A.I. Rant

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richmond62
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A.I. Rant

Post by richmond62 » Sat Apr 01, 2023 12:30 pm

Well, let's hope what I have to say is NOT taken as a rant, but as a position statement that will precipitate
a healthy discussion.

As a child of the sixties [no, that does NOT mean my parents were hippies], and, more importantly, as a teenager of the 70's,
who did his first computer programming in 1975, I have what some folk would call a very stuffy view of what computers ARE for,
and what they are NOT for.

[To qualify this I should perhaps point out that I am a complete hypocrite insofar as I use computers for ALL the things I believe
they are NOT for.] 8)

I was led to believe (i.e. not much thinking going on there on my half) that computers were things that would do an awful lot
of Mathematical 'heavy lifting' on our behalf.

At that time if anyone had suggested to me, my teachers, and, possibly more importantly, my cousin, Stephen Mathewson
who ran the computer at Imperial College,

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-mathewson-1941876/

where we sent our Hollerith cards, that computers would be used:

1. As communication devices.

2. As a way to play highly complex games.

3. As a way to listen to Music.

4. As a way to watch Films.

And so on, I believe that most of us would have just looked blank, except, possibly, for Stephen.

[I am reliably informed that one of the forces that drive the development of fancy graphic cards
is the porn industry - We have a tenant in our flat who is a 'level developer' for an online porn
game - I must have a go some time and see if I can 'Trump' another player, LOL.]

AND "what has that got to do with the price of fish?"

A couple of days ago someone 'appeared' on the Forums stating:
I'm making a dice game
and, that, as such, comes across as rather fun.

But what followed made my toes curl up something rotten:
this is a script made by chatGPT
but did not work.
(emphasis is mine.)

Some one wiser than me (as I was wrestling to think of a way of saying what I wanted to say without
being mind-bogglingly rude) replied:
I would learn LiveCode before I started trying to let ChatGPT do my work.
Anyway, to cut a short story long, I ran up 2 components for the sort of game that was described in a grand total
of 30 minutes (half of which was spent mucking around sourcing attractive images): this should in no way whatsoever
be seen as me swanking about my vast programming skills, because my programming skills are not vast, and, when
push comes to shove, fairly basic.

So, my question is this:

Presumably ChatGPT and BARD have both involved an awful lot of man hours and work by very, very intelligent, skilled
programmers.

To what end? To help people who, honestly, cannot be bothered to learn a few basic steps in a programming language
(I have had 9 year olds making race games after about 3 hours of instruction) to make 'baby games'?

ALL this shows me is that Douglas Adams wrote about 'Deep Thought' BEFORE the proles got hold of
computers and reduced them to the level of the plastic duck I have on the side of my bath.
----

I hope this will precipitate some sort of relatively lively discussion on what
ChatGPT, BARD, and, presumably, a slew of other A.I. things should/could/ought to be be used for.

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by stam » Sat Apr 01, 2023 2:38 pm

I think your long post can really be distilled to this question:
richmond62 wrote:
Sat Apr 01, 2023 12:30 pm
To what end?
The answer of course is simple:
1. Money
2. Power
3. Money and Power

I suspect the open source efforts will be licensed to companies that will pay big money; the more proprietary efforts like Bard will extend the influence and profit of the larger organisations like Google (incidentally Bard is hopeless with LC code - most of the stuff it returns is in javascript-like notation).

My issues with generative AI are
1. it leaches off other peoples hard work - there is no contribution or recognition to the teams generating the works they train their platform with
2. there is a real risk we'll all be locked into subscription models for many things, if not everything, and becoming dependent on generative AI.

Is that all bad?
Well probably not all bad. I take the point above about suggesting that chatGPT is a copout and one should use the 'real thing'. But then again I'm sure that's what C programmers think about livecode. The true answer is what is it you're trying to achieve?

if you enjoy programming and get a kick out of innovating solutions then more power to you; chatGPT doesn't enter the arena. If you want to learn programming and a language then again, generative AI has no role.

However if you're not familiar with liveCode then why not use chatGPT to construct the app of your dreams?
Once the technology is much more mature, who's to say it won't help us construct much more complicated apps that are hopelessly outside of our current skill sets?

HC was not described as a language but as a software erector kit and to a large extent that still stands with LC - it lets you put together an app extremely quickly compared to low level languages. I think generative AI is simply the next step in that same process - a better software erector kit.
I remember decades ago I picked up a huge 'program in C for Mac' book. 500+ pages and most of the code was simply to generate a window. Pages and pages of code to do this - needless to say that didn't go far. Nowadays it's File Menu -> new stack.

