AI HYPE - Explained by Computer Scientist || El Podcast EP48

[@elpodcastmedia]

Dr. Emmanuel Maggiori is back in a new episode discussing his new book, Siliconned, about BS tech jobs & how venture capital is a Ponzi scheme: Here's the link kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnjKYoN8a5yepK8si=I-lTsPdJUy2w5aE9

[@blackstreek]

"AI applied to boring stuff." YES. I want AI to do my tax returns, my kid's camp applications, etc.. I don't want AI writing poetry, screenplays, or paintings. Tech is supposed to make our day-to-day lives easier, not rob us of the richness of complex thought.

[@NoOne-kx7zs]

I mean...if AI generated poetry(dont think it's that kevel yet) is better than human ones.....it tells about decline in quality of human art.

[@yamiscape]

Exactly but if AI is winning art competitions against humans it’s says a lot. Human creativity has declined a lot

[@NoOne-kx7zs]

@@tinetannies4637 According to self-proclaimed 'artists' who nowadays produce soulless crap Calling it 'modern art'

[@wadeodonoghue1887]

Complex thought is under assault from all sides, effort = evil .

[@wadeodonoghue1887]

@@tinetannies4637 Sure, yet it's the King that is fed the grapes by the slave. Effort is natural and good, but we don't wake up to do effort, we wake up to make Money( which is another's effort to spend). The Goal is set at the end of effort, we have it backwards. As the collective effort surplus is what floats our boat.

[@ohsweetmystery]

I knew a woman who worked at Xerox for many years. She was assigned to 'monitor' a few lines of code (and adapt them if necessary) for a single line of copiers. She only had to do something when any new bugs were found and it was rare. She ran her own business from her office there.

[@Akki_Ke]

Xerox were the machines that altered documents due to pattern matching right? 😂

[@BG-it7hb]

​@@Akki_Keyes, thats Xerox....but my company still uses Xerox

[@dr-doctor-1992]

I want this job!

[@nandakoryaaa1401]

a dream job

[@mr.fetching2267]

I have worked in Tech all my life and I have never seen someone be so honest about what the industry is actually like as an engineer or developer good work

[@TheManinBlack9054]

But this guy knows nothing about AI. With all due respect, he sounds like a fool. He does NOT understand how LLMs work. they are not coded liek expert systems, they are grown from data, we have no idea how they actually operate and hence why they make certain decisions

[@kozmaz87]

@@TheManinBlack9054and your reasoning is why we can't ultimately trust their output beyond providing entertainment value. If it has any level of importance you have to double check anyways.

[@BillClinton228]

Why is everyone complaining about the "shortage of good developers" if the job is so easy? Why are companies putting candidates through 3 or 4 rounds of technical interviews if you only need to work 6 hours every month? If this job was so easy they could save everyone a lot of time by simply hiring anyone on the spot to work 6 hours in 5 months. Also, it takes years to hone your skill at almost anything, whether you're a mechanic, plumber or architect but the tech industry is the only one where people with tons of experience and knowledge are considered "overpaid". You can't be serious?

[@TheReferrer72]

You know he does not understand software development if he thinks you can change two paragraphs of code? in ten minutes. Did he run any tests, does he understand the system? probably used to altering code on Jupyter Notebooks.

[@alex_lll]

Nah, he took one (let's assume not made up) example of him in investment bank and extrapolated it to entire tech industry. 3 hours of work in 5 months - oh please tell me the name of that investment bank, I'd love to work there because over the last decade all places I worked in (all of them big and well known companies) I and folks around me were constantly overworked and on the edge of burnout.

[@careymurray1027]

A recently retired software developer here. I've only seen hard working teams. I've worked in the games industry, bioscience, broadcasting, CAD/CAM, startups. The problem I faced was too many hours depending on the company and culture.

[@overthinkingintrovert396]

Have you worked in adtech? PMs and SDEs used to chill and play all time in the office

[@Turnthepage1986]

you are from the old world, where a relatively small team would build great thing. nowadays, it is the other way round: huge teams are building nothing for the most part

[@JohnMoran]

sort of like the art entertainment industry, one is either paid too much or too little, in extremes.

