People totally do want to offload the drudgery. That's why there is such a thing as dishwashers, and why OpenAI has 90 million users. But they also want the drudgery to be done reliably and not require as much work checking as it would have doing it in the first place.
I disagree. In college, I worked at a bagel shop, and one of my favorite parts of the job was washing the dishes and cleaning the equipment. It was incredibly therapeutic to have my headphones on, listening to music, and think about whatever, while also getting paid to clean.
I do use my dishwasher at home, and I love that dishwasher. However, I also cook and I want to get to bed at a reasonable hour.
Funny enough, I have come across many people in my life who usually only use their dishwashers as drying racks. It's a bit odd whenever I see it, but I get it.
So, people DO like drudgery. People even seek out drudgery. There is no one-size-fits-all of what it means to live a life, and as the article states, the biggest problem for adoption is that AI is so flattening as product.
A million percent. I would love to offload the shit parts of SWE to a model. But models are wildly unreliable (hallucination rates are sky high, insignificant differences in prompts create hugely different output, etc) so I can't trust them to do it.
My job is to improve workflows with automation and analysis, I preach progress, but in my daily life I enjoy shifting gears in my ice car, taking time to make a coffee, developing photos from an analogue camera, listening to music on physical media, all things that could be automated away...if we read stories for the ending we could flip to the last page and get it.
There are a lot of managers out there (my own included) that would automate every aspect of their own life just so they can sit around and wait for death, and assume that is what everyone else wants.
A poorly thought, as a result, a poorly-written article. Almost everyone wants to automate away the boring parts of their work and life. The author created a strawman, but that is not what AI is ("Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and it shouldn’t be.")
> A poorly thought, as a result, a poorly-written article. Almost everyone wants to automate away the boring parts of their work and life.
mm, the fact that you disagree with the article doesn't make it poorly written.
In my experience no, there are significant limits to how much automation the average person wants in their life. Even if automating something would save time, doing so could be undesirable due to other metrics such as correctness, cost, latency, flexibility, or cognitive load.
> The author created a strawman, but that is not what AI is ("Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and it shouldn’t be.")
In context, what you've quoted there is not the creation of a strawman. In fact you yourself seem to have constructed a strawman out of the article.
I've been listening to the Verge podcast and I've listened to Nillay refine this article piece by piece for weeks. He had the headline in mind for a long time and I've heard most of the points addressed in this article. It's now interesting to see all that distilled into this single article.
It's definitely not poorly thought out article. People want to automate away the boring parts of their work and life but, as the meme says, people want AI to do their dishes and laundry so they can do writing and art but instead AI does their writing and art so they can do the laundry.
I'm not sure what you think the straw man is here. I think he already addresses this in the article: "I’m not saying regular people don’t use Excel or Airtable to plan their weddings or have fun throwing PowerPoint parties, or even that AI won’t be useful to regular people over time [...] Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and shouldn’t be."
Personally, it depends. If I could automate taking the trash out, I would do probably want to do it (not sure though). But what remains when everything is automated ?
Well, so far we have been automating many things, and we are still busy working and living as always. It's of course impossible to automate everything - we always have things to do, by necessity by also by choice ; do we really want to be idle and contribute nothing to society ? I don't, and I am sure nobody does. Being useful is an essential need.
Is it pointless then, to automate more and more ? No. It's a way to move forward, and not necessarily a "bad" way. Just not the only way.
I want us to automate food production and distribution. I want us to automate creation of building materials and creation of buildings. I want us to automate power generation, and see the marginal cost of power drop to zero. I want us to automate clean transport. I want us to automate cleaning up the planet.
Beyond the face that these are all already highly automated, this isn't what TFA is saying. People aren't angry there are planting machines or whatever; they're angry they're forced to forego anything you can't put in a DB, like their jobs or the texture of their lives. Ironically, you have a huge case of software brain.
Ahh yes. AI is polling worse than ICE. Doesn't mean much since ICE would be polling quite well with much of the country. Typical low-quality journalism.
I want to automate scientific research. There are too many problems, too much data and not enough scientists. We could find cures to cancer, rare genetic diseases, new forms of energy, better batteries, better every thing.
Take finding cures for cancer. You could automate finding the drug candidates, automate the manufacture of the experiment and preparing the drug candidates, automate the testing and automate the analysis on a massive scale. The limit won't be the number of scientists but physical barriers like energy and materials.
Automation has the potential to make us lead wonderful lives and we should not deny that from happening. The implementation matters though. There is going to be massive disruption to society and that needs to be handled carefully.
> The simplest definition I’ve come up with is that it’s when you see the whole world as a series of databases that can be controlled with the structured language of software code.
This is sophomoric. This person is the "editor in chief" and I'm guessing that no one had the job security to tell them that this article was silly on the face of it.
The title is good rage bait: "People Do Not Yearn for Automation". Obviously false, and it draws in the readers that want to say "Nuh uh!".
But the meat of the article is on how the seeming disconnect between technological elites and other people has lead to them touting AI when they should consider other alternatives.
