able to "freely speak out about the risks of A.I."^[31] He has voiced concerns about deliberate misuse by malicious actors, technological unemployment, and existential risk from artificial general intelligence.^[32]

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

16 hours ago, MoroccanBlue said:

I'm speaking from experience. I work in Data. I've been an analyst and worked in data science contracts. Engineers, Analysts, scientists. These careers will always be protected. (unless you work in big tech atm)

Giving access to ChatGPT or any OpenAI tool to query or pull data won't ever be a reality if you work with a company that handles client information. Which is basically all of them if you need a data team. It's just not going to happen on an ethical standpoint. It's simply a data breach waiting to happen. 

They've also tested these OpenAI tools to analyze and interpret data sets, and they've been widely off the mark. 

We are halfway here as Microsoft Enterprise copilot as its already guaranteed business data is secure: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/

I do agree OpenAI is still hit or miss with data(especially the new 4 models) but it is being tweaked constantly. The key is not making it perfect. The key is making it good enough to where we can replace a team of 5 data scientists with 2 or 1. That is where the job loss will happen, and where it is already happening in other fields.

The most sobering thing to happen to me this summer at least was seeing all of our interns at Microsoft work on these AI projects all happy, and then realize now that the internship is over where in the past years 80%+ of them had full time job offers for the next summer that next to none are getting offers now. We just dont have the need anymore.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

17 hours ago, robsblubot said:

Finally a chance to discuss something related to my realm of expertise (networking/internet backbone);
All jobs can be replaced by AI, and that will be the big negative impact AI will have short/med-term: never yet seen job loss (order of magnitude larger than of the indust. rev). All jobs are replaceable, but some are MUCH easier and imminent than others (commercial drivers will be hit hard).

AI "readyness' is IMHO exaggerated at this time. Detecting whether AI is working correctly will remain a challenge for quite some time.

There will be cases where the simple question would be, "do we want to have AI here?" and the answer may very well be no from social/humane reasons.

Watching the media talk about Terminator-like doomsday scenarios is honestly laughable, esp coming from "serious" folks.

We won't judge AI readiness on being perfect though. We judge it how we judge the rest of business. Can it be good enough for an MBA to show as a cost saving metric?

I think commercial driving is more safe than something like copywriting or web development because a truck going wrong on the road can still lead to immediate death. White collar work in general is infinitely in more danger at the current moment.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

11 hours ago, cosmicway said:

 

Jobs die all the time.
I remember this scene: I go to the army recrruitment office -they called me rather- and I have to fill certain forms. So out in the street there is a row of small tables where the "application writers" were sitting. It was two rows 500 meters long each. You pay 5 drachmas to one of the old men to fill your forms and then you go upstairs.
The same thing outside the courthouses. In the courthouses it was a neighbourhood of typist offices who were also making photocopies.
Now all those have disappeared - it's vegan restaurants now. 
What made them disappear ? Microsoft word.

What about software engineering ? I wrote a certain app for Amstrad 128 then showed it to the Amstrad representative. As we were chatting I asked what manner of software they have for the Amstrad, other than mine and other than pacman-spaceshiips for three year olds. They had nothing really. The man said to me that he was writing some program for the electric installations of buildings - that exciting.
The computer age was just starting. After some time all manner of developers made their appearance. With a video club management program one could strike it rich.
But after windows xp all this died too. Because using excel one could manage his video collection with a little training - they did n't have to go to the market.
Well software engineering did n't die but it was no longer easy money.

The same with AI. We are like the men with the tea spoons who wanted to dig Trafalgar square.


 

Yes sir.

 

Amstrad is super old school my man, but yea it was easy money in my day so I cant imagine how it was in the very old days. Are you retired now?

[MoroccanBlue 5,297]

1 hour ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

We are halfway here as Microsoft Enterprise copilot as its already guaranteed business data is secure: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/03/16/introducing-microsoft-365-copilot-your-copilot-for-work/

I do agree OpenAI is still hit or miss with data(especially the new 4 models) but it is being tweaked constantly. The key is not making it perfect. The key is making it good enough to where we can replace a team of 5 data scientists with 2 or 1. That is where the job loss will happen, and where it is already happening in other fields.

The most sobering thing to happen to me this summer at least was seeing all of our interns at Microsoft work on these AI projects all happy, and then realize now that the internship is over where in the past years 80%+ of them had full time job offers for the next summer that next to none are getting offers now. We just dont have the need anymore.

I’m highly skeptical in organizations allowing a third party to directly query and pull their data, nor do I see it even being listed as a feature for 365 Copilot. It’s simply a tool to analyze/automate already pulled data. Pulling and querying data is something that will always be a human element. Unless they replace their entire data platform for Microsoft Fabric. 
 

