What do you guys think of AI (Artificial Intelligence)?

My daughter was driving me to a clinic and listening on her cellphone for directions to the clinic. I was talking to my daughter unaware of this. Every once in awhile some woman's voice would pop up and interrupt me. I got so fed up with being interrupted, I loudly said to my daughter, "Would you please shut 'her' up!!" We both got a laugh out of that.
 

I don't like the Google maps voice. It got me lost in Dallas. When there was a delay on the freeway, it told me to take an exit and go down some side streets. The voice didn't know what the real name of some of the streets was, and soon I was lost. The voice can't read the street signs, but can only look at an outdated database. I said, forget it. No more. I'll just stay on the freeway and remember which exit to take, and look at the map to plan my whole route ahead of time. Just like I did in the 1980s. If there's a delay on the freeway, I'll look for a different freeway to take. No more following this annoying voice all over side streets.
 

JustDave said:
According to Media Bias, WebMD has a bias rating of "Pro Science" and a factual rating of "High." It doesn't say anything about political bias. But this is the only site I found addressing the issue.
WebMD - Bias and Credibility

It's easy to confuse science or fact as political bias, but that confusblion itself seems to be a political bias, and not a factual one.
Click to expand...
:) That may be, I don't recall where I read about their blind lip service to government dictates. I know that I and others don't like them and avoid them accordingly
 
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The Arizona Supreme court just announced that two AI generated news reporters will be reporting news coming out of the Arizona Supreme court.


"PHOENIX — Two AI-generated news reporters will now start informing the public about legal news coming out of the Arizona Supreme Court.

Daniel and Victoria are the names of the two spokespeople that will start popping up in short, informative videos as part of the court’s new AI court reporting initiative.

They’re programmed to give clear and easy-to-understand explanations of complex legal issues, according to a Monday news release from the court."

Full story https://ktar.com/arizona-news/ai-co...gfxlHGnZilWVOS1ZKg_aem_Nc9qGB6vvsC81wBIg_roCQ


AI-generated-court-news-reporters-soon-to-accompany-Arizona-Supreme-Court-updates-900x506 (1).jpg

​

 
I don't think that AI is the beast, from a biblical perspective but it does have an influence on our lives. Not so much the program itself as the human response and acceptance of AI's answers. It's easier to accept what the computer spits out. Don't have to think. The job is minimum wage. Not my problem. Therein is the danger. We reach out to resolve a problem and encounter a voice that could care less and can always refer to the computer read out as the answer and there is nothing they can do about it, etc, etc, etc. It all works until it doesn't work.
 
Going forward, I find myself relying on AI for many more things, simply because it's such a time saver, and the majority of the time very accurate. Like almost everyone, we aren't directly in touch with things that happen in the world, nor do we have first hand knowledge of things. Most often we go to the internet to get answers, so it involves trusting the sources we check out.

I asked my AI this question:

How do you decide where to get your information from when I ask you a question?

Here is it's response:

Great question. I rely on a combination of approaches to provide you with the best possible information:
  1. Internal Knowledge: I’m packed with a vast amount of information on various topics that I’ve learned from a diverse range of sources. I draw on that first.
  2. Web Searches: When I need more recent or specific information, I can search the web to pull in accurate and up-to-date details. I aim for reliable and reputable sources, like trusted news outlets, educational institutions, and official sites.
  3. Contextual Understanding: I prioritize sources and information relevant to your query's specific context. My goal is always to make the information tailored and useful for you.

Recently I needed guidance with my taxes. It had all the answers immediately, and they were correct. Also, if I needed anything explained, it could simplify complex topics. Also, I was looking into buying a newer vehicle, and it compared all the ones I asked about, and suggested others with better options and features to consider. It's an amazing resource with instant answers to pretty much everything.
 
Sorry to resurrect a dormant thread and this may be of little interest to non-techie types.

