A thread for unboxing AI
The rapid progression of AI chatbots made me think that we need a thread devoted to a discussion of the impact that AI i
AI 2027
We predict that the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be enormous, exceeding that of the Industrial Revolution.
We wrote a scenario that represents our best guess about what that might look like.1 It’s informed by trend extrapolations, wargames, expert feedback, experience at OpenAI, and previous forecasting successes.2
Fun read.
oh, that was nicely written
To be fair, this has been largely true since the dawn of time for real humans as well.
It's excellent for short term results, but not so excellent if your long term goal is to avoid peasant uprisings or SkyNet.
Gemini is pretty argumentative. Even when you've proven they're wrong they continue to try and force their solution on you.
I'm interested in peoples' thoughts on the human cost of what seems like an inevitable AI endgame.
I saw an article yesterday about how many school districts are going back to paper and pencil testing booklets to try and combat the rampant AI cheating as kids figure out workarounds to get ChatGPT or the equivalent onto their Chromebooks. This led me down a rabbit hole of stories from teachers who say they've had to completely change how they run their classrooms because kids aren't even pretending to do any of this work on their own anymore. A bunch even claiming that kids are calling out the very concept of school as bullshit because, "I'll never need to know any of this. I can just ask AI anything I ever need to know."
I don't put this in the same category as decades ago when people would complain about higher level math class because they'll, "never use this". That same attitude is going to permeate ALL aspects of education for growing chunks of the youth population.
Kids used to be scolded to turn off the cartoons and go outside because TV will rot your brain. Well, now the TV fits in your pocket and has untold billions of dollars of psychological research behind it to keep you glued to it at all times. Kids are bringing the TV to school with them and the educators are powerless to stop them from using it during class because shitty parents aren't holding up their end of the bargain. Schools are afraid to accurately report on outcomes for fear of public backlash, so these mindless sacks of meat are being handed degrees and punted out into the world to fend for themselves with no education and limited critical thinking skills.
How completely ****ed is society going to be 40 years from now?
We need to spend way more time talking about how this tool should be used so we can guide development based off that, instead of just blindly rushing forward without guardrails. The new AI video demonstrations should frighten everyone. Soon, you truly won't even be able to believe your own eyes.
If not, I hope these new AI overlords are prepared to truly take care of humanity from cradle to grave with no outside help, and sincerely hope it doesn't decide we're not worth the resources required to keep us all alive.
Hot take of the day: Providing kids under the age of 16 with a smartphone should be deemed child abuse.
I don't put this in the same category as decades ago when people would complain about higher level math class because they'll, "never use this".
Without exception, the people saying this think that the quadratic formula is "higher level math".
Or long multiplication. The closer analogy is with slide rules (yes I'm that ****ing old) and log tables when calculators become available. We were banned from using calculators which we ignored until eventually using calculators became the norm. Use of AI has to become normal. Part of education will be using it well. For a few years anyway.
Beyond that there's been a very notable shift away from AI/etc denial recently. Tick tock
I specifically kept that vague so you could each fill in your own version of whatever math you deem wasn't worth the effort as a teenager.
I went to a private K-8 school and did most of the public high school math classes in 7th and 8th grade, so I tested out of the regular courses and go dumped into AP stuff right away. I thought I was cool at first, but in hindsight wish I'd have just tanked the entrance exam and been able to do more sleeping. YMMV. I don't use any of that today and would need a refresher to pass even a basic calculus test nowadays. But the point is that I could get back into peak form because I actually learned the material my first time around. I didn't have ChatGPT just spit out answers for me.
"Show your work" was an extremely simple workaround to the calculator problem.
Very tricky to show your slide rule work. We did have to pretend to do the approximation first.
I can still do calculas or make D2 swoon by deriving the quadratic formula. Teachers need to make use of the tech not try to pretend it doesn't exist. Trouble is that applies to the education system as well (and all the jobs).
I argued a lot in college that in the real world using google to find a solution is a viable path and there wasn't any logical reason we shouldn't be able to use all the resources available to us to answer a question
I am torn if asking google a question and having to do a smidge of research is fundamentally different from asking AI a question that spits out an answer. My initial thought is that little bit of extra work makes a world of difference but I could see that being argued against
Very tricky to show your slide rule work. We did have to pretend to do the approximation first.
I can still do calculas or make D2 swoon by deriving the quadratic formula. Teachers need to make use of the tech not try to pretend it doesn't exist. Trouble is that applies to the education system as well (and all the jobs).
