"Well, you seem like a person, but you're just a voice in a computer"
May 13, 2024 12:14 PM Subscribe
OpenAI unveils GPT-4o, a new flagship "omnimodel" capable of processing text, audio, and video. While it delivers big improvements in speed, cost, and reasoning ability, perhaps the most impressive is its new voice mode -- while the old version was a clunky speech --> text --> speech approach with tons of latency, the new model takes in audio directly and responds in kind, enabling real-time conversations with an eerily realistic voice, one that can recognize multiple speakers and even respond with sarcasm, laughter, and other emotional content of speech. Rumor has it Apple has neared a deal with the company to revamp an aging Siri, while the advance has clear implications for customer service, translation, education, and even virtual companions (or perhaps "lovers", as the allusions to Spike Jonze's Her, the Samantha-esque demo voice, and opening the door to mature content imply). Meanwhile, the offloading of most premium ChatGPT features to the free tier suggests something bigger coming down the pike.
Oh good, fewer jobs for humans, more jobs for corporate-sponsored chatbots. I note there's no commentary on the implications for misinformation and the spreading of hate material. And I'm sure all the robo-scammers out there are very excited for a new way to call up elderly and vulnerable people and trick them into handing over their money and personal details. Now the scammers can even sound like your poor daughter in trouble who just needs $800 to get home!
posted by fight or flight at 12:19 PM on May 13 [18 favorites]
posted by fight or flight at 12:19 PM on May 13 [18 favorites]
Now the scammers can even sound like your poor daughter in trouble who just needs $800 to get home!
Scammers already do this with specialized tools. This and its ilk just lower the bar.
posted by lalochezia at 12:20 PM on May 13
Scammers already do this with specialized tools. This and its ilk just lower the bar.
posted by lalochezia at 12:20 PM on May 13
Thank you for this detailed post, Rhaomi. I'm traveling today and can't do the kind of research you did!
posted by doctornemo at 12:22 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 12:22 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
Apart from all the other issues: the way they kept cutting "her" off in the "recognize multiple speakers" video, and making "her" perform for them, didn't feel good to listen to.
posted by trig at 12:33 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]
posted by trig at 12:33 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]
still fails my test question on Germany and WW2, sigh
posted by torokunai at 12:47 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
posted by torokunai at 12:47 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
If it can't tell me why the porridge bird lays its eggs in the air, I don't want nothin' to do with it.
posted by grubi at 12:50 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
posted by grubi at 12:50 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
Oh good, fewer jobs for humans, more jobs for corporate-sponsored chatbots. I note there's no commentary on the implications for misinformation and the spreading of hate material.
Yes! Scribes are being put out of business! Any person will be able to publish whatever they want! Stop Gutenberg's madness before civilization ends!
Sorry, wrong moral panic.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:54 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]
Yes! Scribes are being put out of business! Any person will be able to publish whatever they want! Stop Gutenberg's madness before civilization ends!
Sorry, wrong moral panic.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:54 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]
Maybe this is something for a different thread, but I'm interested in how apps like Duolingo have incorporated AI in ways that are (according to native speakers of their various language learning tools) not quite accurate or tone-correct. This would seem to make Duolingo unusable, right?
It'll be interesting to see whether most people continue using a flawed language learning tool, learning/speaking/writing a language incorrectly (and then the language evolves as all languages do), or whether more traditional language learning companies like Rosetta see more growth from this. Or, now that the gamefied language learning tool is no longer any good, people (Americans in particular) stop learning a bit of Portuguese (etc.) on the side and retreat into more comfortable English-only content, and thus shrinking our worlds more and more.
posted by knotty knots at 12:55 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
It'll be interesting to see whether most people continue using a flawed language learning tool, learning/speaking/writing a language incorrectly (and then the language evolves as all languages do), or whether more traditional language learning companies like Rosetta see more growth from this. Or, now that the gamefied language learning tool is no longer any good, people (Americans in particular) stop learning a bit of Portuguese (etc.) on the side and retreat into more comfortable English-only content, and thus shrinking our worlds more and more.
posted by knotty knots at 12:55 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
Can we please move past this energy wasting techbro hype and nonsense.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:55 PM on May 13 [17 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:55 PM on May 13 [17 favorites]
Sorry, wrong moral panic
Of course automation and globalization did in fact totally shatter economies and towns as recently as the eighties and nineties, and many people whose careers had been built in those towns simply never got a good job again, especially middle aged people - it's grim up North, etc. Nobody wants a "retrained" fifty year old in a competitive environment.
posted by Frowner at 12:57 PM on May 13 [43 favorites]
Of course automation and globalization did in fact totally shatter economies and towns as recently as the eighties and nineties, and many people whose careers had been built in those towns simply never got a good job again, especially middle aged people - it's grim up North, etc. Nobody wants a "retrained" fifty year old in a competitive environment.
posted by Frowner at 12:57 PM on May 13 [43 favorites]
the offloading of most premium ChatGPT features to the free tier
Feeeed me humans
"GPT four-oh" is going to be less clever than hoped if everyone starts pronouncing it with tired resignation.
"GPT 4.....Oh."
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:57 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
Feeeed me humans
"GPT four-oh" is going to be less clever than hoped if everyone starts pronouncing it with tired resignation.
"GPT 4.....Oh."
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:57 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
This sounds amazi-- wait, nevermind.
For a moment I thought GPT-4o would address the ways AI produces many harms that do not have adequate anthropomorphic correlates, like its various complex modes of exacerbating economic inequality, the use of automated decision-making within systems of oppression (often understood as 'bias'), carbon and other environmental impacts of training and deploying AI, technological unemployment and harmful transformations of work, erosion of privacy and personal autonomy through increased surveillance and data exploitation, deskilling and loss of institutional knowledge due to AI outsourcing, challenges around opacity, interpretability, and accountability, further erosion of the public sphere through AI-generated disinformation, or and the implications of autonomous AI systems in warfare, healthcare, transport, and cybersecurity, among others.
My bad, must have misread. So nothing I would consider an improvement, I guess. Oh shucks.
