The AI thread

[chiefdave]

Away from Skynet and the end of humanity for a moment and this is kind of nuts. There's a chap on YouTube who is making an entire series of Doctor Who using AI. Already got the first, hour long, episode up on YouTube.

Not sure it will last too long before the BBCs lawyers get involved given it's well on the way to a million views in the first few days. It's a long way from the everyone knows its AI posters you see all over Facebook and raises questions about how some of these shows could be made in the future.

 

[Nick]

If I put all my bills into AI like copilot and ask it to add it up it does and gives me the total. If I disagree and say do it again it comes back with a different figure. Can't be trusted . Can't get my head around how AI could make humans extinct

Copilot is awful but it still depends on the data and the prompts you use.

 

[Sick Boy]

No need to worry - Trump criticises AI boss who called for slowdown and says only guardrail needed is a 'smart president'

 

[Skybluefaz]

No need to worry - Trump criticises AI boss who called for slowdown and says only guardrail needed is a 'smart president'

Don't underestimate him.

 

[Sky_Blue_Dreamer]

No need to worry - Trump criticises AI boss who called for slowdown and says only guardrail needed is a 'smart president'

 

[SeaSeeEffCee]

What exactly is the end game with AI? When it’s good enough to do admin jobs, coding, programming etc. by itself what are white collar workers expected to do with their time? If there as mass layoffs because AI can now do the jobs of people then what are people expected to do for work?

 

[Sick Boy]

What exactly is the end game with AI? When it’s good enough to do admin jobs, coding, programming etc. by itself what are white collar workers expected to do with their time? If there as mass layoffs because AI can now do the jobs of people then what are people expected to do for work?

There's clearly no wider plan and it'll just lead to mass economic inequality in the long-term. It's a shame as it could be used to reduce inequality across the world, remove the long-term need for people to work to the extent that they do now but that's never going to happen.

 

[wingy]

The idea now that we need to slow down is questionable,it should have been before they started giving approval to Data centres.

 

[Nick]

The idea now that we need to slow down is questionable,it should have been before they started giving approval to Data centres.

People do know that Data Centres aren't a new thing, surely? If anything the new ones are mostly better than the older ones.

 

[Skybluefaz]

People do know that Data Centres aren't a new thing, surely?

Of course they won't, not in the classic context.

It's more in the public domain now with AI booming, but people couldn't care less about where their website lives or how it works, in my experience.

You must have worked with plenty of similar types.

 

[fernandopartridge]

What exactly is the end game with AI? When it’s good enough to do admin jobs, coding, programming etc. by itself what are white collar workers expected to do with their time? If there as mass layoffs because AI can now do the jobs of people then what are people expected to do for work?

The end game is to take hostage knowledge

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

Governments are now relying on the tech bros to suggest how to apply governance to the tech bros’ companies.

This won’t be the end of it, I can see more examples coming where technology will evolve faster than regulation can keep up.

 

[Skybluefaz]

The end game is to take hostage knowledge

 

[Captain Dart]

Lack of critical thinking; most people blindly believe whatever they say. Google will also cause the breakdown of the open web and we’ll end up with wrong AI answers based on AI misinformation.

Then there’s the issue as Google is/will eventually become a gatekeeper of information and/or a source of truth. Already its AI is USA-centric and pushes the American worldview as the gold standard.

It is already a heavily censored tool. Actually China has some smart AI too.

The Chinese stuff is cheaper to implement, better at robotics and has better open source deployment, hence it's a bit more practical dor industrial users. The US maintains an edge in infrastructure and better LLM's. The gap is closing.

 

[tisza]

These AI bosses saying "trust us we know what we're doing" sound much the tobacco companies and fossil fuel companies of the past. We're supposed to believe they are altruistic rather than being interested in amassing huge fortunes and influence.

 

[Captain Dart]

What exactly is the end game with AI? When it’s good enough to do admin jobs, coding, programming etc. by itself what are white collar workers expected to do with their time? If there as mass layoffs because AI can now do the jobs of people then what are people expected to do for work?

Soma or it's major civil disturbances from people without a purpose.

 

[Skybluefaz]

Da fuq?

 

[Sky Blue 1987]

Just watched the documentary on Netflix The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
Was a really good watch

 

[lordy_87]

On a slightly different topic - away from AI causing civilisations demise - Google AI has just spat this out at me (I didn't mean to use it). I mean come on, this is a prominent figure who's well publicised death was nearly 2 months ago ffs.

 

[Sick Boy]

On a slightly different topic - away from AI causing civilisations demise - Google AI has just spat this out at me (I didn't mean to use it). I mean come on, this is a prominent figure who's well publicised death was nearly 2 months ago ffs.

The Google one is awful, a lot of the time it's confidently incorrect. The problem is that people are searching because they're not sure about something and just take it as fact.