[@AG-iu9lv]

"Recently retired" is why it was different for you. The dude working an hour a month is 30 years younger than you. 30 years in tech is an entirely different world, several times over. I haven't seen anyone even mention CADD/CAM in 15 years or more.

[@Yurikan]

@@Turnthepage1986 This subject is kind of circumstantial. Software can be built quickly and have a short shelf life, or require hundreds of hours and have a longer shelf life. It depends on the goal of the project and what is intended.

[@gmdtvh]

I worked very hard and intensly in all my tech jobs. Often in Saturdays and Sundays. I'm software engineer. I'm exhausted.

[@sp123]

the only way to make real money is investing savings overtime or having a successful business. Labor helps for survival, but thats it.

[@piotrd.4850]

That's other facet of same problem - faqed up organisation and non-existant project and resource management.

[@bbishopski]

Same here, decades of brutally hard work

[@jfv65]

​​@@sp123so why don't you use AI and program an application to do your personal investing? It's governed by specific buy/hold/sell-rules that you could enter in your AI model. Then hook it up to a trading platform using a fast fiberoptic cable that is connected to a stock exchance and let the AI model run 24/7. And watch your bank account grow! If i can imagine this it probably already exists.

[@gmdtvh]

@@sp123 you are absolutely right

[@normbograham]

I work as a contractor. At one gig, they tried to upgrade ssh, and their system failed. So, they were told by the vendor it would be a year long, offshore project to upgrade. But, the client thought they were losing technical people, and they decided to take this project on themselves, and not "offshore". So, they spent a month hiring contractors, etc. 3 hours into the first day, we found the bug. After that their system worked. It was painful. I got paid for 11 days. As a sorta weird reality, management was embarrassed, and was angry at the ones whom pointed out the year old project they authorized, was a one week project. Everyone was actually angry.

[@GarryGri]

Happens all the time I worked at one place where someone had been working for around a year into rewriting a COBOL system to deliver new web functionality. I was asked to look at the problem without knowing it's history. I used new (at the time) web technologies and in a couple of days had it done. He got hauled in for it, but it possibly would have taken that time to redo the ancient COBOL system. I've also had some experiance with COBOL and wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

[@userdtyggd36fyis]

I as a 35-years software engineer had similar experiences. Finally, i realized that efficiency and honesty isn’t the point, don’t get people embarrassed and make every bodies happy that will get yourself promoted.

[@jmanke6057]

Guess you should milked it longer? Haha

[@jmanke6057]

@@userdtyggd36fyisBetter you make them look the more they let you do. Fixing it often makes you look good but don’t point out to much they often get stuck I do networking I love wire shark it directs me to machine that hung up then they often let me fix their server knowing I won’t embarrass them to much. Anyone can get stuck especially when one machine depends on another. Get good at writing scripts you always be paid well. Don’t let your mind get loopy in loops.

[@DipsAndPushups]

Project almost always last much more than predicted. You described an exception, not the rule.

[@arhabersham]

What a sober, mature approach to these developments ❤

[@OnigoroshiZero]

Sober, mature, and completely ignorant...

[@cantatanoir6850]

​@@OnigoroshiZerowhat would be the right approach?

[@tquasa07]

AI only fans girl tier comment

[@loonu1991]

I used to work as an art director for a small indie game studio and honestly I left my job and started doing freelance because of exactly the same reason. It got to a point where the games were just focused on marketing and sales, my input to it became solely relevant to just make it marketable and "current" rather than creating something interesting which was what drove me to become an artist in the first place. I now do a heck of a lot more work as a freelancer than I ever did and enjoy pretty much every bit of it. I honestly get a lot of projects because people generally want a human to interact with and tell their ideas and want input from a human who understand their idea on a similar level. So I think most people have already realized that the whole Gen AI art thing is just not working and probably will never satisfy their requirement for "art". The only thing I have to add from my experience is that being a human and communicating with others on a human level as to what they want along with the expertise in your field is pretty much the order of the day.