(With apologies to Jo Walton, from whom I have copy-pasted this list almost verbatim. Are you interested in NOT giving creatives and authors proper credit? GPT-4o might be the thing for you!)
posted by bigendian at 12:57 PM on May 13 [15 favorites]
For a moment I thought GPT-4o would address the ways AI produces many harms that do not have adequate anthropomorphic correlates, like its various complex modes of exacerbating economic inequality, the use of automated decision-making within systems of oppression (often understood as 'bias'), carbon and other environmental impacts of training and deploying AI, technological unemployment and harmful transformations of work, erosion of privacy and personal autonomy through increased surveillance and data exploitation, deskilling and loss of institutional knowledge due to AI outsourcing, challenges around opacity, interpretability, and accountability, further erosion of the public sphere through AI-generated disinformation, or and the implications of autonomous AI systems in warfare, healthcare, transport, and cybersecurity, among others.
My bad, must have misread. So nothing I would consider an improvement, I guess. Oh shucks.
(With apologies to Jo Walton, from whom I have copy-pasted this list almost verbatim. Are you interested in NOT giving creatives and authors proper credit? GPT-4o might be the thing for you!)
posted by bigendian at 12:57 PM on May 13 [15 favorites]
still fails my test question on Germany and WW2, sigh
posted by torokunai
No current LLM is ever going to pass this, and you should probably let it go. You’re chatting with distilled word slurry that maintains the shape of answers, but unless a particular fact is repeated millions of times with 99% accuracy (eg what is the boiling point of water in Fahrenheit) in the training set, *shrug*, concrete facts just isn’t what LLMs do. You’re looking for an expert system that an LLM draws from, and recognizing when it needs to do so is a Hard Problem. Q*, which in theory might see a partial release with the model that finished training a month ago, may make some initial headway there. Maybe.
posted by Ryvar at 12:59 PM on May 13 [11 favorites]
posted by torokunai
No current LLM is ever going to pass this, and you should probably let it go. You’re chatting with distilled word slurry that maintains the shape of answers, but unless a particular fact is repeated millions of times with 99% accuracy (eg what is the boiling point of water in Fahrenheit) in the training set, *shrug*, concrete facts just isn’t what LLMs do. You’re looking for an expert system that an LLM draws from, and recognizing when it needs to do so is a Hard Problem. Q*, which in theory might see a partial release with the model that finished training a month ago, may make some initial headway there. Maybe.
posted by Ryvar at 12:59 PM on May 13 [11 favorites]
Apart from all the other issues: the way they kept cutting "her" off in the "recognize multiple speakers" video, and making "her" perform for them, didn't feel good to listen to.
100% this, especially when coupled with "her" relentless, bubbly positivity. It had an extremely creepy vibe made somehow worse by the clean-cut, generic young techlings doing the presentation.
posted by The Bellman at 1:03 PM on May 13 [8 favorites]
100% this, especially when coupled with "her" relentless, bubbly positivity. It had an extremely creepy vibe made somehow worse by the clean-cut, generic young techlings doing the presentation.
posted by The Bellman at 1:03 PM on May 13 [8 favorites]
I wonder what ChatGPT40's syllables per gallon rate is.
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:08 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:08 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
20 s/gal same as in town.
posted by emelenjr at 1:12 PM on May 13 [13 favorites]
posted by emelenjr at 1:12 PM on May 13 [13 favorites]
Apart from all the other issues: the way they kept cutting "her" off in the "recognize multiple speakers" video, and making "her" perform for them, didn't feel good to listen to.
It's really gross. Multiple studies and reports over the years have found that voice assistants reinforce harmful gender biases when they're given a female-presenting voice, enabling sexist abuse in users by responding to it with passiveness or even flirtation. A friend of mine did a PhD in interactive technologies (I forget what it was exactly) and as part of her studies she found a worrying number of people will casually throw out gendered insults and abuse at their Alexa/Siri.
Not that the tech bros in charge care about any of this. They're too busy making sure they can make deepfake AI sex workers who can't say "no".
posted by fight or flight at 1:14 PM on May 13 [17 favorites]
It's really gross. Multiple studies and reports over the years have found that voice assistants reinforce harmful gender biases when they're given a female-presenting voice, enabling sexist abuse in users by responding to it with passiveness or even flirtation. A friend of mine did a PhD in interactive technologies (I forget what it was exactly) and as part of her studies she found a worrying number of people will casually throw out gendered insults and abuse at their Alexa/Siri.
Not that the tech bros in charge care about any of this. They're too busy making sure they can make deepfake AI sex workers who can't say "no".
posted by fight or flight at 1:14 PM on May 13 [17 favorites]
Siri is terrible and anything that replaces it will be an improvement.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:15 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:15 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
natural gas, kerosene, diesel, gasoline, flex fuel, fryer oil, batteries and I think, water.
I think that covers the checker cab.
posted by clavdivs at 1:15 PM on May 13
I think that covers the checker cab.
posted by clavdivs at 1:15 PM on May 13
Sorry, wrong moral panic.
Lots of stupid moral police going on right now; concern at capitalism using this shit to mulch everything down to nothing sure isn’t one of them.
posted by Artw at 1:18 PM on May 13 [24 favorites]
Lots of stupid moral police going on right now; concern at capitalism using this shit to mulch everything down to nothing sure isn’t one of them.
posted by Artw at 1:18 PM on May 13 [24 favorites]
If anybody else has gotten a "sign up for voice-only authentication!" email from their financial institution, DO NOT OPT IN to it. Do not bet your savings that AI's vocal deepfakes can't fool the bank's authenticators.
This has been your AI-thread PSA.
posted by humbug at 1:21 PM on May 13 [21 favorites]
This has been your AI-thread PSA.
posted by humbug at 1:21 PM on May 13 [21 favorites]
Apart from all the other issues: the way they kept cutting "her" off in the "recognize multiple speakers" video, and making "her" perform for them, didn't feel good to listen to.
