Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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I gotta say I’m having a shitload of fun talking about AI and making ridiculous predictions, arguing, mocking doomers, etc.
It’s oft repeated but this truly is an exciting time to be alive. Much of the last decade has felt stagnant, boring and too steeped in lethargy and hopelessness. The rise of LLMs seems to be changing that, and I for one am again waiting with baited breath to see what the technology of the future will look like.
I've just started seriously studying machine learning, and I think the languages models are just the tip of the iceberg, and most of the powerful modern AI is hidden behind NDAs and less noticeable technologies. Many things quietly occurred without too many people noticing, for example:
Google tagged everyone's photos in Google photos with their contents. I have Google randomly displaying photos on my home screen when it's plugged in, and it knows not to show anything NSFW, and generally picks interesting photos. Google knows exactly what's in my thousands of photos.
Social media moderation also perfected AI filtering of NSFW content to any degree of precision the platform wants.
Every large marketing company or department has started to calculate someone called a "lifetime customer value" using machine learning to discovery and target the groups of customers predicted to spend the most over a lifetime. New marketing interventions will be measured for effectiveness in influencing consumer behavior. Eventually ad campaigns could be individualized and AI generated to a shocking degree, without even seeming personalized, because we don't look at each other's phones. It's possible in the future no one will ever see the same ad twice, or even be able to tell the difference between an AI generated advertisement and human generated content. The difference might even cease to be semantically intelligible. If it's trivial for an AI to generate an excellent exercise video with a small mention of a wellness product, is that an ad or a helpful wellness video?
What happens when AI can generate a new marvel movie just for you, subtly based on your consumer preferences and sense of humor? The experience of everyone seeing the same movie could disappear the same way the experience of everyone watching something like the seinfeld series finale at the same time did.
Did they? Checked the few photos I've uploaded, nah.
Google still can't even decide to show appropriate ads on youtube on my main profile. I've marked scammy dating site ads as 'irrelevant' about 5 times so far, it keeps doing it.
It's showing me ads for Replika chatbot. You'd think it'd figure out someone who hates seeing lingerie, dating site ads, rarely looks at thirsty content would not want to see that particular kind of ad, but no.
How's that going to account for people who hate ads to the point that they remember annoying ads and deliberately avoid products whose ads they've been shown ?
The quote "The future is already here. It's just unevenly distributed" seems relevant.
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Maybe they'll show you ads for competitors, or content you enjoy with subtle product placement, like a cute dog with oreos in the background.
Did you try using the search function in the Google photos app?
Facebook figured out I'm supposed to like beef jerky, which is quite impressive, so now I'm seeing ads for every single indigenous beef jerky company. While they're not as wrong as you with oreos.
Honestly it'd be scary if Facebook or google figured out I'm the kind of person who absolutely, totally loathes 'products' and only ever buys stuff that's a commodity. Am I going to overpay 300% for an energy drink just because it's branded ? Fuck no.
But what ad could they show me then ?
As to the tagging, I spent some time looking for tags in photos, but nothing. There used to be tags, then they deleted them, which made me stop using google photos.
Well, nothing groundbreaking tbh.
Still makes a lot of mistakes - for example, it tagged a photo of a Maxim heavy machinegun as a 'bike'.
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Wow the advertising portion is horrifying and a very salient point… it will be much more economically feasible than the whole “create personalized videos” thing. That is truly concerning.
Would you mind popping this comment into the CW thread on this topic I just posted? Would love to discuss there.
In the spirit of AI, you're welcome to just plagiarize it haha
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Yeah, I have mixed feelings about all the shallow cash grab companies/UX’s being built. On the one hand I know they’ll help drive the maturation of the technology on the whole, but there is something off putting about it.
It doesn’t help that I think 99% of these companies are going belly up within a year. The underlying framework is shifting so fast I think they need to be extremely agile to survive.
I suppose this is what it was like to be an adult through the dot com bubble.
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