Much like Excel, I see Copilot making a lot of jobs easier vs making them redundant, where instead of waisting 30-40% of the time on needless tasks they can focus all of it on business driven needs. 

Edited August 12, 2023 by MoroccanBlue

[cosmicway 1,323]

39 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

Yes sir.

 

Amstrad is super old school my man, but yea it was easy money in my day so I cant imagine how it was in the very old days. Are you retired now?

No, not really retired.
I bought my first machine in 1983. 
 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

1 hour ago, MoroccanBlue said:

I’m highly skeptical in organizations allowing a third party to directly query and pull their data, nor do I see it even being listed as a feature for 365 Copilot. It’s simply a tool to analyze/automate already pulled data. Pulling and querying data is something that will always be a human element. Unless they replace their entire data platform for Microsoft Fabric. 
 

Much like Excel, I see Copilot making a lot of jobs easier vs making them redundant, where instead of waisting 30-40% of the time on needless tasks they can focus all of it on business driven needs. 

And then it depends on how your businesses operate.

AI does make jobs easier, but that does not mean it frees the same workers to other things. It simply means we get rid of plenty of workers and place the remaining "less workload" on fewer and fewer people. That becomes the true cost of AI.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,919]

1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

No, not really retired.
I bought my first machine in 1983. 
 

I cant imagine how the industry has changed in your time.

 

Honestly I dont see myself wanting to keep up with it over time. Im trying to do this for another 10 or so years and be done in my early 40s. My first machine was my fathers win 95 machine, in which I learned Visual Basic. He just wanted me to get a job that paid better than driving delivery trucks that he had. Never knew it would end up with me working for them lol.

[MoroccanBlue 5,297]

7 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

And then it depends on how your businesses operate.

AI does make jobs easier, but that does not mean it frees the same workers to other things. It simply means we get rid of plenty of workers and place the remaining "less workload" on fewer and fewer people. That becomes the true cost of AI.

I can agree with that. 

However, I am not sure when, or if ever, organizations will be comfortable feeding confidential data through these AI bots, which could be exposed to both the reviewers of the AI or fed back and be prompted by other eyes. Not unless you're a big enough organization like Microsoft and can create your own AI/Data warehouse platform. 

Just increases exposure of data breaches. 

Edited August 12, 2023 by MoroccanBlue

[robsblubot 3,504]

5 hours ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

We won't judge AI readiness on being perfect though. We judge it how we judge the rest of business. Can it be good enough for an MBA to show as a cost saving metric?

I think commercial driving is more safe than something like copywriting or web development because a truck going wrong on the road can still lead to immediate death. White collar work in general is infinitely in more danger at the current moment.

yes, but commercial driving will be the first hit by "some automation" as in, "drivers" will become "monitors" rather than professional drivers. As in, their driving skill far less important than before. Likely not a great change as for wages and opportunity.

This will all be a slow transition. I don't think anything is imminent--well depends how you define imminent, but I expect decades, not years for real change.

[cosmicway 1,323]

Does AI obey Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics ?

[cosmicway 1,323]

I believe in AI.
But it has to be pre-programmed for every task. How else is it going to work ?
Suppose we are the German high command in 1944 and we want to know where the allies will land.
To do this using AI first we have to feed it with data:
The coastlines of France, the defenses, the strength of the Luftwaffe and the concentrations of allied troops in England - if we can.
Then what sort of algorithm will AI use, to produce better results than those of Runsted-Rommel and anticipate the invasion ?
In retrospect it looks like the solution was to move the division "das reich" to the coast of Normandy in time and not after the event which is what the Germans did.
But we say this with the post-posterior information we have so it does n't count.
Will AI in a simulation solve this problem for the German high command ?

Edited August 13, 2023 by cosmicway

[cosmicway 1,323]

HOOLIGANS - GREEK, CROATIAN AND OTHERS

Football hooliganism is an old thing.
Not as old as football itself but old enough.
In Greece they started life at around 1972. This is when for the first time moving masses of supporters were noticed, causing trouble.
Greece was still under the junta but that did n't play any role.
In the years to follow hooliganism took hold but in other countries it was already known from before. In England from the midsixties.
It is in a certain way the projection and the natural continuation of football fanaticism.
Before the hooligans the rage of football supporters was extinguished on the referees - or the bad referees if you like. We also had isolated incidents. Two rival supporters seating side by side - the one says some words and fighting ensues.
But things became a lot worse as we know.
It is not a small matter for someone who enters strong arguments from time to time to move into a phase where he wakes up in the middle of the night, moves from suburb to suburb to burn the offices of the rival club.
Here some analysis is required.