Holy shit this was bad. Who the hell greenlit this? It’s OpenAI, though, so… fuck ’em.
apologies to Jo Walton, from whom I have copy-pasted this list almost verbatim
I actually really like that list. As always: when and where possible, especially if you have any influence in organizational tech policy, please consider using open source / open weights AI models like Mixtral over ChatGPT. Same blanket copyright theft / unsanctioned use of training data as the major players? Oh yeah, totally - no getting around that currently. Keeps the means of production in the hands of workers and keeps your usage data out of the megacorps’ hands? Also yes.
Again, to be clear: I’m not saying it’s good, I’m saying it’s better, and while starving OpenAI may be impossible every penny that goes to small teams with open methods instead of them is better spent.
posted by Ryvar at 1:24 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
Holy shit this was bad. Who the hell greenlit this? It’s OpenAI, though, so… fuck ’em.
apologies to Jo Walton, from whom I have copy-pasted this list almost verbatim
I actually really like that list. As always: when and where possible, especially if you have any influence in organizational tech policy, please consider using open source / open weights AI models like Mixtral over ChatGPT. Same blanket copyright theft / unsanctioned use of training data as the major players? Oh yeah, totally - no getting around that currently. Keeps the means of production in the hands of workers and keeps your usage data out of the megacorps’ hands? Also yes.
Again, to be clear: I’m not saying it’s good, I’m saying it’s better, and while starving OpenAI may be impossible every penny that goes to small teams with open methods instead of them is better spent.
posted by Ryvar at 1:24 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
No current LLM is ever going to pass this, and you should probably let it go.
I dunno, I asked it "What country was the last one to declare war on Germany during World War II?" using the API with the default System message of "You are a helpful assistant." It responded, essentially, "Argentina was the last one, declaring war on Germany on March 27, 1945", which is what Wikipedia lists as the correct answer, as far as I can tell.
(Because this was asked via the API it won't be used to train future models, unlike ChatGPT interactions.)
posted by jedicus at 1:26 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
I dunno, I asked it "What country was the last one to declare war on Germany during World War II?" using the API with the default System message of "You are a helpful assistant." It responded, essentially, "Argentina was the last one, declaring war on Germany on March 27, 1945", which is what Wikipedia lists as the correct answer, as far as I can tell.
(Because this was asked via the API it won't be used to train future models, unlike ChatGPT interactions.)
posted by jedicus at 1:26 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
Not that the tech bros in charge care about any of this.
I honestly wonder (as I so often do with these guys) what he thinks that movie was about. How obvious do we have to be? What other faves does he have? Ex Machina? Terminator?
Is the next headline: "Altman Announces Skynet?"
posted by The Bellman at 1:27 PM on May 13 [10 favorites]
The assistant’s voice response bore a striking resemblance to the character Scarlett Johansson plays in the movie Her, where a man forms a relationship with a sophisticated AI assistant. After the event, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman cryptically posted just one word on X: "her." He has also expressed that Her is his favorite movie.(The Verge: ChatGPT will be able to talk to you like Scarlett Johansson in Her)
I honestly wonder (as I so often do with these guys) what he thinks that movie was about. How obvious do we have to be? What other faves does he have? Ex Machina? Terminator?
Is the next headline: "Altman Announces Skynet?"
posted by The Bellman at 1:27 PM on May 13 [10 favorites]
Sorry, wrong moral panic
Using the example, yes the printing press put many scribes out of business. A printing press could do the job of, say, 20 scribes per day? I’m sure with enough information one could figure this out.
How many writers, artists, assistants, telecom workers, etc. can AI do the work of? If you give me the number of workers per industry, I can make the calculation in about 1/2 a second.
posted by blairsyprofane at 1:29 PM on May 13
Using the example, yes the printing press put many scribes out of business. A printing press could do the job of, say, 20 scribes per day? I’m sure with enough information one could figure this out.
How many writers, artists, assistants, telecom workers, etc. can AI do the work of? If you give me the number of workers per industry, I can make the calculation in about 1/2 a second.
posted by blairsyprofane at 1:29 PM on May 13
My working assumption is that most tech bosses only watch the first half of the films they reference. It makes most of their decisions make a lot more sense.
posted by nangua at 1:29 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
posted by nangua at 1:29 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
I'm watching the live demo video where they demonstrate "talk mode".
I wonder how much of the "decreased latency" claim is being helped by inserting delays padded with human-esque responses to buy time for the back-end to finish processing ("Ahhhhh..." "I think I can see now...." "Let me see....").
posted by neuracnu at 1:35 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
I wonder how much of the "decreased latency" claim is being helped by inserting delays padded with human-esque responses to buy time for the back-end to finish processing ("Ahhhhh..." "I think I can see now...." "Let me see....").
posted by neuracnu at 1:35 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
The printing press also contributed significantly to a couple of hundred years of vicious civil and religious wars all over Europe, FWIW.
(Did it also have anything to do with the simultaneous degradation of living conditions for the average European over the next couple of hundred years to possibly their lowest level ever? Probably not, except perhaps indirectly via the aforementioned wars.)
posted by clawsoon at 1:40 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
(Did it also have anything to do with the simultaneous degradation of living conditions for the average European over the next couple of hundred years to possibly their lowest level ever? Probably not, except perhaps indirectly via the aforementioned wars.)
posted by clawsoon at 1:40 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
It is good to have machines do work that people could do, because it frees up people to do other things, both other work and leisure. (It's better to minimize rather than maximize work. See the "give them spoons" joke.)
In the short term, the transition can be incredibly destructive to the scribe or buggy-whip makers or lawyers.
In the long term, this can shift income and power from labor to capital.
Government will have little control over whether AI is developed. It may be able to control, to some extent, how it is regulated, and it can definitely affect how future income is distributed between different groups.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:42 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
In the short term, the transition can be incredibly destructive to the scribe or buggy-whip makers or lawyers.
In the long term, this can shift income and power from labor to capital.