I'm veritably swooning at your grasp of the calculas, chez. Very impressive feat, I know only the one calcula myself.
I'm interested in peoples' thoughts on the human cost of what seems like an inevitable AI endgame.I saw an article yesterday about how many school districts are going back to paper and pencil testing booklets to try and combat the rampant AI cheating as kids figure out workarounds to get ChatGPT or the equivalent onto their Chromebooks. This led me down a rabbit hole of storie
In italy the problem doesn't exist. We have always assumed cheating would be automatic if you ever graded any assignment at home. Only people who are gullible in extreme ways would assume otherwise.
We never ever graded anything that wasn't done in classroom under strict police-like supervision. It would be fully uncomprehensible to do so for us. That starts year 1 of elementary school btw.
The notion itself you could get a grade that applies to you in some ways for something you didn't initiate and complete personally in front of the grading person is absurd.
Like spend 3 days in Naples or Sicily and tell me how you could come up with the idea of grading stuff done elsewhere jfc
That sounds delightful, and probably why USA#1 is more like USA#62 on the list of countries for overall education outcomes.
Our highs are high, but our lows are LOOOOOOW which really kills our average.
I always get a kick out of people comparing educational systems in the USA vs Europe and acting like European schools are so superior, while completely ignoring the fact that it's a chore to even get certain American kids to show up in school, much less actually pay attention during class.
That sounds delightful, and probably why USA#1 is more like USA#62 on the list of countries for overall education outcomes.Our highs are high, but our lows are LOOOOOOW which really kills our average. I always get a kick out of people comparing educational systems in the USA vs Europe and acting like European schools are so superior, while completely ignoring the fact that it'
Which American kids would those be, Inso0? Go on, don't be shy.
I mean, Europe has universally been left in the dust behind China and USA. I think the cheating culture in the USA is fairly prevalent but cheating culture in China is just culture. You are expected to do literally everything in your power to get ahead.
So who knows, maybe cheating drives innovative thoughts, or something along those lines, because being a kid in America has infinitely more upward mobility than being a kid in Italy
Teh poors.
It's not a uniquely American phenomenon, but our poor people seem particularly terrible at prioritizing improvement in the lives of their children. Meanwhile, kids in Africa are walking 7 miles to and from school every day in hopes of someday escaping the need to eat literal dirt pies.
We could learn a thing or two.
There are kids in America "walking 7 miles" figuratively to learn from school every day too lol
In Tanzania >50% of the entire population has dropped out of school by secondary (high school)
I mean, Europe has universally been left in the dust behind China and USA. I think the cheating culture in the USA is fairly prevalent but cheating culture in China is just culture. You are expected to do literally everything in your power to get ahead.So who knows, maybe cheating drives innovative thoughts, or something along those lines,
not sure why you believe the bold.
USA is 27th here, Italy 34th, very close in points, in social mobility
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_S...
if you have a different source please tell me.
what America has infinitely more is it rewards the exceptionally successful infinitely more. which is why it attracts the best and the brightest worldwide. which is why it leaves us in the dust.
because normal people don't matter at all in innovation, it's all about who has the 3sigma people, everyone else doesn't matter.
China has twice the population of Europe+USA so even with identical IQ it would be expected to have twice the domestic best people of all European countries + the USA combined, so given that it isn't doing very much tbh.
China should have double the innovation of all European countries + the USA combined just because of its size.
it doesn't because it's still a poor country that loses some of its best and brightest for the USA and other countries.
a month after Nardella claimed up to 30% of code is written by AI inside Microsoft, 2000 engineers are fired at Microsoft
It satrted from a much weaker place but China is a serious player in all the high tech futuristic stuff that is now arriving fast. It doens't manifest in the market economy as simply as in the usa as so much is kept within the government/military/university circle. Even so it more than holds it's own.
USA did have the advantage of being so attractive to people from the rest of the world but they're working very hard on that these days.
It satrted from a much weaker place but China is a serious player in all the high tech futuristic stuff that is now arriving fast. It doens't manifest in the market economy as simply as in the usa as so much is kept within the government/military/university circle. Even so it more than holds it's own.USA did have the advantage of being so attractive to people from the rest of t
Of course it's a "serious player", but my claim is that it should be TWICE what USA + europe is, and that wouldn't surprise anyone, just because of demographics. That maybe some day China will be > USA is obviously probable, but it should be TWICE USA+ the EU *already*. And that if they were just even paced with us.
Bolt should be ahead of me in any running race but if I start a mile ahead and it's only been 1 minute ....