Many talk about nazis or, depending on which club we are talking about, for maoists-anarchists.
Basically this does n't hold ground. The UK nazis for example were calling themselves the party of racism, colonialism, iron fist rule should they ever came to power. But they were not calling themselves the party of ... Leicester City, or the party of ... Luton town FC, or the party of ... Arsenal.
The two kinds of logic don't fit together.
It is true that nazi instructors are getting involved, to school the youngsters.
It is also true that a football hooligan may become a nazi of his own free will, since nazism and hooliganism are similar states of mind.
But it's not true that the nazis, anarchists etc created hooliganism.

It's a football phenomenon and -unfortunately- the teams themselves have created it.
They have collected all the low life elements of society and made them into supporter clubs.
Could they have chosen doctors-lawyers-scientists to do that ? Rather not, they could n't so they engaged the low life elements.
This is the truth.
There is nothing else besides.
So therefere if for every 100 fanatical supporters we have 15 hooligans, it's enough to cause a big problem.

Is there a cure ?
There is and it is called Margaret Thatcher.
Margaret Thatcher was a politician who was disliked by many but what she did, to practically eliminate hooliganism from the UK was an achievement.
How can it be done ?
Five years out of Europe, 4-5 relegations plus the penalties imposed on the individuals who are arrested.
But are we going to see this ? Or perhaps we won't ?

Edited August 14, 2023 by cosmicway

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

20 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

HOOLIGANS - GREEK, CROATIAN AND OTHERS

Football hooliganism is an old thing.
Not as old as football itsekf but old enough.
In Greece they started life at around 1972. This is when for the first time moving masses of supporters were noticed, causing trouble.
Greece was still under the junta but that did n't play any role.
In the years to follow hooliganism took hold but in other countries it was already known from before. In England from the midsixties.
It is in a ceratin way the projection and the natural continuation of football fanaticism.
Before the hooligans the rage of football supporters was extinguished on the referees - or the bad referees if you like. We also had isolated incidents. Two rival supporters seating side by side - the one says some words and fighting ensues.
But things became a lot worse as we know.
It is not a small matter for someone who enters strong arguments from time to time to move into a phase where he wakes up in the middle of the night, moves from suburb to suburb to burn the offices of the rival club.
Here some analysis is required.

Many talk about nazis or, depending on which club we are talking about, for maoists-anarchists.
Basically this does n't hold ground. The UK nazis for example were calling themselves the party of racism, colonialism, iron fist rule should they ever came to power. But they were not calling themselves the party of ... Leicester City, or the party of ... Luton town FC, or the party of ... Arsenal.
The two kinds of logic don't fit together.
It is true that nazi instructors are getting involved, to school the youngsters.
It is also true that a football hooligan may become a nazi of his own free will, since nazism and hooliganism are similar states of mind.
But it's not true that the nazis, anarchists etc created hooliganism.

It's a football phenomenon and -unfortunately- the teams themselves have created it.
They have collected all the low life elements of society and made them into supporter clubs.
Could they have chosen doctors-lawyers-scientists to do that ? Rather not, they could n't so they engaged the low life elements.
This is the truth.
There is nothing else besides.
So therefere if for every 100 fanatical supporters we have 15 hooligans, it's enough to cause a big problem.

Is there a cure ?
There is and it is called Margaret Thatcher.
Margaret Thatcher was a politician who was disliked by many but what she did, to practically eliminate hooliganism from the UK was an achievement.
How can it be done ?
Five years out of Europe, 4-5 relegations plus the penalties imposed on the individuals who are arrested.
But are we going to see this ? Or perhaps we won't ?

Anything that has passion also has violence, unfortunately the two things come hand in hand and you will never eliminate it completely.

Edited August 14, 2023 by YorkshireBlue

[cosmicway 1,323]

4 minutes ago, YorkshireBlue said:

Anything that has passion also has violence, unfortunately the two things come hand in hand and you will never eliminate it completely.

Dynamo - 5 yrs out of Europe
PAOK Salonika - 3d division

Will they try again ? Would you place a bet on it ?

Those are the recent events - if we talk about the past I may expand to more cases.

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

10 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Dynamo - 5 yrs out of Europe
PAOK Salonika - 3d division

Will they try again ? Would you place a bet on it ?

Those are the recent events - if we talk about the past I may expand to more cases.

It will always happen, most of these fights are pre arranged to start with, you only ever hear about them when they escalate onto city streets.

[cosmicway 1,323]

Just now, YorkshireBlue said:

It will always happen, most of these fights are pre arranged to start with, you only ever hear about them when they escalate onto city streets.

Be sensible. It would just peter out.