Government will have little control over whether AI is developed. It may be able to control, to some extent, how it is regulated, and it can definitely affect how future income is distributed between different groups.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 1:42 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
Apparently a big bottleneck for programs that call themselves AI/LLM on iOS devices is a low level of RAM. Apple have been parsimonious with RAM in their devices forever, but the locked down nature of iPhones means that you haven’t noticed you’re running on a minuscule amount of RAM. I heard maybe the iPhone 15 pro is good to go for an LLM system, other phones… not so much.
posted by The River Ivel at 1:42 PM on May 13
posted by The River Ivel at 1:42 PM on May 13
I wonder how much of the "decreased latency" claim is being helped by inserting delays padded with human-esque responses to buy time for the back-end to finish processing ("Ahhhhh..." "I think I can see now...." "Let me see....").
I too am guilty of human-esque responses, if we are going by that measure. I celebrate the human-esque padding, it's all that gets me through some days
posted by elkevelvet at 1:45 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
I too am guilty of human-esque responses, if we are going by that measure. I celebrate the human-esque padding, it's all that gets me through some days
posted by elkevelvet at 1:45 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
>Government will have little control over whether AI is developed.
I haven't kept up on my cyberpunk reading since the early 90s, but sounds like a good plotpoint, capitalists trying to sneak in bootleg generative AI from Russia & Communist China to do jobs here in the US.
posted by torokunai at 1:48 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
I haven't kept up on my cyberpunk reading since the early 90s, but sounds like a good plotpoint, capitalists trying to sneak in bootleg generative AI from Russia & Communist China to do jobs here in the US.
posted by torokunai at 1:48 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
Sorry, wrong moral panic.
Citing Gutenberg as purely benign form of technological change is also a bit questionable. Did printing advance science? Sure. Did it make modernity possible? Yeah, probably. Did it also spread misinformation, fuel pamphlets wars, and play a contributing role in the violence which tore Europe apart over the next couple centuries? Yes to this too. People get very excited by the idea of "creative destruction", but again, I think that's only people who pay attention to the first half of the text.
posted by nangua at 1:51 PM on May 13 [13 favorites]
Citing Gutenberg as purely benign form of technological change is also a bit questionable. Did printing advance science? Sure. Did it make modernity possible? Yeah, probably. Did it also spread misinformation, fuel pamphlets wars, and play a contributing role in the violence which tore Europe apart over the next couple centuries? Yes to this too. People get very excited by the idea of "creative destruction", but again, I think that's only people who pay attention to the first half of the text.
posted by nangua at 1:51 PM on May 13 [13 favorites]
Mr.Know-it-some: It is good to have machines do work that people could do, because it frees up people to do other things, both other work and leisure. (It's better to minimize rather than maximize work. See the "give them spoons" joke.)
In theory that's true, although in practise over the past couple of hundred years there's always a group of people whose pace of work gets set by the most inefficient part of the production chain of the most productive machines.
A cotton gin was very productive, so slavery was needed to feed it. Canning, freezing and packing operations are very productive, so migrant farm labour is needed to feed it. Chip fabs are very productive, so vast armies of assembly plant workers are needed to digest what the fabs vomit out.
Instead of the machine feeding and freeing the people, it's as if people are fed to the machine.
They keep promising that one of these centuries the pattern will be reversed, but so far there are always those two (or a hundred) spots in the production chain that have to be filled with a mass of horribly paid, overworked, maltreated workers.
posted by clawsoon at 1:54 PM on May 13 [19 favorites]
In theory that's true, although in practise over the past couple of hundred years there's always a group of people whose pace of work gets set by the most inefficient part of the production chain of the most productive machines.
A cotton gin was very productive, so slavery was needed to feed it. Canning, freezing and packing operations are very productive, so migrant farm labour is needed to feed it. Chip fabs are very productive, so vast armies of assembly plant workers are needed to digest what the fabs vomit out.
Instead of the machine feeding and freeing the people, it's as if people are fed to the machine.
They keep promising that one of these centuries the pattern will be reversed, but so far there are always those two (or a hundred) spots in the production chain that have to be filled with a mass of horribly paid, overworked, maltreated workers.
posted by clawsoon at 1:54 PM on May 13 [19 favorites]
elkevelvet: I too am guilty of human-esque responses, if we are going by that measure. I celebrate the human-esque padding, it's all that gets me through some days
From "I'm Glad My Mom Died": "His gestures are as exact as his phrasing—no uhhs or umms, in speech or in mannerisms. This is an umless man. I respect him. It takes a lot to be an umless man."
posted by clawsoon at 1:56 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
From "I'm Glad My Mom Died": "His gestures are as exact as his phrasing—no uhhs or umms, in speech or in mannerisms. This is an umless man. I respect him. It takes a lot to be an umless man."
posted by clawsoon at 1:56 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
You can’t spell “human” without um!
posted by mbrubeck at 2:07 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
What other faves does he have? Ex Machina? Terminator?Valve Software: “In our game Portal we invented GLaDOS as a cautionary tale”…
posted by mbrubeck at 2:07 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
Citing Gutenberg as purely benign form of technological change is also a bit questionable. Did printing advance science? Sure. Did it make modernity possible? Yeah, probably. Did it also spread misinformation, fuel pamphlets wars, and play a contributing role in the violence which tore Europe apart over the next couple centuries? Yes to this too.
Yes, that was the point of referencing Gutenberg.
It would be possible to go on and on about all of the horrible things that the printing press made possible. You could live your life in fear of it, reacting to each improvement with vitriolic screeds (probably printed) about how it would oppress the weak, ruin morals, and result in the death of millions.
But, if you look at all of the good it has done it becomes a much much more complicated issue. Taking a staunch position for the Printing Press or against the Printing Press and shouting out loudly whenever it is mentioned is self-indulgent silliness.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:21 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
Yes, that was the point of referencing Gutenberg.
It would be possible to go on and on about all of the horrible things that the printing press made possible. You could live your life in fear of it, reacting to each improvement with vitriolic screeds (probably printed) about how it would oppress the weak, ruin morals, and result in the death of millions.
But, if you look at all of the good it has done it becomes a much much more complicated issue. Taking a staunch position for the Printing Press or against the Printing Press and shouting out loudly whenever it is mentioned is self-indulgent silliness.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:21 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
Yes! Scribes are being put out of business!