[@rayecast]

My thoughts exactly. Too many "indie games" (and this goes for ones made by single developers as well) are all about being marketable and "current" as you put it, or trendy such that they fit into the mold, or I should say stereotype, of what people think of when they hear the term "indie game." It's all marketing and there are very few original and creative things going on in the indie space, which is odd considering how the indie space is considered something that's super creative and innovative compared to AAA games. To me it just seems like indie games are falling into the same traps as AAA games, but on a much smaller budget.

[@ltwig476]

Yes with art, people should not and generally do not really know what they want. It's more up to the artist to create the vision. I'm not familiar at all in software generated games. I come from retired graphic designer turned professional artist painter for the same reason that graphic design is more towards marketing than a creative vision. AI fails to understand human emotions and can only generate what seems popular. AI has more in common to how the narcissist is only left with copying what he/she sees in normal folks emotional reactions. It can't take concepts from one visualization and integrate into other visualizations. It is stuck in only what humans have shown. Such ideas that humans may need for the future maybe like "creating an highly enjoyable sport where humans don't compete for highest scores" Where few examples exist today, maybe fishing or atlatl competition, where the joy is only personal best score of the year. Self improvement type, where competitors are cheering and helping others succeed. AI works great in such as managing labor by the book. Is what most labor managers are taught today and why they are failing miserably. It's narcism. The great Industrial Age was ran by managers with unique understandings of people. So yes, AI will likely replace millions of these narcissist managers and industry will be left with the same employment failures.

[@billpugh58]

@SnibummSnabers Non DEI = totally messed up polluted corrupt world we are all living in. DEI = ……..no data so far.

[@tincanp38f]

we have a self driving floor cleaner at work. we have QR codes posted all over where we can drive up to the QR code and scan it in training mode and manually drive the scrubber as it cleans to learn the rout for the next time it scrubs. The downside of driving on it's own is it does not know the difference between a more saturated dirty spot on the floor or a mild spot on the floor. Or the difference between dirt or a rug and can run over the rug and get it caught in the drivers that scrub the floor. I link my phone to the machine so when I run it on auto it gives me a play by play. To put it simply... A machine I have to chase around multiple times to hit the reset button because it went off track or it thought something was in its way and does not know what to do.

[@selocan469]

You will be charged and found guilty of not utilizing AI probably, since now every idiot out there believes it (whatever AI it is they speak of I do not know) scores so called Einstein level of IQ. But, people who are trying to utilize AI to do something meaningful already experienced AI, already sees AI is no magic wand at all.

[@DrinkyMcBeer]

We had a similar thing at a warehouse I had worked at. We supplied parts to a single customer that was attached to our warehouse, and management decided to get these automated robots to drive orders back and forth. They ended up having to keep all the people the hots were meant to replace just to cover the robots when they inevitably messed up, and hire extra people to take care of the robots. Their great automation initiative cost them about a million dollars upfront and only managed to increase their overhead. It really is just a bunch of hype so useless middle management types can make themselves seem useful, since without them the workers would just continue to come in and get the job done, and no useless middle manager wants to accept that reality.

[@randymulder9105]

Everyone I know that owned one of those put it in the closet and used a broom. Imagine, a human and broom is cheaper, faster and more accurate. AI..robot expensive garbage. Give it 10 years. Even then. Why spend 30,000 dollars to sweep?

[@KleptomaniacJames]

@@randymulder9105 why spend $30,000 recurringly? If the floor cleaner is good enough, and mark my words they will get good enough, you will save a lot of money paying 30,000 for a floor cleaner with the right application of course

[@andybaldman]

Yet it’s still going to replace some of the jobs at your company.

[@brdp2010]

I am a software engineer and I agree with the idea that 'agile' does not always ensure efficient software development. At my job we have daily standup meetings where we just give a quick status of what we did the prior day and plan to do today. We also have weekly 'sizing' meetings where the team estimates time for all 'stories'. A simple 1 line code change is usually estimated to take 24 hours or more. Stories that require weeks or months many times are estimated to take 2 or 3 days. I enjoyed the 'waterfall' methodology much better than 'agile'.

