2024. April 12.
Machine Learning - The future is... nowhere near?
Lots of people agree that the next BIG thing is Artificial Intelligence. We see huge potential, but also worry about consequences. I came across a great article among many similar on that site and elsewhere that describes vividly the likely scenario that things might won't work out how conventionally we think.
In short we wish the AI to free us from work, and fear it will take our jobs. Employers, CEOs, board of directors, and shareholders expect it to reduce cost, to replace unreliable workers with a tireless machine that needs no pay.
The reality is that these machine learning algorithms, large language models, generative AIs make mistakes all the time, they hallucinate, fill the gaps in. They do this in a very plausible fashion, and it's easy to make the mistake to believe in just about anything they generate. They cannot go unsupervised, they can't relieve people from their work, always have to keep "a human in the loop" as I read.
And here comes the problem. If implemented properly we get a worker with enhanced capabilities doing quality work. Great right? It will cost more however, and noone is willing to pay. So they make it the AI doing the brainwork, and the unskilled work can be done by unskilled workers for peanuts. "You don't need that much money just for checking errors!" The only ones who get their capabilities enhanced will be shitty bosses.
Couple of terms to make note of, gathered from these (and related) articles:
Centaur: when an "AI", an LLM augments an individual in his work, make it more accurate, quality, effective - but not cost effective; frees up the individual from the menial, repetitive tasks, doing the muscle work. The ideal, utopistic setup.
Reverse-Centaur: when the AI becomes the boss, and the tedious, repetitive, and hard muscle work is left to the human. The AI dictates the pace, and the human has to follow. The dystopia of automatized slavery.
Habsburg AI: when a generative AI's input is other generative AI's output, resulting in grotesque inbred mutant, generating content resembling to the classic Habsburg chin/jaw.
Carlos II of Spain, House Habsburg - Public Domain
Potemkin AI: when the facade of a promised automated service powered by "AI" hides a mass of underpaid humans doing the work instead.