You joke, but I work in health care. Where I work we are testing "AI Supported" documentation. That is, the provider places their phone between then and the patient and press record. When they are done with the visit, they press stop. In less than two minutes, the documentation is in the patient's chart. Who did this before? People who's job title is literally "Medical Scribe".
So, yeah. People are going to lose jobs over this.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 2:25 PM on May 13 [8 favorites]
You joke, but I work in health care. Where I work we are testing "AI Supported" documentation. That is, the provider places their phone between then and the patient and press record. When they are done with the visit, they press stop. In less than two minutes, the documentation is in the patient's chart. Who did this before? People who's job title is literally "Medical Scribe".
So, yeah. People are going to lose jobs over this.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 2:25 PM on May 13 [8 favorites]
anything that replaces it will be an improvement.
When will people learn the rules of the Monkey's Paw Timeline we almost certainly inhabit
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:36 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
When will people learn the rules of the Monkey's Paw Timeline we almost certainly inhabit
posted by Jon Mitchell at 2:36 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
Oooh I love this Gutenberg de-rail! It sure beats another hand-wringing "oh no AI is going to ruin everything" discussion going over the same tired old ground. (And too bad; GPT-4o looks like a nice enhancement and this post is comprehensive. If you read the links you might learn something!)
To that end, David d'Angers monument to Gutenberg at the Place Gutenburg in Strasbourg. It includes a plaque of jaw-dropping iconography (CW: racism, colonialism) depicting elegantly dressed Europeans standing over a throng of naked, fawningly grateful Africans. A printing press is in the middle, the source of Europe's gifts.
The Asia and America plaques are also like this; the general theme is that the printing press allowed Europe to bring "civilization" to the rest of the world. The sheer irony of claiming that cultural primacy over Asia, the actual place of invention of movable type, is not reflected in the 19th c. European artwork.
More in this journal article, also on sci-hub. Much like AI, the printing press is a technological invention delivering both blessings and curses. It can print declarations of freedom for all people. It also prints contracts of enslavement and exploitation.
May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins.
posted by Nelson at 2:37 PM on May 13 [6 favorites]
To that end, David d'Angers monument to Gutenberg at the Place Gutenburg in Strasbourg. It includes a plaque of jaw-dropping iconography (CW: racism, colonialism) depicting elegantly dressed Europeans standing over a throng of naked, fawningly grateful Africans. A printing press is in the middle, the source of Europe's gifts.
The Asia and America plaques are also like this; the general theme is that the printing press allowed Europe to bring "civilization" to the rest of the world. The sheer irony of claiming that cultural primacy over Asia, the actual place of invention of movable type, is not reflected in the 19th c. European artwork.
More in this journal article, also on sci-hub. Much like AI, the printing press is a technological invention delivering both blessings and curses. It can print declarations of freedom for all people. It also prints contracts of enslavement and exploitation.
May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins.
posted by Nelson at 2:37 PM on May 13 [6 favorites]
still fails my test question on Germany and WW2, sigh
Fuckin’ wild that we treat this like the Omni future.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:41 PM on May 13
Fuckin’ wild that we treat this like the Omni future.
posted by Going To Maine at 2:41 PM on May 13
You joke, but I work in health care. Where I work we are testing "AI Supported" documentation. That is, the provider places their phone between then and the patient and press record. When they are done with the visit, they press stop. In less than two minutes, the documentation is in the patient's chart. Who did this before? People who's job title is literally "Medical Scribe".
Interesting example given that a local hospital was the victim of a cyber attack and now they can't get to their digital files and can only work with patients whose files they have secured locally.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:53 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
And there is lots of other scribing that is being lost. I worked for about a decade on a medical device, a vital signs monitor. The device had no readable "face". I pumped all the signs to my PC program, and displayed it. Then the nurse would click a button, get authorized, and submit it directly into the hospital's medical record system. We kept those nurses from having to transcribe and often make mistakes. But did we help them? Now that this thing was a part of their job is now pretty seamless, maybe the hospital starts reducing the nursing staff? Had never thought about our helpful device might have been harmful. And boy howdy do we need more nurses. Waking up at midnight with the damned antibiotic infuser blocked, and alarming, and hitting the "Nurse" button and explaining the situation. And then it's 45 minuites before they come in and silence it and get it unblocked and running again. And then it goes empty and starts alarming again. Rinse and repeat
Spending way too much time with doctors in the last year and a half, at least here in Seattle, EPIC has won. Everywhere uses it. I think we only interfaced with EPIC once, and it was pretty gruesome to deal with. They did a good job of walling off their garden.
If all the AI could give us the leisure that was promised about all these techs improving our lives, instead of just being the wealth extraction we all know it will turn out to be...
posted by Windopaene at 2:55 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
Spending way too much time with doctors in the last year and a half, at least here in Seattle, EPIC has won. Everywhere uses it. I think we only interfaced with EPIC once, and it was pretty gruesome to deal with. They did a good job of walling off their garden.
If all the AI could give us the leisure that was promised about all these techs improving our lives, instead of just being the wealth extraction we all know it will turn out to be...
posted by Windopaene at 2:55 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
Valve Software: “In our game Portal we invented GLaDOS as a cautionary tale”…
Altman: "I am proud to introduce OpenAI's new CEO, Cave Johnson . . . "
posted by The Bellman at 3:09 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
Altman: "I am proud to introduce OpenAI's new CEO, Cave Johnson . . . "
posted by The Bellman at 3:09 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
ChatGPT will be able to talk to you like Scarlett Johansson in Her
Meh. Make it talk like Ambassador Kosh.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:14 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
Meh. Make it talk like Ambassador Kosh.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:14 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
I work in health care. Where I work we are testing "AI Supported" documentation.
*inadvertently creates redheaded whiteguyblink.gif* …I’m sorry, but in what fucking universe is that HIPAA compliant? Because I would bet $100 they aren’t running a speech-to-text model inhouse on local hardware.
Apparently a big bottleneck for programs that call themselves AI/LLM on iOS devices is a low level of RAM.
