Let's talk about Artificial Intelligence

[Jerry_Atrick]

There is an article in The Age on the subject matter today: https://www.theage.com.au/technology/kids-playing-with-a-nuclear-warhead-why-we-must-heed-ai-warnings-20260910-p60w2j.html

 

I think the extinction thing is a little overkill (pardon the pun) unless robotics makes incredible strides over a short period of time. However, it won't be as Holywooders and Youtubers would suggest that roboits go rogue or swarms of drones. It will be their ability to crack the systems; of course, there would be real problems if they crack military systems and start guiding nuclear weapons, for example. 

 

But, if the world is going to end in 3.5 years for us, may as well take out a 10 year loan on that Ferrari, with a deferred payment for 5 years and live a little 😉

 

[pmccarthy]

I think any car pre about 1984 is ok as they have no computer on board. My house is a greater threat as my vacuum cleaner and pool robot could rise up against us.

[rgmwa]

So you are hiring 100 AI agents disguised as humans? 

[Jerry_Atrick]

I wish.. AI agents aren't (outwardly) so temperamental.. and they get the issues. 

 

 

[rgmwa]

What are you doing that needs 100 new hires? 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Developing and implementing all risk systems for our whole European business.

 

Edited 15 hours ago by Jerry_Atrick

[nomadpete]

Getting back to the cost/benefit equation. Exactly how is A.I. and  data centres going to make life better for the common man? (i.e, the majority of people).

[Jerry_Atrick]

That does not depend on AI.. that depends on those who govern us. And history shows that pollies wait until the problems are well entrenched before they deal with them. 

 

But also, even if the governments finally swallowed the need to tax the corporates to fund more and more people with nothing to do.. what is the impact on those people effectively on the scrap heap. Yep, some enterprising souls will thrive, but we are mainly conditioned to go to school, get a job, work and then retire. So, the way we educate future generations will have to change, too. 

 

A friend of mine in a more senior position at  another bank is telling me they have gone all in on AI for software development and it is giving them between 15 and 20 x the productivity. So he will end up implementing a decent swathe of cuts but hold enough to significantly improve rate of output. 

 

I have been saying for a couple of years that in the next now 8 - 13 years, there won't be many software programming languages left. People will type in their prompts and the run time will be generated directly from it. Yes, some of the lower level languages will still be around, but there will come a time where they are no longer needed as well. 

 

Certainly in software development - ironically the industry that gave birth to AI - there isn't much for the common software developer - they will need to be English (or other human language) graduates

 

[nomadpete]

In summary, you haven't listed any personal benefits to the masses.

 

But you do hint that big business such as banking will make more profit than ever, and employ less humans than ever.

 

Yet we are constantly told how great things will be after this revolution

[old man emu]

12 hours ago, rgmwa said:

What are you doing that needs 100 new hires? 

Simply complying with  Parkinson's Laws: 

 

Parkinson's Law is the title of a satirical essay by the naval historian C. Northcote Parkinson which was published in The Economist in 1955, following the report of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service. He proposed the following Laws: 

1. "The Law of Multiplication of Work" (Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion).

2. "The Law of Multiplication of Subordinates" (The number of workers within administration tends to grow, regardless of the amount of work to be done).

 

After observing that the promotion of employees necessitated the hiring of subordinates, and that the time used to answer minutes requires more work, Parkinson stated: "In any public administrative department not actually at war the staff increase may be expected to follow this formula" :

where:

x – number of new employees to be hired annually

k – number of employees who want to be promoted by hiring new employees

m – number of working hours per person for the preparation of internal memoranda (micropolitics)

P – difference: age at hiring − age at retirement

n – number of administrative files actually completed.

 

Here's a video on this:

 

 

[nomadpete]

Gee thanks for clearing that up, OME.

 

So, maths holds an important place in every administration.

[old man emu]

25 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Gee thanks for clearing that up, OME.

Don't forget that the book, Parkinson's Law, was a piece of satire. But satire is not comedy. Satire's main purpose is constructive social criticism. It does not just poke fun for the sake of entertainment; it holds up mirror images of flaws in individuals, governments, or institutions to encourage reflection or change.

[nomadpete]

A long time ago, I subscribed to several 'Business Management' periodicals. Although I did this primarily to upset my paranoid manager, there were numerous interesting articles. For instance, There are long mathematical formulae for the prediction of absenteeism by workers. Much like your Parkinson's Law one.

 

Maths indeed are used by big business for some curious reasons.

 

BTW, my manager never subscribed to such magazines. He simply 'knew' everyone was after his job. Character flaws in my workplace were a constant source of amusement. Most of us were not harmed by this.

[old man emu]

7 minutes ago, nomadpete said:

Maths indeed are used by big business for some curious reasons.

I don't think Parkinson's formula was meant to be applied in the real world. It is part of the satirical story. If you think about it, many activities or situations can be boiled down to some sort of equation connecting variable factors in order to provide a prediction for a possible outcome. A common situation in basic problem solving in maths is how to calculate how long three people, working at different rates can complete a job. The job is often something simple, like mowing an area of lawn. The idea of the problem is to teach the student how to generate an algebraic equation from data provided. 

 

I find that sort of task more useful than solving an equation for the values of 'x' given the equation mx + b = 0, and the values of m and b are given.

[nomadpete]

1 hour ago, old man emu said:

But satire is not comedy

I understand Parkinson's satire. I pointed out there is a real process that is not satire. My point is that in real business, real people are doing it without seeing the silly side.

 

To me, real life contains a lot of laughable events. Real life is my comedy. For instance, most politics cannot be taken too seriously, and is best laughed at.

[willedoo]

All the talk in the news lately about artificial superintelligence and the urgent need to regulate it reminds me of a virus that's already escaped the laboratory. I get the feeling that the genie will be well and truly out of the bottle before the world's lawmakers can do anything about it.

[willedoo]

On the positive side of AI, the advances in graphics are leaping ahead.  It won't be too long before we can watch movies that don't look like a video game. It will soon get to the stage where the realism will surpass that.