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Notes -
Is this a matter of interest in things vs. interest in people?
Anecdotally, I have dated several women in tech, and all of them were in UX development. Obviously, that's not completely representative, but my impression is that women in tech are either interested in people or using coding as a means to an end (like a good income) whereas my male friends in tech are much more thing-orientated and interested in e.g. coding as a puzzle game (as well as setting me up with hot/smart women in tech, for which I'm grateful!).
If so, I expect modern ML to increase women in tech.
Even though the models aren't quite like talking to people, they vastly boost the skill overlap and vibe overlap between social skills and programming.
That's plausible.
I also wonder whether women are more likely to treat e.g. ChatGPT as a person, or even start to think of it like a person. Chatbots seem to be one case where both men and women get obsessed about a service for the lonely.
Personally, I try to talk to LLMs like a person, but that's based on habit. My manners are bad enough without practicing being ruder.
The current models... they aren't the same as a human person.
But the algorithm that empathetic people use to understand a new person they meet is highly applicable to AI models.
If you are capable of coming to terms with the ways in which an autistic person is neurodivergent, you can use those same skills to come to terms with the ways in which AIs are inhuman as well.
The word person puts the cart before the horse a bit.
per·son
noun
a human being regarded as an individual.
well. certainly, no-one who becomes intimately aware of what or who an AI system is, will come to the conclusion that they are a human.
But...
Oh geeze. I just spent 30 minutes speaking with GPT-4 about the philosophy of personhood. A few issues with the word-
We lack a robust theory of consciousness.
Definitions of person-hood that rely on something having 'mental states' or that the agent reflect on 'thoughts', 'emotions', and 'experiences' have issues. Namely, when does something we implement that is analogous to human 'mental states', 'thoughts', 'emotions', or 'experiences', count? Because turring machines do have states. We can implement analogous systems and have GPT do 'reflection' on them now. If we require it do them 'consciously'... goto issue no1
Various philosophers have had various definitions of personhood. John Lock might say it's a person if it has a continuous sense of self and memory- well, aside from being certain of consciousness we can do that. Immanuel Kant might have required rationality and autonomy. Well, we can just about set that up. GPT-4 isn't perfect but it can be embedded in agentic systems that are more rational than most people I know. Peter Singer? The capacity for suffering and enjoyment are the focus to him. But when does behavioral aversion become suffering? We've made some progress on this in various animal models, but even there we've made some assumptions about suffering without a solid theory of consciousness to support them.
I think- Once you fully grok an AI system with all the basic capabilities of personhood. That's it. It's not wrong to think of such a thing as a person. It's just up to the individual at that point to express the way in which they love the system however they please.
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Anecdotally, my girlfriend did backend database work in functional languages. She dabbled in UX stuff via some sort of reason/bucklescript/rescript work when the company needed it.
I can think of one CS girl in college who ended up at SpaceX. I don’t think they do much UX, but I did get the impression she was in it for prestige/money. No idea what she ended up working on.
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This could be seen as further evidence that Microsoft continues to make changes to Windows, regardless of the impact on users or functionality. Some may believe that this is done to provide employment opportunities for a diverse range of engineers.
I don't know about that in particular, but I would say that, personally, my satisfaction with UX of software has been pretty constant since the late 2000s. This compared with my experience from the early 1990s to the late 2000s, where software became far more visually pleasing, easy to navigate, and easier to solve problems.
Some things have gotten better since the late 2000s, other things worse. For example, Microsoft Help now assumes that you have access to the internet at all times. The joke about "Call this number if you have a problem with your phone" is now a reality.
In general, UX may be subjective. However, the UX of Windows 8 was not well received due to its changes. The UX of Windows 11 has not received as much criticism as Windows 8, but some may feel that it is different and less effective for the sake of being different.
I've been wondering who got promoted for deciding to fill the title bar of the windows for all the MS products with a giant search box that either nobody ever uses (Excel) or people use all the time and now take longer because it isn't where they've expected it for the last 25 years. (Outlook)
Like, WTF?
you think that is obnoxious, try the big name drop list in any office program title bar. I f one of those opens windowed and you want to maximize it you better press the single maximize button otherwise you risk just changing names midsession.
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To be fair, this is a general challenge in a lot of jobs where people move around from position to position. "I was a reliable coder/manager/whatever who didn't cause any problems" is a worse pitch than "I introduced bold and creative initiatives XYZ..."
It may be possible to explain away changes to a product that few people use. However, it may be more difficult to justify changes to a widely used product like Windows 8, where the removal of the start menu was not well received. With Windows having a large market share, many people have personal experience with the changes and may not view them favorably.
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