Correct. When you see AI model names like llama2-70b or Mixtral 8x7b or llama3-8b, that’s “b” as in “billions” of parameters. Gross simplification: parameters are the weights (multiply to adjust strength) and biases (add/subtract to offset weighted inputs) of the individual neural connections between layers.
Single-precision floating point values like 0.1387123 are 32-bit, or four bytes (=roughly 7 useful decimal digits in base 10), so you generally expect an 8b parameter model to require 32GB of VRAM on the GPU. Models can quantized which means reduced from 32-bit single precision to 16-bit half-floats or even 8-bits to fit on consumer GPUs. So the recent llama3-8b model at half precision takes up more or less 16GB of VRAM, which after factoring in some overhead plus the memory being used by your actual OS desktop fits comfortably within the 24GB of an RTX 4090, the current top of the line gaming GPU.
There’s a deep irony here with Apple because the Mac Pro M2 Ultras and Macbook Pro M3 Max CPUs also contain integrated GPUs (roughly equiv to a 4070 Ti), but with the system RAM as a shared VRAM memory pool (~70% of which is accessible to the iGPU). For very large models like llama2-70b in 8-bit quantization a 128GB Macbook Pro will *smoke* a godtier gaming rig’s RTX 4090, which has to drop back to CPU and system RAM.
Basically Apple desktops occupy a weird best/worst hardware spot for certain specific very large models. With iOS I believe they’ll be pushing heavily on mixture of experts models with many small subnetworks + aggressive quantization, but even then I wouldn’t expect magic. It’ll be rough going on mobile for a while yet.
posted by Ryvar at 3:16 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
*inadvertently creates redheaded whiteguyblink.gif* …I’m sorry, but in what fucking universe is that HIPAA compliant? Because I would bet $100 they aren’t running a speech-to-text model inhouse on local hardware.
Apparently a big bottleneck for programs that call themselves AI/LLM on iOS devices is a low level of RAM.
Correct. When you see AI model names like llama2-70b or Mixtral 8x7b or llama3-8b, that’s “b” as in “billions” of parameters. Gross simplification: parameters are the weights (multiply to adjust strength) and biases (add/subtract to offset weighted inputs) of the individual neural connections between layers.
Single-precision floating point values like 0.1387123 are 32-bit, or four bytes (=roughly 7 useful decimal digits in base 10), so you generally expect an 8b parameter model to require 32GB of VRAM on the GPU. Models can quantized which means reduced from 32-bit single precision to 16-bit half-floats or even 8-bits to fit on consumer GPUs. So the recent llama3-8b model at half precision takes up more or less 16GB of VRAM, which after factoring in some overhead plus the memory being used by your actual OS desktop fits comfortably within the 24GB of an RTX 4090, the current top of the line gaming GPU.
There’s a deep irony here with Apple because the Mac Pro M2 Ultras and Macbook Pro M3 Max CPUs also contain integrated GPUs (roughly equiv to a 4070 Ti), but with the system RAM as a shared VRAM memory pool (~70% of which is accessible to the iGPU). For very large models like llama2-70b in 8-bit quantization a 128GB Macbook Pro will *smoke* a godtier gaming rig’s RTX 4090, which has to drop back to CPU and system RAM.
Basically Apple desktops occupy a weird best/worst hardware spot for certain specific very large models. With iOS I believe they’ll be pushing heavily on mixture of experts models with many small subnetworks + aggressive quantization, but even then I wouldn’t expect magic. It’ll be rough going on mobile for a while yet.
posted by Ryvar at 3:16 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
Lots of stupid moral police going on right now; concern at capitalism using this shit to mulch everything down to nothing sure isn’t one of them.I think it’s also really important to consider the difference between jobs being lost because something better comes along versus because something tolerable is much cheaper. Chatbots are a great example because the experience is universally worse but because it allows companies not to hire so many people means that you are increasingly unlikely to be able to use anything else. Printing presses were bad for high-art manuscripts but great from the perspective of everyone who wanted to read or sell more books. Some AI uses are really useful – transcription and translation come to mind - but a lot of the other stuff is simply a race to the bottom once the quality level is better than unacceptable.
All of this calls for some social policy to do things like taxing the owners of the machines at rates at least as high as their former employees paid but that seems politically unlikely given the current environment. I’m slightly more optimistic that there’d be political support for requiring companies to identify AI interfaces and require some kind of alternative since few voters like infuriating customer service experiences but I’m expecting some big PR campaigns arguing that providing support like they did in 2024 would bankrupt utilities, airlines, etc. and we just have to accept worse service for the sake of our 401ks.
posted by adamsc at 3:18 PM on May 13 [5 favorites]
> It also prints contracts of enslavement and exploitation.
Hearst made lampshades out of these (no joke . . . I spotted that on my visit to Hearst Castle)
posted by torokunai at 3:19 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
Hearst made lampshades out of these (no joke . . . I spotted that on my visit to Hearst Castle)
posted by torokunai at 3:19 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
in what fucking universe is that HIPAA compliant
this one.
What is the Difference Between a Data Use Agreement and a Business Associate Agreement?
(one compliance company's explainer)
Are your data processing agreements HIPAA-compliant?
(another's)
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:29 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
this one.
What is the Difference Between a Data Use Agreement and a Business Associate Agreement?
(one compliance company's explainer)
Are your data processing agreements HIPAA-compliant?
(another's)
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:29 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
Now I am Informed But Unsatisfied.
posted by Ryvar at 3:35 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]
posted by Ryvar at 3:35 PM on May 13 [7 favorites]
Rather than the Gutenberg Press, a more relevant historical analogy might be horses and motor vehicles. Once there was a replacement for horses that was faster/stronger/cheaper/less finicky, and the horse's labor was no longer needed, the excess horses were turned into glue.
Good news is that after a few decades the horse population made a partial recovery as show animals for the idle rich:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-the-horse-population-in-France-from-1800-to-2010-translated-from-French_fig1_338480301
Hopefully us proles will be similarly successful in the long run.
posted by Balna Watya at 3:47 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
Good news is that after a few decades the horse population made a partial recovery as show animals for the idle rich:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evolution-of-the-horse-population-in-France-from-1800-to-2010-translated-from-French_fig1_338480301
Hopefully us proles will be similarly successful in the long run.
posted by Balna Watya at 3:47 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
So, yeah. People are going to lose jobs over this.