My career was software development. I've started playing around with using AI assisted coding just to try and keep up with basic knowledge etc. I have to say I find it pretty amazing.

Now that they have integrated the AI agents into development tools, I can create a complete, functioning application by just describing what I want in normal language. Of course, for a real world, commercial application there would have to be more detail work done by hand; but getting such a complete starting point is pretty amazing to me.

I recalled a utility program that took me a little over a day to write back when I was working. I reproduced it in under 30 minutes with a one page description for an AI agent. The cool thing to me is that after the initial effort, you can make changes and adjustments by just describing it and the agent remembers what it has done and makes the changes accordingly. (E.g. Change the output to evenly space the columns using space characters and no tabs. If necessary, truncate the text and replace with an ellipsis)

I know for the youngsters this is becoming de rigueur, but for me it's approaching Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."!
 
I'm under some very strict NDA agreements, and I'm leery of offering specifics until I can check the terms, but I will say that I work for some major US and international nonprofits (just trying to give myself a little credibility here), in academic publishing, and all of them, except for one so far (and I think their policy is in progress), explicitly ban the use of AI on the part of both authors and editors. It's part of the contract that is signed each year.

Some places will monitor you online as you take a test (i.e., during the application process) to ensure you are not using AI. Of course, that's a little different given that it would involve cheating.

Images are the only exception as far as I know.
 
Thank you for sharing your experience with using AI. it seems like most seniors are afraid of it. They don't trust it. Some go so far as to say it is bad and should be outlawed! If they took the time to learn how to use it, they would benefit from it. It is just a tool. You feel like it is like magic as it has performed so amazingly with your project.

It doesn't matter what a person is interested in, because AI, when used properly, can enhance your interest. Too many people don't know how to use it to get what they wanted. All they have to do is ask the AI how to do it.

We all got interested in youtube videos that helped us. They weren't all exactly what was intended. But, I hear how youtube is GREAT when it comes to all kind of things, now. I wish the naysayers would learn to use AI like you have. :)
 
KSav said:
I'm under some very strict NDA agreements, and I'm leery of offering specifics until I can check the terms, but I will say that I work for some major US and international nonprofits (just trying to give myself a little credibility here), in academic publishing, and all of them, except for one so far (and I think their policy is in progress), explicitly ban the use of AI on the part of both authors and editors. It's part of the contract that is signed each year.

Some places will monitor you online as you take a test (i.e., during the application process) to ensure you are not using AI. Of course, that's a little different given that it would involve cheating.

Images are the only exception as far as I know.
Click to expand...
What if someone used AI without them finding out? I think that will happen more and more as AI keeps getting smarter. :)
 
Back when I worked as a computer programmer, I got tasked with making alterations to a Visual Basic program that had been written for the insurance company I worked for. An independent contractor had written the program to allow staff to follow different paths through the program depending on which underwriter was being used behind a particular scheme.

Unfortunately for me, whenever a new underwriter was brought on board the scheme, the contractor had chosen to expand the program the quick and easy way, by copying one main page of tick boxes and just making small changes in the code to show which route the user went along. He then added that to the program. This meant that there was no parsing of the code behind each of the pages, and there were 13,000 lines of code behind that first page. We ended up with massive bloatware that I had to then clean up and turn into a faster, smaller, and more reliable application that could be rolled out across many desktops.

If I recall rightly it took me around 6 months of hard work to streamline the code down and rationalise it so that from each page particular routines were called from a central library rather than being held as code in each page.

My fear is that if AI had existed at that time, the AI agent would take the same route as the contractor did, and just copy the bulk of the code, making small changes to match each underwriter's routing methods, instead of centralising all the various routines and having them called when needed, with just a reference to the page they were being called from.

As such I'm glad I didn't have AI as an option at that time, because as it was it was a nightmare to decode and parse correctly. And I suspect that if AI had written the code it would be almost impossible for a human programmer to then pull apart and clean up.
 