 

[mmttww]

Australia launches urgent review after OpenAI program hacks government health portal

Experts believe it's the world's first known AI breach of a government system.

www.bbc.co.uk

Feels like the sh*t is very much hitting the fan.

 

[Skybluefaz]

Australia launches urgent review after OpenAI program hacks government health portal

Experts believe it's the world's first known AI breach of a government system.

www.bbc.co.uk

Feels like the sh*t is very much hitting the fan.

There is unfortunately no way to get the genie back into the bottle. I'd like to think there is a way to confine AI agents to a particular corner of the internet but hackers will always find a way.

The move away from walled garden internet was a huge step forward but we may be forced to take that step back.

I appreciate that a lot of major news corps are putting content behind a paywall already so in some ways we're almost there.

These twats need regulating though, not additional hype from the American President et al.

 

[Sick Boy]

There is unfortunately no way to get the genie back into the bottle. I'd like to think there is a way to confine AI agents to a particular corner of the internet but hackers will always find a way.

The move away from walled garden internet was a huge step forward but we may be forced to take that step back.

I appreciate that a lot of major news corps are putting content behind a paywall already so in some ways we're almost there.

These twats need regulating though, not additional hype from the American President et al.

The end of the open web has already started - as I've mentioned before, the idea of search engines / LLMs being gatekeepers of information on the internet is pretty depressing. I'd be happy if the whole thing was just disappeared.

 

[Briles]

It's being discussed on the politics thread related to the jobs market, but thought it might be interesting to make a separate thread.

How are you using it?

Is it making your job easier? Saving you time?

I've started using it a lot at work recently. I use Claude and tbh it's been fantastic. Saves me a shit load of time writing reports and quotes etc. Used it to make a flyer for a new product we're launching. And made a little dashboard for tracking the work we do to better understand the types of job/different categories of customers etc etc.

It's saved me lots of time but also thousands of pounds.

I appreciate as per the politics thread there are obviously downsides to it and it's very easy for people to over rely on it.

Started using copilot to its full potential and it is saving me so much time.

 

[Skybluefaz]

Started using copilot to its full potential and it is saving me so much time.

How are you finding the costs? What kind of work do you do?

 

[chiefdave]

How are you finding the costs? What kind of work do you do?

I work for an MSP.

We're at the point where the early adopters of CoPilot, who were all 'this will revolutionise our business' types, are now coming back with 'how much is this costing' and 'can we analyse who is using it and what for' type queries, or asking for it to be removed as the cost-benefit doesn't stack up for them.

Interestingly we also have some clients in the legal & accounting professions who are finding a different issue. CoPilot, or other AI, does the repetitive jobs, which are largely data related, well. Although working in those fields it often requires someone to then manually check the work which seems to defeat the purpose of using it in the first place.

However they're now long enough into the project to have realised there's a knock on problem. The jobs that AI has replaced are their entry level jobs. They are now in a position where they're having problems filling positions in the next tier up as there's a much smaller pool of people who have the entry level experience.

 

[Skybluefaz]

I work for an MSP.

We're at the point where the early adopters of CoPilot, who were all 'this will revolutionise our business' types, are now coming back with 'how much is this costing' and 'can we analyse who is using it and what for' type queries, or asking for it to be removed as the cost-benefit doesn't stack up for them.

Interestingly we also have some clients in the legal & accounting professions who are finding a different issue. CoPilot, or other AI, does the repetitive jobs, which are largely data related, well. Although working in those fields it often requires someone to then manually check the work which seems to defeat the purpose of using it in the first place.

However they're now long enough into the project to have realised there's a knock on problem. The jobs that AI has replaced are their entry level jobs. They are now in a position where they're having problems filling positions in the next tier up as there's a much smaller pool of people who have the entry level experience.

The same problem has been identified in the dev world for a while now

 

[Briles]

How are you finding the costs? What kind of work do you do?

Im an adjudicator so have to compare sometimes 200 pages of evidence, or data co pilot can do it in seconds. Work pay for it like

 

[Briles]

Wont be long until VAR is AI based i bet ya. Its only nuance and subjectivity currently stopping its use, wont be long though

 

[AOM]

AI imploding versus soda bread on JustEat

 

[Nick]

As with anything, it's about who is using AI and how they use it as to how well it works. I make things that save people hours (myself too) by doing the tedious parts of the job to get on with the fun, cutting edge type stuff.

If people have good prompts or are using specialised models for their task then they will be miles ahead of somebody just putting "whats the weather" into chatgpt or trying to make 70s style pictures.

 

[Sky Blue 1987]

I would say AI got it bang on to be fair, the menu items do say in soda

 

[AOM]

I would say AI got it bang on to be fair, the menu items do say in soda

Looks like the type of thing that could be ordered for breakfast in the US

 

[SBAndy]

First they came for our wealth managers….

 

[fernandopartridge]

First they came for our wealth managers….

The horrible irony of it