And imagine the forests we will lose over this. And the land to sea rise? Maybe there should be an energy tax to the transactions. Like, if each AI interaction cost the company a couple of bucks for the carbon emissions, would they be so hell bent on deploying it?
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:50 PM on May 13
And imagine the forests we will lose over this. And the land to sea rise? Maybe there should be an energy tax to the transactions. Like, if each AI interaction cost the company a couple of bucks for the carbon emissions, would they be so hell bent on deploying it?
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:50 PM on May 13
roughly equiv to a 4070 Ti
I’m pretty sure even the M3 Max GPU benchmarks closer to 3080 level? Also while they have great memory bandwidth by system RAM standards, it’s not that high by GPU standards? So there’s a tradeoff of some performance versus the possibilities enabled by the large amount of memory available and the lack of physical separation between VRAM and system RAM.
posted by atoxyl at 3:51 PM on May 13
I’m pretty sure even the M3 Max GPU benchmarks closer to 3080 level? Also while they have great memory bandwidth by system RAM standards, it’s not that high by GPU standards? So there’s a tradeoff of some performance versus the possibilities enabled by the large amount of memory available and the lack of physical separation between VRAM and system RAM.
posted by atoxyl at 3:51 PM on May 13
metafilter: Informed but Unsatisfied
posted by sixswitch at 3:56 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
posted by sixswitch at 3:56 PM on May 13 [2 favorites]
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
--R. Brautigan
posted by chavenet at 4:17 PM on May 13
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
--R. Brautigan
posted by chavenet at 4:17 PM on May 13
IMO the scribes vs Gutenberg : humans vs AI is a false analogy
scribes can check the content they are creating and a human wrote whatever got printed
now Chat GPT pulls bullshit out of thin air, wearing a bikini and waggling its ass, but its still bullshit and hallucinations
this might work for a pretty picture or two but unless those AI chat bots clean up their act, the corporations aren't going to continue buying them
or as someone said, I wonder why the user numbers are still stuck at 100K
posted by infini at 4:20 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
scribes can check the content they are creating and a human wrote whatever got printed
now Chat GPT pulls bullshit out of thin air, wearing a bikini and waggling its ass, but its still bullshit and hallucinations
this might work for a pretty picture or two but unless those AI chat bots clean up their act, the corporations aren't going to continue buying them
or as someone said, I wonder why the user numbers are still stuck at 100K
posted by infini at 4:20 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
Like, if each AI interaction cost the company a couple of bucks for the carbon emissions, would they be so hell bent on deploying it?
GPT-4o API usage is priced at $15/million output tokens, half of the figure for the previous GPT-4 version. That only provides a sliver of insight into what it costs them to run it because I suspect they are still okay with losing a fair amount of money, but
a.) it does suggest that they are engineering for efficiency at least, it’s not like Bitcoin where it is expressly designed to waste energy
b.) I think a literal couple of bucks per request would imply a tax on electricity that dwarfs the current market price, which would have bigger-than-AI implications to say the least.
posted by atoxyl at 4:27 PM on May 13
GPT-4o API usage is priced at $15/million output tokens, half of the figure for the previous GPT-4 version. That only provides a sliver of insight into what it costs them to run it because I suspect they are still okay with losing a fair amount of money, but
a.) it does suggest that they are engineering for efficiency at least, it’s not like Bitcoin where it is expressly designed to waste energy
b.) I think a literal couple of bucks per request would imply a tax on electricity that dwarfs the current market price, which would have bigger-than-AI implications to say the least.
posted by atoxyl at 4:27 PM on May 13
Soooo... I have been solidly in the "this is crap" camp, in between two super excited coworkers, and... the discourse around LLMs and GANs is so polarized that I'm not able to find discussion that explores the bits of it that might be interesting or useful.
I thus far haven't been too worried about LLMs impacting my livelihood (I work in software) just because programmers who use CoPilot seem to turn out a lot of crap, and as much as "ship it fast" is totally a thing, that crap is gonna catch up with development processes that use it, and, as some wag observed, "all we have to do is to get our managers to concisely and unambiguously describe the requirements to the LLM".
I'm seeing a bunch of people use LLMs instead of search results, and I suspect that'll continue until a few people get even more screwed by confidently asserted bullshit. I've seen a gazillion demos of "virtual assistants", usually in conjunction with some overpriced piece of crappy hardware that gets a bunch of views, but as soon as it gets in people's hands it's plain that the assistant feature sucks, and the crappy hardware was misdirection to get people to look past that the hard problem hasn't been solved.
Thus so far the only real use I've found for these things seem to be as a teddy bear, as in "before you bother me for help, you have to explain your problem to the teddy bear" solving 99% of interruptions.
What I'd love to find is discourse with people who aren't philosophically opposed to the concepts of automation (yes, I know, there are political problems to solve, there are always political problems) but who don't credulously look at these obviously staged up demos and say "OMG this is amaaaazing!!1!".
That those folks seem to be limited to... I dunno, maybe Simon WIllison? ... makes me think that there's more bullshit here than value. But I keep trying to find it, because if it really is as shitty as my experience of it, there are a whole lot of people out there way more gullible than I'd hoped the masses of humanity are. Even with the available evidence.
posted by straw at 4:32 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
I thus far haven't been too worried about LLMs impacting my livelihood (I work in software) just because programmers who use CoPilot seem to turn out a lot of crap, and as much as "ship it fast" is totally a thing, that crap is gonna catch up with development processes that use it, and, as some wag observed, "all we have to do is to get our managers to concisely and unambiguously describe the requirements to the LLM".
I'm seeing a bunch of people use LLMs instead of search results, and I suspect that'll continue until a few people get even more screwed by confidently asserted bullshit. I've seen a gazillion demos of "virtual assistants", usually in conjunction with some overpriced piece of crappy hardware that gets a bunch of views, but as soon as it gets in people's hands it's plain that the assistant feature sucks, and the crappy hardware was misdirection to get people to look past that the hard problem hasn't been solved.