[@rahulsampat8698]

The waterfall model is essentially broken into 2 week sprints... so we have design sprints in the beginning, followed by the development, testing and deployment sprints.

[@SK-yb7bx]

AGILE is boring. It feels like I'm stuck in a box and any creativity is restricted.

[@greymalkin]

Standup meetings are, by definition, only are supposed to take 15 or less min. or less

[@monkeybusines77]

@@SK-yb7bx yup. AGILE is for the PMs/managers to bring reports to C-level people (ie, how much effort is that going to take?). The backlog is just the project vision that has been spec'd out and assigned. I worked under several systems (AGILE, silo, waterfall), I enjoyed working under all of them. Its just a matter of the kind of environment you're comfortable with. Its not the system, but rather the people working under those systems that matter. I've seen AGILE work place that got destroyed by DEI.

[@crybabychrononaut]

I'm a writer, musician, artist type. My ex was/is a software engineer. I helped her along the way up in her career. She dumped me when she disovered "we had different goals." This was because she and her crew were making big bucks and i was doing physical labor & working on my art. I at least said this to her, while signing divorce papers. "You care about money & status. You'll spend your life working on pointless tech projects. I'll be working on real things; things that matter." It hurt though, realizing how vain people can be. Especially someone you love/ed.

[@manasuniyal2897]

Sad but true , they will leave when they find some one better than you .

[@quantumpotential7639]

Awwwwwe, this is just terrible. I feel your pain. Do NOT despair. Sometimes God allows people to come into and then out of our lives for just a season, but like the strong oak you will endure the winds of change and continue to grow and strive towards the light above. When he allows one door to slam (OUCH!!) He is faithful in opening up another, which takes you into your annointed time. We just have to be willing to go through it, and leave the old door behind. The more receptive and open you are to allowing that new door to accept you, the sooner your journey will resume. May God continue to bless you and lay a lantern before your feet. Peace and Love from NC, 🇺🇸 🌎

[@markbills4122]

​@@manasuniyal2897define "better" ....

[@SauliusKAY]

Woman do not love. It is not in her nature if being honest

[@johnkowalski5756]

Your first mistake was getting into the one way contract called marraige.

[@OTISWDRIFTWOOD]

Its so funny that you think this is unique to the tech sector. Most people are loitering, talking to nice colleagues and producing nothing and its the same in all departments that dont produce physical products.

[@unknowninfinium4353]

We got smartphones, wireless headphones, gadgets that help in measurement of electricity to help electricians and more. If you can see it then it's on you.

[@carlmack2188]

I couldn’t agree more; i did consulting work for small order fulfillment companies, many of which I noticed all their salaried or professional staff, shot the breeze most of the day though they could cloak it in biz terms at the beginning the middle and the end of their sessions, so everybody on the team could feel good about themselves. When I went into the warehouse I would see 30-50 year old men busting their tails filling those big trucks with 50# boxes all day long for minimum wage. These guys were always talking about the minimum wage. Management perplexed at the high turnover. I asked them why do you pay your dependable hard working people minimum wage? “Well it’s unskilled labor” one said. Unskilled labor? You can put whatever label you want, but you show me someone who is here everyday Monday thru Friday, 52 weeks a year filling those trucks up executing your primary service and I would say that person is as valuable as a member on your marketing staff who works abou 3, 4 hrs a day tops. I suggested performance based compensation to reduce turnover. They wanted to marinate over it. This is a common theme. It’s unfortunate.

[@ThePainkiller9995]

total blue collar cope

[@OTISWDRIFTWOOD]

@@ThePainkiller9995 Data Architect but try again

[@HarmKaban]

​@@ThePainkiller9995 useless parasite spotted lol 😂

[@rogerbruce2896]

WOW, I have been working for the wrong companies. I have been in IT for 30 years and a developer for 20 plus. At all the companies I worked for I put in at least 50 plus avg of hard code developing a week. Many times over 60 hours and many many all nighters on tight deadlines. I guess those companies need a 'real' tech manager or director. I do agree about scrum, it can easily slow the process down unless you have a strong scrum master. I am currently an IT director and ensure my team stays busy in 'meaningful' work. Help get me work at one of these companies and I will set things straight lol.