Given the the financial incentives around generative AI and the power this will grant the owners of such technology I have no doubt that this is here to stay and will become more widespread; we can oppose it or embrace it - but that will make no difference in the grand scheme of things.

To be clear at present generative AI is a poor choice for coding and would not also not recommend the example you give above, and fully agree that (at present at least), learning the language first is the best approach - but fast-forward 10+ years when generative AI will likely have matured significantly and this may not stand - the question then would be more 'how do we use our imagination to generate amazing software' without having to worry about the thousands of hours required to learn a particular language.

So I think the better question to pose is: How can we use and benefit from generative AI?

S.

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by richmond62 » Sat Apr 01, 2023 3:17 pm

your long post
Well, Yes: although yours is fairly long too. :roll:

Mine is 583 words long.

Yours comes to 553.

And I am 90% convinced of your answer.

[Maybe its the 30 words difference that makes the answer . . . :D ]

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by jacque » Sat Apr 01, 2023 5:23 pm

Bard specifically says it can't do programming. When I asked it to write a simple LC script it declined and said it hadn't been trained yet. ChatGPT has no disclaimer. Heather asked the mailing list to feed it LC examples so it would learn.

That aside, my main fear is that humans will lose their innate skills and creativity. Most people can't do simple math in their heads because they always have a calculator with them on their phones. I see increasingly bad spelling and syntax by writers who can't write professionally and I expect that to get worse. Since AI doesn't know what it's saying but appears to be sentient, people will believe what it says no matter how much disinformation it dispenses. This can only lead to bad things.

Google stresses that Bard is experimental and will hallucinate or mislead. I've caught it in mistakes and flagged them, but I can't imagine any algorithm can be tuned finely enough to be as good as the human brain -- or at least some human brains.
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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by stam » Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:09 pm

Well that's thought-provoking... I mean what is the source of creativity?
Or to put it differently: Does not being skilled in calligraphy make you a worse writer in today's age?

Is the education standard really that much lower than 50 years ago? Perhaps - but only because those who fare badly now would have probably those who worked in the mines in the 60s and 70s. In other words probably more linked to socioeconomic stratum rather than innate skills - of course the former influences the latter - but does the ability to use AI risk making that worse, or will it get better with removal of education barriers?

Regarding Bard - yes it does warn you it may be misleading (but it gave no warning regarding programming code) - I tried a couple of examples, one was "Give me code to connect and use an SQLite database in LiveCode" which was only slightly wrong (it was suggesting inserting a username and password for sqlite) and the seconds was "Covert a record set to array in liveCode" which was quite wrong. It is likely the model needs more training but the example it gave used { } to define arrays, used 'set' for local variables, dot notation, incorrect syntax in repeat loop, etc. I gave feedback - curious to see if it improves but so far seems inferior to chatGPT.

On the other hand, I did ask it to plan a trip to my home city of Rhodes, Greece and was quite impressed. It was pretty much what I would recommend to any visitor to the island...

I'm afraid I didn't keep a copy of the initial responses from Bard and re-ran them. Interestingly the first one seems to have improved:

Give me code to connect and use an SQLite database in LiveCode - not actually that bad, but doesn't check if connection id is not a number:

Code: Select all

on connectToDB
    # Connect to the database.
    put "mydatabase.sqlite" into tDBPath
    put "myConnectionID" into tConnectionID
    revOpenDatabase tDBPath, tConnectionID
end connectToDB

on disconnectFromDB
    # Disconnect from the database.
    if tConnectionID is not 0 then
        revCloseDatabase tConnectionID
        set tConnectionID to 0
    end if
end disconnectFromDB

on executeSQLQuery tQuery
    # Execute an SQL query.
    if tConnectionID is not 0 then
        revExecuteSQL tConnectionID, tQuery
    end if
end executeSQLQuery

on getDatabaseID
    # Return the database connection ID.
    return tConnectionID
end getDatabaseID

However Covert a record set to array in liveCode didn't go so well:

Code: Select all

on convertRecordSetToArray tRecordSet
    # Convert a record set to an array.
    if tRecordSet is not empty then
        set tArray to {}
        repeat with i from 1 to tRecordSet.count
            set tRecord to tRecordSet.item i
            set tArray to tArray & {tRecord.field1, tRecord.field2, ...}
        end repeat
        return tArray
    end if
    return {}
end convertRecordSetToArray

I do think that in 5-10 years time this will be mainstream - so it's not a derogatory comment, merely a comment on current state.
S.

