4d ago

Is It Just Me?

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It did help me make a basic script and add it to task scheduler so it runs and fixes my broken WiFi card so I don't have to manually do it. (or better said, helped me avoid asking arrogant people that feel smug when I tell them I haven't opened a command prompt in ten years)
- I feel like I would have been able to do that easily 10 years ago, because search engines worked, and the 'web wasn't full of garbage. I reckon I'd have near zero chance now.
  
  I actually ended up switching to Kagi for this exact reason. Google is basically AI at the start usually spouting nonsense then sponsor posts and then a bunch of SEO optimized BS.
  Thankfully paying for search circumvents the ads and it hasn’t been AI by default (it has it but it’s off) and the results have been generally closer to 2010s Google.
- did you not read the damn post?
- That is pretty cool, but it would have been possible, as someone else mentioned before AI ruined search, and there's still an "unknown" element (unless you've checked it line by line and know what everything does and have confirmed that's the best way to do it) that would not be there otherwise.
  If the entirety of the AI hype was "a small script helper tool to get you started and tackle little things like startup scripts" I don't think anyone would have such a problem with it.
  The post is more about the ubiquity of the hype and the utter refusal to acknowledge the obvious limitations and risks.
- Yeah it definitely has its uses. OP wasn't saying it's never useful, I think you may have missed the forest for the trees.
  
  The whole premise is about avoiding it at all costs and that being difficult to do. Where in that ranty wall is a statement about the utility of AI?
  
  huh?
  
  OP wasn't saying it's never useful, I think you may have missed the forest for the trees.
  you
  You have no evidence to back this claim. OP makes no claim AI is in any way useful at any time. Basically, it seems like you're talking out of your ass. And also apparently too lazy to reread a comment chain? Or do you usually just grunt at people?
  
  My evidence that OP wasn't saying it's never useful is that at no point in their post do they say it's not useful. Are you interpreting me saying "OP wasn't saying it's never useful" to mean "OP said it's sometimes useful"? Learn to read. (Sorry, I don't normally like to be impolite, but you are being rude to me for no reason.)
  OP lists many objections to AI. It is causing harm to society. It is a privacy convern. It is a concern for intellectual property reasons. It is an environmental concern. It's making people stupid. Notice the absence of "it has no useful applications" or "it doesn't work very well."
  Top Level Comment: "[I found a use for AI.]" My response: "[Although it sounds like you're responding to what OP said, that doesn't really contradict OP since they never claimed it has no uses. They are objecting to AI on different grounds entirely.]"
  
  Considering the blanket negative post by OP, it's weird to think that OP thinks there's some utility. There's no question of forests or trees, just you putting words in the mouth of the poster.
  "Ah yes, AI has many very reasonable use cases and is often quite useful, but is also super evil. I will avoid it and make posts about avoiding it." - you know, a forest of people
  What?
  
  it’s weird to think that OP thinks there’s some utility. [...] you putting words in the mouth of the poster.
  I don't get it. I literally just wrote an entire comment explaining how this was not my claim. Please, point me to where I said that OP thinks there is some utility to AI. Maybe go and re-read my comment in case you missed the whole comment while responding to it.
  
  Let me try again. I also try not to be rude, but a one word "huh?" answer rubbed me the wrong way. Clean slate is fine by me.
  Top Level Comment: "[I found a use for AI.]" My response: "[Although it sounds like you're responding to what OP said, that doesn't really contradict OP since they never claimed it has no uses. They are objecting to AI on different grounds entirely.]"
  I take issue with this bit:
  that doesn't really contradict OP since they never claimed it has no uses.
  Which is the source of your "forest for the trees" comment.
  I don't think that a reasonable person can, based on the reading of the OPs "AI is everywhere and evil" post, presume to say that the OP believed there are good uses for AI. I will probably edit this post for your particular wording. Since in voyager I can't simultaneously reply and look at the comment chain.
  Edit: having read the rant now several times, and in no way is it ever implied in any way that there's anything good about AI. Sure, there's no phrase that you said, or that OP says, that imply that it's explicitly NOT useful. That, however, I would say is the "miss the forest for the trees" part. It strikes me as totally justifiable to say "I have found some uses for AI" in light of a blanket negative OP post. I don't think the guy you initially replied to is missing anything.
  Hopefully that fully articulates my position.
  
  Ok, I'll admit, "huh?" was terse and I should have been more polite. In my defense, I thought you were not arguing in good faith given that it felt like you were putting words in my mouth -- you said I claimed the author thought ¬X, but what I said was "the author did not say X." But yeah, I was rude -- I'm sorry.
  Okay, I understand your position better, but I still disagree with you. I don't claim to know whether the OP thinks there are or are not useful uses for AI; rather -- and this is where we apparently disagree -- I don't think that "there are some good uses for AI" is a cogent rebuttal to the OP's claim. This is because I don't think it makes sense to look at a list of things that OP says, then imagine an additional point that the OP would likely agree with based on their overall vibes (but is actually entirely logically independent of everything they did say), and then refute that point.
  For what it's worth, I am a person who agrees with most of what the OP says but I still wouldn't claim that AI is entirely devoid of utility. If I were someone who used microblog social media, I could easily see myself posting a similar rant as OP, since I have strong negative feelings about AI, but I would be mildly peeved if somebody responded the way top-level-comment did, since it's not a response to anything I said, nor even a point of contention for me. (I can enumerate my grievances with AI if you wish, but I don't think it's really important.)
  
  I also apologize.
  I guess we have to agree to disagree and agree to agree? LLM design happens to be my area of work for the last 4 months or so and I tend to agree that it's a hateful domain without much to offer. That said, my ability to do my job is extremely enabled by perplexity.ai. I think about 95% of regular people's queries to generative AI of any kind is a waste of effort an active pursuit of brain atrophy, but there is definitely some upside.
  I don't think that sentiment is echoed by the original post. I also think that with the overwhelming number of anti/fuck ai posts it's worth highlighting upside when there is upside. Last, I just don't in any way think that someone who writes a full bore "ai is evil" post has left any space to discuss any sort of benefit. So that's my main disagreement with you. I think "AI is stupid" is implied if there's no single positive mention.
  I can honestly say perplexity.ai has saved me hours of technical research debugging, and I've got a PhD in rocket science and Ive been programming since 2003. By and large it's totally stupid, but if you know what you need and what good answers look and feel like, it's hard to be like "AI BAD!" which is the majority perspective of this type of thread.
  
  uhm no I'm pretty sure op wouldn't approve judging by the:
  "but you can-" I'm gonna lose it
  
  I did not claim that the OP was saying it's sometimes useful.

349 comments