[@bloopbleepnothinghere]

How can you possibly sling code for even 8 hrs straight a day, let alone 10 hrs and output quality code? In my 25yr career I've never met anyone who is capable of this. None of my reports can come close to that sort of marathon approach without burning out.

[@rogerbruce2896]

@@bloopbleepnothinghere well I did but never stayed at those companies long.

[@BorikGor]

​@@bloopbleepnothinghere Come over to Mainframe HLASM, mate, you'll see how it's done..

[@jichaelmorgan3796]

​@bloopbleepnothinghere how many hours a day or per week is average or ideal? And for someone more exceptional? Thanks!

[@timothyblazer1749]

Yeah... I certainly did many 60 hour+ weeks from 1993 to 2018ish, but SINCE then I've seen a massive drop-off. In fact I was recently hired by a small company because of my expertise and work ethic, saying to me "I can't tell you how hard it is to find an actual engineer, let alone a senior one."

[@TuMadre8000]

we absolutely need more engineers and scientists that are willing to be this open and brutally honest

[@Me__Myself__and__I]

Working 5 hours in 5 months at a full-time gig is not honest. I have zero respect for this person.

[@captain_crunk]

​@@Me__Myself__and__I same here. I worked in the industry for 20 years, most recently at Microsoft for 7 years, and I finally had to break out of the golden handcuffs due to severe burnout. I will never write code professionally again. Yes, the money is usually great, but the workload can often be brutal, and in my case to the point that even quite large amounts of money couldn't justify the poor work/life balance.

[@alexanderSydneyOz]

All I'm hearing is a lot of unrealistic exaggeration in this video. You can see from the overwhelming majority of comments that most people in the tech industry are not working 5 hours in a month but rather quite the opposite. Videos like these are just made for views

[@MrGamman3yt]

If i heard this, after hiring him, lawsuit!

[@danwilms]

Having worked in the semiconductor industry for 40 years I can say it was very different where I was. Of course I was writing software and designing hardware to test products under deadline and once one project was done there was another to be done.

[@piotrd.4850]

See.... in semiconductor industry your work was ultimately validated by PHYSICAL PRODUCT.

[@neighbor9672]

That sounds less like tech and more like tech industry. Tech nowadays is like Facebook and all that shit. You know, useless software that addicts people to their phones.

[@nvjt101]

These AI folks who are trying to build AGI, are doing the same thing as the Physicists did with String Theory to build a Theory of Everything... We as humans like generalities but in practice it's very very difficult to do so :)

[@MarcGyverIt]

It already exists.

[@nvjt101]

@@MarcGyverIt then you are nothing but delusional

[@rahulsampat8698]

​@@MarcGyverItHow do you know?

[@benzemamumba]

What is AGI?

[@PeterofPan]

​@@benzemamumba Artificial General Intelligence

[@GuaranteedEtern]

I doubt the next breakthrough in AI will be discovered by some guy in a garage - the problems that need to be overcome are massive and not even really well understood. A lot of the hype around AI comes from anthropomorphism and sci-fi fantasy.

[@TheManinBlack9054]

"sci-fi fantasy" you're talking about AI systems on your computer using the internet, you're already livin in sci-fi by a wide margin

[@GuaranteedEtern]

@@TheManinBlack9054 The technology we have now is more appropriately called Machine Learning and not AI - but I get it's definitional. I've never once felt that any of the tech I have used is intelligent in the sense it can reason or act with any agency.

[@DarkFox2232]

That breakthrough comes from anyone who manages to persuade dogmatic idiots that AI does not start for "artificial intelligence", because it is not intelligent. So, it can be done by guy in his garage. Then industry starts to focus on meaningful research. To understand what "human like" principle is represented by model instead of "intelligence". And once they do understand, they'll realize that tasks like driving cars are not suitable for this kind of self-arranged spaghetti code. But there are tasks which are suitable. 2nd breakthrough which may come from garage is network-collapse into tiny one doing same thing as big one, but with lower computational requirements.

