AI Blog Questions Challenge
Date:
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Categories:
[Tech]
Tags:
[AI]
I read Manu Moreale’s AI blog questions challenge a couple of months ago. I thought it would be interesting to try and clarify my mostly negative thoughts about “AI”.
My perspective is as a retired computer professional who has always loved working with computers. I like to write programs in a few different languages for fun. Most recently I’ve been learning Lua in order to write Pico-8 games. I also dabble in digital art and music, and I blog. I don’t use “AI” for any of this.
What was your first experience with AI models?
I tried ChatGPT at some point after it was released. I found it useful for natural-language searching. The technology was impressive, but I had no interest in using it for anything else, such as writing text.
Do you use AI or are you completely against using it?
I’m completely against the “AI” industry, the hype, the con game. The technology is useful. The hype is insane.
I get access to Lumo through my Proton account, and I use it occasionally for natural-language searching. I’ve used it for some programming tasks, like getting advice on string parsing in Lua. I would never use it to write text or create art, I don’t see the point. I wouldn’t use it to write a program because I write programs for fun, and why would I want a machine to do my hobby for me?
I did do some programming tests with Lumo because I wanted to see what it could do. I asked Lumo to write some PHP code to echo back my IP address, like the “whats-my-ip”-type services do. Lumo did a good job with this simple task, and it even made useful suggestions for enhancing the code.
I also asked Lumo to write a Python script to parse SMTP message headers, something I used to work on when I managed mail servers. I was interested in what regexes it would come up with, but instead it used the Python argparse library, something that I had never looked at. I can see how I could use this to learn more about argparse.
It’s clear that if I were a sysadmin or a professional programmer, these tools could help me learn my craft and assist me in my work. So no, I’m not completely against using them, but I fear we will only misuse them.
Do you have any preference among different models, for example Claude vs ChatGPT? If yes, how do you choose?
I use Lumo because the basic service comes with my Proton account. I have no interest in the other major models, as the companies behind them seem greed-driven and evil. And a little crazy.
What aspect of AI models do you like and what do you not like?
I don’t use them enough to give much of an answer. I like using Lumo for basic natural-language searching, and for help with programming syntax.
I see that other people have issues with the conversational tone of the chatbots and I understand the concern. I don’t mind Lumo’s “friendliness”, but it does tend to reinforce the ELIZA Effect. Rishabh describes it as like talking to a charlatan and that’s a good way to put it - you feel like the machine is programmed to trick you into trusting it.
How do you feel about AI generated images? Does it annoy you if someone use them in a blog post?
I really dislike them, and I hate that they’re getting harder to spot. My reasons are a topic for a longer blog post, but I basically dislike the emptiness of the imagery and the theft of talent and material from real artists.
The bloggers I follow don’t tend to use AI images. I’m not happy when I see them being used, but if I like the writer then I try not to judge. I know people are just trying to make their sites more interesting. I hope they’ll eventually figure out other ways to do that.
The Internet is flooded with AI slop now, full of generated text, images, audio and videos. How do you filter it from authentic human creation? Do you have a strategy?
Like others who have answered this question, I spend most of my Internet time reading curated content from my RSS feed. So I don’t see too much AI slop. But I think we’re reaching a point where nothing can be trusted. Everything has to be assumed to be a fake, until we can establish some sort of reasonable provenance. Which is difficult to do.
Are you hopeful for a better future with AI or fearful for a dystopian one?
I don’t think we’re heading for a "1984"-style dystopia, but the trend is there, and I think things will continue to get worse before they get better. How much worse, I can’t predict. I’m hopeful that we can eventually benefit from “AI”-like technology, but that may take a long time, twenty years or more, and I expect we’ll go through some bad times before we get there.