358
points
boplicity
Joined 4,882 karma
- > Let's see something ground-breaking
Why? People don't ask hammers to do much more than bash in nails into walls.
AI coding tools can be incredibly powerful -- but shouldn't that power be focused on what the tool is actually good at?
There are many, many times that AI coding tools can and should be used to create a "small program that already exists in multiple forms in the training data."
I do things like this very regularly for my small business. It's allowed me to do things that I simply would not have been able to do previously.
People keep asking AI coding tools to be something other than what they currently are. Sure, that would be cool. But they absolutely have increased my productivity 10x for exactly the type of work they're good at assisting with.
- Research says, apparently, that Prop 65 has actually been affective.
> The researchers analyzed concentrations of 11 chemicals placed on the Proposition 65 warning list and monitored by the CDC between 1999 and 2016. They included several types of phthalates, chemicals used to make plastics flexible; chloroform, a toxic byproduct from disinfecting water with chlorine; and toluene, a hazardous substance found in vehicle exhaust.
> They found that the majority of samples had significantly lower concentrations of these chemicals after their listing. But the levels didn’t just decline in California, they fell nationwide. [1]
Unfortunately, the NIH website [2] where the study is hosted is no longer operational. I don't think certain people want to support scientific inquiry. Maybe someone else can find the study text?
[1] https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-11-11/study-d...
- Compliance, "up the chain", "department", "the official company IT", etc...
These are all things that the target audience either doesn't have, or doesn't want. If the above words are important to you, then you're probably not in the target market.
- Why replace Firefox? The headline and linked article don't seem to match reality at all. It's just a bunch of clickbait nonsense.
- You need to get more specific about your market. General language learning is too broad of a category in order to make informed choices.
Who are your ideal customers -- and how can you serve them best?
"Calm" is not a niche, its a style.
A niche is your position relative to the people you're serving.
Learning apps serve huge varieties of markets, with very different needs. For example, math apps designed to supplement math education in an elementary school environment, versus a language learning app designed for someone traveling to a X country in 3 months...
Your questions should be anchored to very specific audiences that you can actually reach.
- My point is that a country may do reprehensible things, but that does not mean that the people in that country approve of those things -- or even that the people in government approve of them. Countries can be complex, with many contradictions, opinions, and opposing forces.
- The UK is also not a single person, but a collection of millions of individuals and diverse groups with diverse opinions and actions.
- Their model doesn't handle punctuation, quote marks, and similar things very well at all.
- A training dataset is a document, not a method of processing a document. This type of document regularly gets reproduced and distributed in a commercial environment. Even if the distribution is contained within a large corporation, it still counts as distribution. Should that be allowed within the scope of copyright law? This seems like a legitimate question.
- Google's AI summaries are actively harming quite a lot of people. They're regularly filled with misinformation, but they're presented as facts, complete with references. Many people do not understand the limitations of this technology, and simply believe what they're presented.
I'm not convinced that Google understands the limitations, to be honest. The most charitable interpretation I can give of their motivations is that they're terrified of competition from OpenAI, and are trying to present an alternative. Unfortunately, they're presenting a woefully inadequate product.
It goes further though, into legitimate questions of copyright, which the tech industry has always fought against. (Take first, deal with it later is the MO.)
- Some schools are $100k/year for room, board, and tuition, and yet those expensive schools are very much optional. It's a red herring to point them out.
There are still affordable schools. And staying in a dorm with expensive room and board remains optional at many institutions. Heck, some people still live with their parents.
The state school I went to is still just around $10k/year tuition, and I got a broad education that opened many doors for me. (I was in the humanities, but there are very good science programs there as well.)
Of course it's crazy to sink $400k into a degree for most people. And for many, many people, it is completely un-necessary! You can still get a relatively affordable 4 year degree.
- It also doesn't seem to work right now.
- So much of what makes people willing to be moved by creative art is the willingness to believe they're investing in someone else's real thoughts & effort -- and opening themselves to a channel of real human connection & relationship.
AI has raised the bar, in terms of making it more difficult to create the trust necessary for people to be willing to open themselves up to that connection.
- Automatic captions has been transformative, in terms of accessibility, and seems to be something people universally want. Most people don't think of it as AI though, even when it is LLM software creating the captions. There are many more ways that AI tools could be embedded "invisibly" into our day-to-day lives, and I expect they will be.
- Not every college has crazy tuition. The school I attended in 2000 to 2004 has kept pace with inflation generally. Annual tuition is now around $10k, which is a lot, but not unmanageable for many middle class families. I'm curious how this compares across universities throughout the U.S. Maybe the tuition story has bifurcated somewhat?
- The state school I went to 20+ years ago, by contrast, has around $10k in annual tuition, which isn't bad compared to a trade school. No mandatory housing/food costs either. I got a great education there and am still friends with some of my profs. I also got one of the least practical (for most people) degrees (creative writing), and turned it into a comfortable job for myself, though I recognize that's the exception and not the rule.
I never thought of university as a way to get a job. It certainly did help me in many, many ways though, and can't imagine having my current career without it.
Maybe this is possible. Maybe not.
However, it's a fantasy. Granted, it is a compelling fantasy. But its not one based on reality.
A good example:
"AI will probably be smarter than any single human next year. By 2029, AI is probably smarter than all humans combined.” -- Elon Musk
This is, of course, ridiculous. But, why should we let reality get in the way of a good fantasy?