[@zotriczaoh7098]

Point taken but it neglects human creativity (free!) which, I think, is key to the next steps in understanding the problems. Going back to the 1890s, the next great breakthrough in physics came from a patent clerk. He needed zero investment dollars. This is a problem. We make negative predictions which seem OK until one of those unknown unknowns comes along.

[@GuaranteedEtern]

@@zotriczaoh7098 I get the analogy, but all discoveries build on knowledge from before, and subsequent work builds on that. Even Einstein's theories didn't solve physics - we still have the elusive "theory of everything".

[@kenl2861]

This is great - the first cogent discussion of the status of AI I’ve heard yet. Thank you, guys!!

[@alainterieur794]

Finally, an intelligent conversation about AI. Thank you for the podcast, it's really interesting and as a programmer, I find it very sobering.

[@neohelios77]

App Analyst, here. Can confirm. I probably only do maybe an hour or two of actual work per day, and THAT's just finding busy work to talk about in SCRUM or maybe low-effort service desk work. All other time is spent on meetings as "subject matter expert", whatever tf THAT is these days. THE PROBLEM IS just about every problem I fix, I also fix the root cause (or work with vendor for RC), and the problems don't get repeated. That's fine, but eventually I will be patching myself out of a job. Then, on to the next application, I guess. Kind of self-defeating, and I constantly feel like the other shoe is going to drop.

[@jameskeefe1761]

Doing to SCRUMs, meetings etc IS WORK. It may be useless work but it is a part of your job. Ive recommended against programming because, unlike the fantasy world these two guys are in, the hours are long, there is a lot of fatigue and burnout, and once your app is finished, you've obsoleted yourself you are working to put yourself out of business. Better to be a doctor.

[@Llortnerof]

@@jameskeefe1761 It is effort, but for the most part it isn't real work, just time wasting. That's part of what causes the fatigue and burnout. And Doctors are also working to put themself out of business; they just can't keep up with the work so it never happens.

[@josiah5776]

Man, what universe are these guys living in? I had 20 years of hard death marches and 60-hour weeks. Nothing but working my butt off.

[@josiah5776]

@@relly793 Mostly e-commerce, but thankfully retired now.

[@sillysad3198]

i am working in software since 1993, the jobs that require actual work are those they pay the least, but the upper stages of the food pyramid do fit his description. the entire industry is mostly useless and where it is not useless it is harmful

[@williamwillaims]

​@@sillysad3198I'm sorry....you just described every industry... software, ai etc are only different in the fast hiring/lay-off cycle. Every industry the people at the top work less. Even middle management with endless meetings with no seemingly productive outcomes (I've wasted so much time in those meetings). Ai agents don't sleep, or.need coffee breaks.

[@sausage4mash]

that seems a familiar pattern in a lot of professions @@sillysad3198

[@2LegHumanist]

@@sillysad3198 I've been in the industry since 92 and I've only heard this narrative recently. The narrative used to be that we all have to leave the field in our 30s due to burnout.

[@thisbridgehascables]

I remember Prime reading that article. In my job as a developer, I get the work done faster than the expected deadline and always seem to be waiting for everyone else to catch up, either because they are lazy or don’t seem to care. Then I wind up fixing these people’s terrible code or just finish the project for them. Another thing, I’ll do is add additional features to future proof or provide other options in the code. Because for some reason , people above me can’t foresee or forget to tell me .. that there’s plans to expand what the is expected.. it happens to me constantly. In bigger companies communication is typically one big mess. They try to use all this software to track and keep everyone in the loop but then eventually stop using any of it.. Actually had to go into the office today and waited for a confirmation email which never arrived by our hosting provider so I could do a deployment knowing a proper backup was done.. love wasting weekends on processes where everyone else involved is clocked out..

[@andrewkendall7814]

Fascinating. Could you perhaps enlighten us all a little further about how brilliant you are, and how much you have to suffer because everyone around is an idiot?

[@GackFinder]

@@andrewkendall7814 SureIy you've met peopIe in your job that are operating significantIy sIower than you are for the same exact task. Or someone consistentIy making poor decisions and Iater suffering the consequences of those decisions but not understanding that the consequences are due to their own decision? Imagine that situation but on a daiIy basis with most people you meet.