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by stam » Sat Apr 01, 2023 6:25 pm

Or maybe we should all take the movie Saturn 3 to heart (Kirk Douglas/Farah Fawcett/1980) and be pickier about who actually trains the AIs ;)

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by richmond62 » Sat Apr 01, 2023 7:07 pm

The Wikipedia 'thing' about Saturn 3 states:

"Saturn 3 is a sloppy, shoddy production, of the sort that someone out there thinks SF fans just eat up. One hopes the producers and directors working the genre will realize this audience demands more than a leggy blond being chased by a robot."

Presumably the leggy blonde is the Bionic Man's ex-wife . . . not noted for her acting ability (even if she was in Logan's Run.)

"citing moments disregarding the laws of physics"

I must be really warped: but those types of comments make me want to watch the film and make my own mind up.

BUT, Kirk Douglas and Harvey Keitel could do reasonably well . . .

The plot sounds awful . . .

Presumably this is what 61 year old men are meant to watch over the weekend
while their wives are cooking up University lectures for Monday . . . LOL :D

Other warped types might like to know that Saturn 3 is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2psCSVW85w

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by richmond62 » Sat Apr 01, 2023 7:38 pm

the education standard
Presumably the reason why many people cannot do mental Maths, but use a calculator instead, is
NOT because they are stupid, BUT because, having, possibly been taught mental Maths at school,
the world outside has taught them that it is just another of those daft skills they teach you at school
that are not needed in the real world.

And I am not sure how doing mental Maths can affect one's creativity.

Endless memorisation of facts (I know, I deal with children who are choked on this
by Mr Gradgrind's Bulgarian heirs) stultifies the ability to think laterally, and to think
creatively.

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by stam » Sat Apr 01, 2023 7:50 pm

Ah yes Harvey Keitel, forgot about him ;)
Plot is awful, the movie is so awful it's almost cool (I saw it back in the early 80s, I suspect it hasn't aged well lol).
Mind you, the mental image that stuck with me was Harvey Keitel as a psychopath training an AI rather than generic leggy blondes...

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by richmond62 » Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:09 pm

An awful lot of films made in the 1970-80s were awful, and looking back they make me cringe:
but one cannot help thinking that behind the cheesey acting and so on, there were some
semi-decent ideas trying desperately to get out.
-
Astounding-April-1941.jpg
-
If you can, somehow, connect 'The Stolen Dormouse' with the cover picture you are
a far, far more @#$%^&* person than I am. :D

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by jacque » Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:10 pm

Doing math (there's no "s" in US usage) is just one example. When I'm at the grocery store I can calculate the relative price of different brands of a product in my head most of the time (it turns out that "sale" items aren't always the most economical choice.) It's just a handy skill. I don't bemoan the use of calculators but I am sorry for the lost art. When the numbers get bigger I use a calculator too.

Caligraphy is not writing in the sense I meant; my father was a caligrapher but he didn't need to construct original content to do it. He was also a magazine editor, and had mastered the art of creative writing, proofreading, spelling and grammar. (Short diversion: when I was 8 years old I completed my homework and left it on the kitchen table so I'd remember to take it to school in the morning. When I woke up the next day, I found it edited with circles and editiorial markings all over the page in red pencil. I had to rewrite it in a hurry during breakfast. I was not happy with him but I did learn something.)

I don't think people who turn to AI are stupid, but I do think they may rely on it to the extent that they don't learn how to work without it. There are certain skills that I believe everyone should have: how to cook, sew, make a fire, do basic home repair, plant a garden, etc. When our crutches fail us we must know how to cope on our own. I read an article recently that said a high percentage of today's youth cannot read cursive handwriting and need their parents to read handwritten letters to them. All they know is the printed word. They were never taught cursive.

Electricity was a huge boon to mankind but we are now so dependent on it that the world would collapse without it. You could win a war by cutting off a nation's electricity. Imagine that everyone was so dependent on AI that the processes we take for granted now become impossible in the future because no one has learned how to do them.

Edit: I have omitted blacksmithing and similar arts, but if the electrical grid goes down I will wish I hadn't.
Jacqueline Landman Gay | jacque at hyperactivesw dot com
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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by FourthWorld » Sun Apr 02, 2023 10:54 am

As a child of the '60s...

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
Richard Brautigan

I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.

I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.