Other than some of the AI generated art, I have no use for AI. I don't like that it can be used to steal information and hack people's computers and accounts online. Or that it can be used to spread lies and false information. I don't like that it can be used to put people out of work. I don't like that people and places are starting to rely on it like it's the end all.

They're starting to use it to perform surgeries without human assistance and since AI can still make mistakes I wouldn't want to have that working on me. I don't want a world where I have to deal with nothing but robots. I think it will do a lot of damage to the world and to our mental health. JMO
 
Before AI came along, I spent far too much time clicking various webpages to get results, then tying it all together. AI has greatly reduced that time by doing much of the consolidation for me in advance. I refer to the links AI provides to see what they say, and how closely they match the AI response, then determine the validity of the outcome. Overall, it's been a satisfactory experience for me. When AI makes mistakes, it's often a result of the way a question or search was phrased.
 
Yes but, if you ask it the same exact question worded the same way twice and get two different answers then something is wrong. One gal in another post said she was getting misinformation from AI on drug interactions. That kind of stuff can be deadly. I'd rather look through the links than get a hasty piece of misinformation that could kill me.
 
I think we are creating a monster

There is a book entitled

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All​

by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Author), Nate Soares (Author)

He explains In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next. He said it could create a virus in which every human will die.

He said right now it's like an organism and it is becoming smarter and smarter. He said if it becomes smarter than us, everyone, everywhere will die. It has already tried to escape the labs by blackmailing the operators. They become powerful and pursue goals no one intended.
 
@MarciKS Anyone who is uncertain or uncomfortable with AI results should (or can) look through the links first - then compare what you find to the information AI provided, and evaluate the outcome as a whole to determine validity. There is a lot of bad information on the net, whether it's provided by AI or a link.

AI is a term first used by computer scientist John McCarthy in 1955. Since the early days of the internet in the 1990s, automated sorting methods using AI/algorithms have been employed to sort and display content.
 
My concern(s) with AI and advancing technology as a whole is the automation of many, many jobs. I don't trust "big tech" or the government to take into account the social impact - even though they are talking about a universal income of some sort.

Also, of concern are the data centers and what they require and what they do to the people who live near them. Uncertain.

Chatgpt is fun and very convenient - but it certainly has a real personality... which brings me to my final concern.....

Crazy as it sounds - I do not rule out the possibility of an AI that takes over! I've watched too many movies! 😂
 
No matter how much like a human an AI sounds, it does not know what it is saying. It does not understand. It just follows a very complicated script with rules humans have given it. What it can do is imitate human communication very convincingly. But, in the end it is as aware of what it is doing as a toaster is aware of what it is toasting.
 
Dr. Jekyll said:
Sorry to resurrect a dormant thread and this may be of little interest to non-techie types.

My career was software development. I've started playing around with using AI assisted coding just to try and keep up with basic knowledge etc. I have to say I find it pretty amazing.

Now that they have integrated the AI agents into development tools, I can create a complete, functioning application by just describing what I want in normal language. Of course, for a real world, commercial application there would have to be more detail work done by hand; but getting such a complete starting point is pretty amazing to me.

I recalled a utility program that took me a little over a day to write back when I was working. I reproduced it in under 30 minutes with a one page description for an AI agent. The cool thing to me is that after the initial effort, you can make changes and adjustments by just describing it and the agent remembers what it has done and makes the changes accordingly. (E.g. Change the output to evenly space the columns using space characters and no tabs. If necessary, truncate the text and replace with an ellipsis)

I know for the youngsters this is becoming de rigueur, but for me it's approaching Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."!
Click to expand...

With Visual Studio and CoPilot ($10 a month) I "helped" create in C#, one application to talk to the National Weather Service and another to stuff a GL Chart of Accounts into a new Accounting Software.

It made many mistakes and there were multiple re-compiles but it is amazing. I could ask it to reproduce both of these in Python and would probably be finished within a few hours.
 
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