[@f4ust85]

I didnt expect much but it actually turned out to be one of the best podcast on AI I heard so far, very informative and without all the fluff and clichés. Thank you.

[@elpodcastmedia]

Thank you for your kind words

[@TheManinBlack9054]

Its not informative, its the opposite

[@ShinobiShaman]

​@elpodcastmedia I've never seen anybody with such a low subscriber base, have a guest on with a published book. So kudos for that. Interesting interview. I didn't know tech employees were so idle.

[@RABacct]

Great interview and guest! "What's the gain?" (1:07:00) is something that everyone in business should really ask themselves. We had Amazon Go in downtown Chicago before COVID. I went in a couple of times and was underwhelmed. "OK, it's 7-Eleven without the clerks. Big whoop..." lol

[@bartlebob]

25 years in IT and I confirm 100% what this fellow has said. The stuff I have seen....1GB spreadsheets that require guys working 24/7 to make sure it doesn't cras. AI is still a very very far fantasy for most businesses. In the 90s UML tools were supposed to replace developers...yeah right.

[@OnigoroshiZero]

Only 1 month later, and your comment has aged like milk. Your 25 years in IT just show that you were wasted expenses, because you definitely have no idea about the field or AI.

[@bartlebob]

@@OnigoroshiZero I studied AI while you were still wetting your diapers kid. AI is a fraud.

[@tlilmiztli]

@@OnigoroshiZero Nothing has changed fundamentally. You are just buying into the hype. Let me guess - you heard about chatgpt 4o and you think NOW ITS GOING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING! Right? XD Like all the previous ones... Hallucinations are there, will be. It gets marginally better but will not do 100% of work for you. Buy into hype if you want, I really dont care. Its more of the same.

[@danielgrove7782]

Definitely? Aged like milk? That does not sound like a professional...im intrigued..what is your profession?

[@gofastER]

You have 25 years of outdated knowledge…

[@kkm312]

The best conversation I've seen about AI. Thank you!

[@hwhack]

I did Support Vector Machines (SVMs) in grad school. I laugh my butt of when people think NNs and Machine Learning will be sentient. It's nothing more than a really complex spell check.

[@daviddickey9832]

Maybe the question is, what is sentience? Can an ant which has many less neurons than we do be considered sentient? It seems like what's needed is very big, non-linear systems that create emergent behavior. Many of these AI systems seem to more closely resemble parts of a brain rather than the brain as a whole, like visual processing, auditory processing, linguistic processing, etc.

[@fertilizerspike]

So is the human mind, numb nuts

[@NicholsonNeisler-fz3gi]

More like a sieve constructed from the sum of written digital documents

[@itisimatadvc]

Great content guys, this is the different perspective I've been looking for. I hate hype, it makes things unstable and is bad for society obscuring reality etc. Thanks for your honesty.

[@languagepool-germanusingli9902]

This is the best video I've seen for ages. Thanks so much.

[@robderiche]

as far as jobs safe from ai displacement, i recommend the building trades. i have two degrees, worked as teacher, communications pro, tech guy, magazine editor, but didn’t find job satisfaction until i became a carpenter. i know it’s not for everyone, but desk jobs drove me crazy. also, master a trade, go solo, and sleep well knowing you are providing an essential service and keeping the fruits of your toil for yourself instead of enriching the bosses and shareholders.

[@PinkyMcPinksAlot]

100%! Some say plumbers have saved more lives than doctors due to higher standard of sanitation that trade makes possible.

[@nbaprophet100]

It is indeed refreshing to hear a more measured and nuanced point of view. 100% agree on the waste generated by tech teams especially in investment banks.

[@arxaaron]

Once you learn the REAL story of the Luddite movement, you will be proud to be labeled a Luddite. It was about protecting the quality of fabric products made in a literal "cottage industry" verses centralized industrial automation. Luddite attitudes may yet save us from A.lgorithmic I.mpersonation.

