5 comments

  • al_borland 18 minutes ago

    Almost every interaction I have with these AI chatbots is still terrible.

    Just yesterday I asked a question related to retirement planning and 401K allocations, Traditional vs Roth. I had a finical advisor tell me one thing, but I heard a contrary view from someone else that made some sense. The AI took the side of the finial advisor, assumed the standard dismissal of the contrarian, and that was that. I went on to explain the reasoning the contrarian gave, which was different from the assumptions, and injected some of my own thought on the topic. It then agreed that the contrarian was correct, I was correct, and the advice from the financial advisor only works under very controlled conditions, and with certain assumptions in place, and I'm better off doing what I'm doing, which fell more in line with the contrarian.

    This did not feel like a chat with an intelligent being. It felt like a chat with a parrot. It starts by parroting the standard wisdom everyone knows, but frames it as gospel. Then, when challenged, it parrots back whatever it's told, as long as it's a decent and defensible argument.

    For those who never push back on answers, they're going to have a bad time. For people who go too deep and use the AI as someone that affirms everything they say, they will also have a bad time. The answer to nearly everything in life is, "it depends". This is where personal opinions, experiences, style, etc come into play. The AI has none of this, so it can be pushed and pulled to any side of the "it depends" spectrum. Is that intelligence? Is there value in that?

    As a tool, there is some utility. I don't deny that. As an all knowing technology that will take over the world, I'm not buying it.

  • speak_plainly 43 minutes ago

    I'm purging my brain of all the useless knowledge I've accumulated over the years and extending my cognition as far as it can go by relying on AI, and I've gained enough weight to survive the first round of famines. But I probably would have done both with or without an impending Singularity.

  • dieselgate an hour ago

    > it feels like we are witnessing one of the most significant events in world history

    Yes.

    > Are You Preparing for the Singularity

    No.

  • Daishiman an hour ago

    Are you actually using these agents on a day-to-day basis?

  • krapp 41 minutes ago

    No, for the same reason I'm not preparing for the second coming of Christ.

    I'm quite sure that AI is going to change the world for better or worse - probably worse given that it's a hype-driven revolution being pushed by an accelerationist death cult of billionaire sociopaths with absolutely no serious regard for any of its many, many negative externalities - but "the singularity" is sci-fi religion. It isn't real.