I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
Richard Gaskin
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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by stam » Sun Apr 02, 2023 3:34 pm

jacque wrote:
Sat Apr 01, 2023 8:10 pm
Caligraphy is not writing in the sense I meant...
Not sure I entirely agree Jacque... I mentioned calligraphy not in the art sense but in the sense of strictly being taught to write neatly (this is the greek word for it, sorry for any confusion), which when I was a kid was The Big Thing (my inability to do so has held me in good stead in my medical career though ;) ). Being able to write neatly is a skill, the lack of effort to cultivate it is not a reason to not be creative and in the same way not being proficient in 'innate skills' is not a barrier if technology supports the gap.

Any kind of serious progression and progress requires that we build on a foundation we don't need to think about or have deep understanding of, because otherwise it would be impossible to maintain everything in our heads. All of us already live in deep dependence, but we ignore it (few really understand every aspect of generating and distributing electricity but all of us are proficient at using it, for example). Dependence on AI is not, in essence, different from being dependent of your electricity provider, it's just a function of what we're used to and what we want to achieve.

Before the industrial/techonology era, one person could probably manage a few different skills (perhaps even blacksmithing since you mention this), but no one ever was an expert in all the skills, which is why professions developed - to allow progression in one area by allowing dependency in other areas. What we are dependent on is constantly evolving and growing and our knowledge of it is diminishing the more this grows. I for one am dependent on huge number technologies in my professional life which at most I only need an abstract knowledge of and my professional knowledge is built on top of thousands of layers of forgotten or unknown data, none of which I have conscious knowledge of but on top of which I've built a huge amount of specialised experience making me an expert in my area.

It follows that you can't be an expert in something you know nothing about, even if AI gives you the answers. So there will always need for learning.

I view AI as simply the tool that eventually will turn a large chunk of this learning into the background layer we don't need to think about, allowing us to progress further.
But these tools are far from being mature enough for that yet...

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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by jacque » Sun Apr 02, 2023 8:04 pm

I don't disagree with you, stam. In fact, re-reading my posts I am starting to feel like an old person who can't change with the times. I don't want to be like that. But I do have reservations about AI, particularly in its current state. And then today I read this:
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/03/3 ... p-climate-
I know this man isn't representative of all people, but you may have heard about the Google engineer who believed its AI was sentient. If it can fool the guy who worked on the project it could fool anyone. (And it is worth noting that 50% of the population is more gullible than average.)
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... t-matters/

By the way, my husband (a physician) says they won't let you graduate from med school if they can still read your handwriting. :)
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Re: A.I. Rant

Post by Xero » Mon Apr 03, 2023 1:15 am

I didn't get through all of the posts here... I am a child of the late 70's, early 80's. No attention spa
But anyway... The current AI bots are pretty crude in all forms. As an artist, I have been keeping an eye on Midjourney and the other art-generators. Much the same goes for ChatGPT as does with them, but written language is easier to work with (being far more linear), and programming languages even easier, as they have less solutions for a written outcome and a simple yes/no answer to "does it work".
Can or will these bots "do the heavy lifting" that computers have been doing for us for ages... simply put, yes. I can do maths (Australian) in my head, but a range of people I work with who are <10 years younger cannot. They grew up with calculators doing everything, I grew up being told, "do it in your head". If you give me a maths problem, I can work out how to do it, and I don't run to a calculator to do it... no matter how hard it is... Kids of today let calculators do the heavy lifting, but it doesn't make them any better at maths. Far from it in fact. They don't understand if an answer is right or wrong (through input error), and trust the calculator is right.
AI bots do and will excel in simple stuff. They do it quick, and with time, will do it well.
AI bots cannot be creative, in any way. Otherwise, someone would have won the prize for creating actual artificial intelligence (yes, there is one out there!) ChatGPT will regurgitate what other people have written and warp it into their own solution. They will not create a novel solution. Midjourney will scrape other people's works and mush it into it's own work. It will not create Cubism out of thin air.
The real problem that we will face, and eventually rebel against with AI bots, is that our human progress will stagnate as we lean on these bots to do everything. When no new solutions are posted online for the bots to "learn from" (AKA plagarise), the bots will keep churning out the same stuff, and humans will get bored of it. AI bots will be able to program a Tetris game, but only when you present them with a Tetris game. And humans won't sit there playing the same set of games forever. They will have a wanderlust for new things. Otherwise, we'd all still be playing Tetris.
The intelligent amongst us should be looking to fill that creative void when it opens up. When the machines rise up, we will need only a small amount of creativity to beat them! :)

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