zlacker

[return to "My AI skeptic friends are all nuts"]
1. gdubs+Z[view] [source] 2025-06-02 21:18:21
>>tablet+(OP)
One thing that I find truly amazing is just the simple fact that you can now be fuzzy with the input you give a computer, and get something meaningful in return. Like, as someone who grew up learning to code in the 90s it always seemed like science fiction that we'd get to a point where you could give a computer some vague human level instructions and get it more or less do what you want.
◧◩
2. Barrin+V5[view] [source] 2025-06-02 21:44:51
>>gdubs+Z
>simple fact that you can now be fuzzy with the input you give a computer, and get something meaningful in return

I got into this profession precisely because I wanted to give precise instructions to a machine and get exactly what I want. Worth reading Dijkstra, who anticipated this, and the foolishness of it, half a century ago

"Instead of regarding the obligation to use formal symbols as a burden, we should regard the convenience of using them as a privilege: thanks to them, school children can learn to do what in earlier days only genius could achieve. (This was evidently not understood by the author that wrote —in 1977— in the preface of a technical report that "even the standard symbols used for logical connectives have been avoided for the sake of clarity". The occurrence of that sentence suggests that the author's misunderstanding is not confined to him alone.) When all is said and told, the "naturalness" with which we use our native tongues boils down to the ease with which we can use them for making statements the nonsense of which is not obvious.[...]

It may be illuminating to try to imagine what would have happened if, right from the start our native tongue would have been the only vehicle for the input into and the output from our information processing equipment. My considered guess is that history would, in a sense, have repeated itself, and that computer science would consist mainly of the indeed black art how to bootstrap from there to a sufficiently well-defined formal system. We would need all the intellect in the world to get the interface narrow enough to be usable"

Welcome to prompt engineering and vibe coding in 2025, where you have to argue with your computer to produce a formal language, that we invented in the first place so as to not have to argue in imprecise language

https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD06xx/EWD667...

◧◩◪
3. gdubs+xc[view] [source] 2025-06-02 22:25:31
>>Barrin+V5
It sounds like you think I don't find value in using machines in their precise way, but that's not a correct assumption. I love code! I love the algorithms and data structures of data science. I also love driving 5-speed transmissions and shooting on analog film – but it isn't always what's needed in a particular context or for a particular problem. There are lots of areas where a 'good enough solution done quickly' is way more valuable than a 100% correct and predictable solution.
◧◩◪◨
4. skydha+fG[view] [source] 2025-06-03 02:29:53
>>gdubs+xc
There are, but that's usually when a proper solution can't be found (think weather predictions, recommendation systems,...) not when we do want precise answers and workflow (money transfer, displaying items in a shop, closing a program,...).
[go to top]