So, yesterday I published this:
"'The Intelligence Illusion (Second Edition): Why generative models are bad for business' – Black Friday launch sale"
https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/intelligence-illusion-2nd-ed-launch-black-friday/
I've long resisted releasing a second edition. Despite regularly revisiting the book to revise it, I've generally then decided not to release the revision.
The risks remain unchanged from two years ago when I first began working on the first edition.
What changed my mind was that, put simply, everything else has changed
Tech companies have become less and less concerned about the negative impact of their products, more flagrant when it comes to anti-competitive behaviour, and are now thoroughly a political project that are pose to be in close collaboration with some of the worst political elements of the west. That's in addition to their long history of collaboration with authoritarians around the world in order to gain access to their markets.
What little optimism the first edition had about the future potential of generative models turned out to be completely unwarranted. Even though the new edition integrates quite a bit of the research I did after the first edition, the biggest reason for the revision was to make it clear that I don't think LLMs or diffusion models can ever be "good for business" and that using them in your organisation risks pushing even a moderately well-run company into a Boeing-style death spiral
@JeffGrigg @baldur @ton Exactly this years-long and now further intensified use makes it puzzling to me to label LLMs, etc., as not good for business. What exactly are the arguments for that? “AI” (we all know what’s marketing and what’s not) has been proven to be extremely helpful for businesses.
@gerrit @JeffGrigg @baldur @ton Personally my argument is that we need to untangle the hype from the tech itself.
I don't think these "generative AIs" would've gotten away with any of these harms without the hype! And its the hype itself which causes most of the harms!
But how do we get this across to those who control the purse strings?
@alcinnz @JeffGrigg @baldur @ton It’s really simple: through regular use, both privately and especially professionally.
Generative AIs are tools. I use them daily — and multiple times a day. I can’t see any hype.
Failing to recognize their business value, in my opinion, requires active denial and ignorance - or a massive lack of creativity.
@gerrit I do recognize that many people do find value in "gen-AI". I just question if the value outweighs the harms, & I wish that there wasn't so much pressure for us all to adopt it!
I don't find the suggestions I receive for using it addresses meaningful bottlenecks in my work.
And I'm hopeful that the uses people found for it can be achieved without all the exploitation.
@alcinnz @JeffGrigg @baldur @ton The technology is here. In many forms. It’s not going to disappear. Not using these tools is almost certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy. Luddites have always lost. Increased productivity is a fundamental business and even societal value — and it overcomes almost any kind of limitation.
@gerrit History seems to *repeatedly* indicate to me that a crash is inevitable... "AI" doesn't have a good track record that way.
But I see there's no arguing with you!
@alcinnz @JeffGrigg @baldur @ton I am a hardcore optimist. I trust in our millennia-old history. Our species is the master of tools and collaboration.
@gerrit @alcinnz @JeffGrigg @baldur @ton What, specifically, do you use AI for? Not looking for an argument, just genuinely curious. I haven’t yet seen a use case for AI/LLMs I was impressed with, but I’m open to being wrong.
@sidereal @alcinnz @JeffGrigg @baldur @ton Personally, I was most impressed by data analysis in the field of accounting, simply because it’s something that bores me — but quickly saved a lot of money. Alongside that, everything in the BI and data analysis space. Our developers have been using LLMs for many years. It has “simply” kept getting better.