This premise is shown to be dubious by a statistics in the article:
> In fact, the polling on this is so strong, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people hate AI ...
> That’s with nearly two thirds of respondents saying they used ChatGPT or Copilot in the last month.
So, a simple question, why are so many people using something they claim to hate? Doesn't that spark a bit of interest in the author? No? They would very much like to blame industry leaders, rather than take a more nuanced view.
That said industry leaders suck. They seem to entertain magical thinking that AI will somehow replace labour. And they seem to deploy it with that end in mind. That's a stupid thing to do, but they have the money so they make the rules.
But this idea that they have "software brain" is just laughable.
> You can’t advertise people out of reacting to their own experiences.
This article is the first that I’ve seen that hits on a theme I’ve been pondering for a long time. And that is that everyone super bullish on AI assumes that there are enormous real world gains to be had by existing companies automating software tasks- building software, using software- essentially moving bits around. I’ve been very skeptical of this.
We’ve had the ability to automate work between systems with bots and even regular jobs that automate certain repetitive tasks with APIs for years. Yet there’s been a relatively small uptake of bots and there is still a very large market for vendors an SIs who can improve existing processes.
I think it’s pretty clear why this disconnect exists between “regular people” and the people Patel describes as having software brain. And that is that the nature of LLMs is that they are limited to the digital world. At the core they really only do one thing and that is take some text, overlay it with digital representations of the world and try and find the one that most closely matches.
The inborn assumption is that they will get better and better and climb the corporate ladder, starting in the call center but climbing the corporate ladder to replace everyone’s jobs like Michael J Fox in the Secret of my Succcess. But I’m skeptical. Automation always starts in call central customer service use cases because that is one of the few use cases where humans are involved, they are supposed to follow a script, and take actions entirely inside software applications. But it always seems to stall out. Because once you move from jobs where a script can be provided to ones where ambiguity is a constant factor and judgments and decisions have to made that don’t have exact precedents you need humans. LLMs are backwards looking. Humans can consider things that have happened previously as guidance but critically, can also imagine a future state where things operate differently all why considering multiple competing factors, all of which are unique to that situation. They don’t always do it well but LLMs are incapable of doing it in any case.
People hate AI because it doesn’t really do that much for a regular person, is massively hyped by people who look shadier and less credible by the day and has some vague threat of destroying civilization or at least making you homeless.
But- I have zero doubt that if these same companies did actually excel at providing real world value, nobody would care about the negative implications. For example if they produced robots that could automate aspects of your life like cleaning your house, getting your groceries and doing it very inexpensively, I have no doubt the popularity would be off the charts and a bona fide bubble would ensue.
This is plainly true. First off, Waymo is one of the few companies successfully using AI to operate real world objects at enormous complexity and risk. Talk to anyone who just used Waymo for the first time and they will be almost euphoric. It’s amazing technology with overwhelming utility. There are also several examples of companies with less than stellar images who consumers were told they should boycott but most users couldn’t have cared less. Uber in its earlier days and Facebook coming out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal come to mind.
intermitent wipers IS automation , and it fails every single time it is used. Causing distraction and exasperation.
This is no cutsey joke, it is a simple strait forward absolute test and proof, the day there are 100% perfect and reliable intermitent wipers that never make things worse, then we can talk about automation.
Next up, folding chairs and tables, go ahead, you and ALL the ai, design something that is easy, self evident, and will eliminate the significant number of people sitting, now, in a hospital waiting area to get a finger looked at. PROVE IT , NOW!
Simple eh?, nope !, applied geometry and routine tasks,many thousands of things that are never quite right and need to monitored adjusted, calibrated, repaired, replaced, and reinvented,figured out, explained, trained and everything else!, go ahead, you and AI fix one thing in such a way as to cause total wide spread adoption of your refinement and the worlds little sigh of relief from knowing that something works right, everytime is yours.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 68.9 ms ] threadPeople don't care about the tech, they care about the second-order effects like cheaper prices, and more flexibility.
Also, the article is way too broad, you can't treat automation and it's applications in law along with just "vibes" about how people feel about AI.
I do use my dishwasher at home, and I love that dishwasher. However, I also cook and I want to get to bed at a reasonable hour.
Funny enough, I have come across many people in my life who usually only use their dishwashers as drying racks. It's a bit odd whenever I see it, but I get it.
So, people DO like drudgery. People even seek out drudgery. There is no one-size-fits-all of what it means to live a life, and as the article states, the biggest problem for adoption is that AI is so flattening as product.
My job is to improve workflows with automation and analysis, I preach progress, but in my daily life I enjoy shifting gears in my ice car, taking time to make a coffee, developing photos from an analogue camera, listening to music on physical media, all things that could be automated away...if we read stories for the ending we could flip to the last page and get it.
There are a lot of managers out there (my own included) that would automate every aspect of their own life just so they can sit around and wait for death, and assume that is what everyone else wants.
mm, the fact that you disagree with the article doesn't make it poorly written.
In my experience no, there are significant limits to how much automation the average person wants in their life. Even if automating something would save time, doing so could be undesirable due to other metrics such as correctness, cost, latency, flexibility, or cognitive load.
