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. d_burf+Hz[view] [source] 2025-06-03 01:21:12
>>gdubs+Z
It's a radical change in human/computer interface. Now, for many applications, it is much better to present the user with a simple chat window and allow them to type natural language into it, rather than ask them to learn a complex UI. I want to be able to say "Delete all the screenshots on my Desktop", instead of going into a terminal and typing "rm ~/Desktop/*.png".
◧◩◪
3. bccdee+9D[view] [source] 2025-06-03 01:55:01
>>d_burf+Hz
That's interesting to me, because saying "Delete all the screenshots on my Desktop" is not at all how I want to be using my computer. When I'm getting breakfast, I don't instruct the banana to "peel yourself and leap into my mouth," then flop open my jaw like a guppy. I just grab it and eat it. I don't want to tell my computer to delete all the screenshots (except for this or that that particular one). I want to pull one aside, sweep my mouse over the others, and tap "delete" to vanish them.

There's a "speaking and interpreting instructions" vibe to your answer which is at odds with my desire for an interface that feels like an extension of my body. For the most part, I don't want English to be an intermediary between my intent and the computer. I want to do, not tell.

◧◩◪◨
4. 20afte+QN[view] [source] 2025-06-03 04:05:12
>>bccdee+9D
> I want to do, not tell.

This 1000%.

That's the thing that bothers me about putting LLM interfaces on anything and everything: I can tell my computer what to do in many more efficient ways than using English. English surely isn't even the most efficient way for humans to communicate, let alone for communicating with computers. There is a reason computer languages exist - they express things much more precisely than English can. Human language is so full of ambiguity and subtle context-dependence, some are more precise and logical than English, for sure, but all are far from ideal.

I could either:

A. Learn to do a task well, after some practice, it becomes almost automatic. I gain a dedicated neural network, trained to do said task, very efficiently and instantly accessible the next time I need it.

Or:

B. Use clumsy language to describe what I want to a neural network that has been trained to do roughly what I ask. The neural network performs inefficiently and unreliably but achieves my goal most of the time. At best this seems like a really mediocre way to do a lot of things.

[go to top]