Thus so far the only real use I've found for these things seem to be as a teddy bear, as in "before you bother me for help, you have to explain your problem to the teddy bear" solving 99% of interruptions.
What I'd love to find is discourse with people who aren't philosophically opposed to the concepts of automation (yes, I know, there are political problems to solve, there are always political problems) but who don't credulously look at these obviously staged up demos and say "OMG this is amaaaazing!!1!".
That those folks seem to be limited to... I dunno, maybe Simon WIllison? ... makes me think that there's more bullshit here than value. But I keep trying to find it, because if it really is as shitty as my experience of it, there are a whole lot of people out there way more gullible than I'd hoped the masses of humanity are. Even with the available evidence.
posted by straw at 4:32 PM on May 13 [3 favorites]
straw: because if it really is as shitty as my experience of it, there are a whole lot of people out there way more gullible than I'd hoped the masses of humanity are.
I've still got my money on AI founding a religion.
posted by clawsoon at 4:52 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
I've still got my money on AI founding a religion.
posted by clawsoon at 4:52 PM on May 13 [4 favorites]
I read Power and Progress a few months ago, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in making sure that this technology is deployed for the benefit of all. Bemoaning it won't stop it, go read Homo Deus if you need another history lesson.
I'd also rec this interview with Salim Ismail, now is the time to build alternatives that can keep up with this tech, our antiquated governance systems aren't going to cut it and we need alternatives that can keep up.
As someone who is actively building AI tools (right now I'm working on deploying LLMs to labor unions for help with the grievance process), I'm generally excited about this and am already planning on how my next sprint is going to incorporate these new capabilities. Case in point: The Dept of Veterans Affairs is actually wrapping up their first Challenge.org tech sprint on how to 'reduce provider burnout using AI. I'm giving labor these tools and levelling the playing ground. That's is what we need.
My ex-boss sent me some post about how much energy LLMs use; my response is the same w/r/t bitcoin: every technological advancement in human history generally harnesses exponentially more amount of power, and I've stopped thinking this is a bad thing in general, but eventually moves toward more renewable energy.
We are seriously on the cusp of the most significant technological revolution in human history. I am optimistic (I'm using Iain M. Bank's Culture series as a desired outcome here), and yes, I recognize that there's going to be disruption that can make Globalization look passe, so my MTB right now is making sure these dark ages pass as quickly as possible.
Call it my Foundation thesis.
posted by daHIFI at 5:07 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
I'd also rec this interview with Salim Ismail, now is the time to build alternatives that can keep up with this tech, our antiquated governance systems aren't going to cut it and we need alternatives that can keep up.
As someone who is actively building AI tools (right now I'm working on deploying LLMs to labor unions for help with the grievance process), I'm generally excited about this and am already planning on how my next sprint is going to incorporate these new capabilities. Case in point: The Dept of Veterans Affairs is actually wrapping up their first Challenge.org tech sprint on how to 'reduce provider burnout using AI. I'm giving labor these tools and levelling the playing ground. That's is what we need.
My ex-boss sent me some post about how much energy LLMs use; my response is the same w/r/t bitcoin: every technological advancement in human history generally harnesses exponentially more amount of power, and I've stopped thinking this is a bad thing in general, but eventually moves toward more renewable energy.
We are seriously on the cusp of the most significant technological revolution in human history. I am optimistic (I'm using Iain M. Bank's Culture series as a desired outcome here), and yes, I recognize that there's going to be disruption that can make Globalization look passe, so my MTB right now is making sure these dark ages pass as quickly as possible.
Call it my Foundation thesis.
posted by daHIFI at 5:07 PM on May 13 [1 favorite]
Thus so far the only real use I've found for these things seem to be as a teddy bear, as in "before you bother me for help, you have to explain your problem to the teddy bear" solving 99% of interruptions.
I get some use out of them at this weird intersection of teddy bear/rubber duck, search, and Stack Overflow. You certainly can’t take them as authoritative - GPT-4o got a small but significant detail of the very first thing I threw at it, a technical question I’d recently researched in some depth, wrong - but you can get pointed in the general direction of an answer a lot faster than present-day google*, you can get working solutions to many small, well-defined problems readymade, and since it’s a back-and-forth interaction it can help you talk yourself through figuring things out.
* of course this one might represent the decline of search as much as it represents innovation in language modeling
posted by atoxyl at 5:09 PM on May 13
I get some use out of them at this weird intersection of teddy bear/rubber duck, search, and Stack Overflow. You certainly can’t take them as authoritative - GPT-4o got a small but significant detail of the very first thing I threw at it, a technical question I’d recently researched in some depth, wrong - but you can get pointed in the general direction of an answer a lot faster than present-day google*, you can get working solutions to many small, well-defined problems readymade, and since it’s a back-and-forth interaction it can help you talk yourself through figuring things out.
* of course this one might represent the decline of search as much as it represents innovation in language modeling
posted by atoxyl at 5:09 PM on May 13
There’s a deep irony here with Apple because the Mac Pro M2 Ultras and Macbook Pro M3 Max CPUs also contain integrated GPUs (roughly equiv to a 4070 Ti),
Apple Silicon M3 Pro competes with Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU in AI benchmark [u]
Tl;dr: basically, Apple has code optimization work to do to get to Nvidia-level performance, but its chips are already fast and use an order of magnitude less electricity.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:22 PM on May 13
Apple Silicon M3 Pro competes with Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU in AI benchmark [u]
Tl;dr: basically, Apple has code optimization work to do to get to Nvidia-level performance, but its chips are already fast and use an order of magnitude less electricity.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:22 PM on May 13
They sucked his brains out!: Tl;dr: basically, Apple has code optimization work to do to get to Nvidia-level performance, but its chips are already fast and use an order of magnitude less electricity.
Until you scroll down and read the update to the post...
posted by clawsoon at 5:32 PM on May 13
Until you scroll down and read the update to the post...
posted by clawsoon at 5:32 PM on May 13
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posted by lalochezia at 12:16 PM on May 13 [17 favorites]