> The author created a strawman, but that is not what AI is ("Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and it shouldn’t be.")
In context, what you've quoted there is not the creation of a strawman. In fact you yourself seem to have constructed a strawman out of the article.
It's definitely not poorly thought out article. People want to automate away the boring parts of their work and life but, as the meme says, people want AI to do their dishes and laundry so they can do writing and art but instead AI does their writing and art so they can do the laundry.
I'm not sure what you think the straw man is here. I think he already addresses this in the article: "I’m not saying regular people don’t use Excel or Airtable to plan their weddings or have fun throwing PowerPoint parties, or even that AI won’t be useful to regular people over time [...] Not everything about our lives can be measured and automated and optimized, and shouldn’t be."
What do you mean?
(I have a strong case of software brain as he describes it myself.)
Well, so far we have been automating many things, and we are still busy working and living as always. It's of course impossible to automate everything - we always have things to do, by necessity by also by choice ; do we really want to be idle and contribute nothing to society ? I don't, and I am sure nobody does. Being useful is an essential need.
Is it pointless then, to automate more and more ? No. It's a way to move forward, and not necessarily a "bad" way. Just not the only way.
The answer has been perfectly captured in this czechoslovakian cartoon made in 1984. https://youtu.be/6Mo8gQ89aEA?feature=shared
But that ain't happening anytime soon.
Take finding cures for cancer. You could automate finding the drug candidates, automate the manufacture of the experiment and preparing the drug candidates, automate the testing and automate the analysis on a massive scale. The limit won't be the number of scientists but physical barriers like energy and materials.
Automation has the potential to make us lead wonderful lives and we should not deny that from happening. The implementation matters though. There is going to be massive disruption to society and that needs to be handled carefully.
This is sophomoric. This person is the "editor in chief" and I'm guessing that no one had the job security to tell them that this article was silly on the face of it.
The title is good rage bait: "People Do Not Yearn for Automation". Obviously false, and it draws in the readers that want to say "Nuh uh!".
But the meat of the article is on how the seeming disconnect between technological elites and other people has lead to them touting AI when they should consider other alternatives.
This premise is shown to be dubious by a statistics in the article:
> In fact, the polling on this is so strong, I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people hate AI ...
> That’s with nearly two thirds of respondents saying they used ChatGPT or Copilot in the last month.
So, a simple question, why are so many people using something they claim to hate? Doesn't that spark a bit of interest in the author? No? They would very much like to blame industry leaders, rather than take a more nuanced view.
That said industry leaders suck. They seem to entertain magical thinking that AI will somehow replace labour. And they seem to deploy it with that end in mind. That's a stupid thing to do, but they have the money so they make the rules.
But this idea that they have "software brain" is just laughable.
> You can’t advertise people out of reacting to their own experiences.
I beg to differ.
"Stelter: Trump encourages people not to believe their eyes, ears or lungs." https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/04/media/donald-trump-disbelief-...
We’ve had the ability to automate work between systems with bots and even regular jobs that automate certain repetitive tasks with APIs for years. Yet there’s been a relatively small uptake of bots and there is still a very large market for vendors an SIs who can improve existing processes.
I think it’s pretty clear why this disconnect exists between “regular people” and the people Patel describes as having software brain. And that is that the nature of LLMs is that they are limited to the digital world. At the core they really only do one thing and that is take some text, overlay it with digital representations of the world and try and find the one that most closely matches.
The inborn assumption is that they will get better and better and climb the corporate ladder, starting in the call center but climbing the corporate ladder to replace everyone’s jobs like Michael J Fox in the Secret of my Succcess. But I’m skeptical. Automation always starts in call central customer service use cases because that is one of the few use cases where humans are involved, they are supposed to follow a script, and take actions entirely inside software applications. But it always seems to stall out. Because once you move from jobs where a script can be provided to ones where ambiguity is a constant factor and judgments and decisions have to made that don’t have exact precedents you need humans. LLMs are backwards looking. Humans can consider things that have happened previously as guidance but critically, can also imagine a future state where things operate differently all why considering multiple competing factors, all of which are unique to that situation. They don’t always do it well but LLMs are incapable of doing it in any case.
People hate AI because it doesn’t really do that much for a regular person, is massively hyped by people who look shadier and less credible by the day and has some vague threat of destroying civilization or at least making you homeless.
But- I have zero doubt that if these same companies did actually excel at providing real world value, nobody would care about the negative implications. For example if they produced robots that could automate aspects of your life like cleaning your house, getting your groceries and doing it very inexpensively, I have no doubt the popularity would be off the charts and a bona fide bubble would ensue.
This is plainly true. First off, Waymo is one of the few companies successfully using AI to operate real world objects at enormous complexity and risk. Talk to anyone who just used Waymo for the first time and they will be almost euphoric. It’s amazing technology with overwhelming utility. There are also several examples of companies with less than stellar images who consumers were told they should boycott but most users couldn’t have cared less. Uber in its earlier days and Facebook coming out of the Cambridge Analytica scandal come to mind.