[@rodeorods5694]

Very interesting to find out that AI is not as advanced as the sales pitch

[@foxt9151]

His core point was litterly that "oh look there are billions in the industry and we havent hit AGI/ASI yet, it wont ever ever happen" Thats his quintecense of it all, like with self driving cars he said. Oh no, the newest study released from waymo recorded that their self driving cars were safer than average human driver by a large margine. Certain projects take a long time, I mean imagine how long it took to get from punchcard machines to computers. we should have given up at the vacuum tube stage. all the money that has flown into computers and nothing! besides a living room sized calculator!

[@seriouscat2231]

@@foxt9151, AGI/ASI is a metaphysical impossibility. It is not within the realm of actual science or physics.

[@tybaltmercutio]

@@seriouscat2231As a fellow physicist I would be curious if you could elaborate on this as I do not really see how it AGI is physically impossible or would violate laws of physics.

[@seriouscat2231]

@@tybaltmercutio, you need to reread what I wrote. Unless you are willfully misunderstanding, in which case never mind.

[@tybaltmercutio]

@@seriouscat2231 No need to feel attacked. I actually was genuinely curious about your take. But after reading it again carefully - and combining it with your reply - I realize it is just a bunch of non-sense put together to sound smart.

[@gimmemyish]

This was a great interview. Thank you very much. Please bring this gentleman back.

[@edmunns8825]

This is by far the most accurate analysis of the current AI situation I have seen.

[@mediamannaman]

I started programming in '86 for a small rural telecom company. My experience was NOTHING like this. I was one of two programmers (the other was my boss, the manager) and a part-time consultant, and we wrote code to automate everything that had been manual up until then - billing, service orders, trouble tickets, payroll, inventory control, outside plant, purchasing, commissions system, etc. We wrote all of these from scratch, from analysis of manual systems, to requirements gathering, database design, coding, testing, etc. etc. It took a long time to build all of those systems and I didn't get a 6-figure income. I retired in 2015 and am impressed with AI and machine learning. Times have changed. Humans shouldn't have to code, they should be free to design and create ideas, and let AI do the grunt work.

[@terrainofthought]

what a charismatic guest and what an intelligent conversation.

[@PepperstoneGB]

*Proves why most jobs in Western Europe and USA are extraneous and unproductive but cropped up to create illusion of circulation of cash fiat. Whenever I'm employed I'm worked beyond tiredness and I'm never enough and I always need to prove myself. However he received a six figure just for being there. All of this conversation could have been wrapped up in 15 minutes but he had to drag it on. If I took that long I'd be criticised.*

[@a5cent]

I've worked in software for 30 years. In Europe. I've never seen anybody like this. Long hours was always the norm.

[@mats66]

This guy has not worked at my company 🤣

[@stefangunnarsson1189]

AI might have some crazy hype going on right now, like claims that we will see AGI in 2 years. But in the mid to longterm, its a no brainer where we are heading with AI and ALL of big tech is jumping on the AI train. There have been multiple big discoveries in the last 20 years in AI and computantional power per dollar is increasing on an expontionital rate and that is not slowing down at all. We are heading into a very interesting future.

[@stephantual]

It's far worse than this. Reddit and KZbin are filled with people who believe AGI is already here because of the stochastic parrot effect, which was described in a paper warning this would become a problem over a year ago. 99% of these people have no computer science knowledge and couldn't even tell you what a context window is, but somehow have convinced themselves that 'chat GPT' as they refer to LLMs is fully capable of human reasoning. They are no words.

[@Astro2024]

It's a computer program, not AI

[@nodell8729]

​@@Astro2024A computer program that runs AI. Why brother with naming, it's doing very impressive inteligent work as we speak.

[@memegazer]

@@Astro2024 A computer program that can explore a problem space and produce solutions better than programers working alone on that same problem without ML. The AI part is how the data has been modeled as the result tasking machines to learn from that data.

[@cristianandrei5462]

​@@Astro2024So what AI is supposed to be if not a computer program?

[@dcbaars]

In all the AI coverage i’ve seen so far this is one of the honest and in depth discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of AI.

[@tromboneface]

I work in tech and I’ve been working nonstop for about 25 years. Inefficiency comes from management leading us in a bad direction, but we never stop working. We have tons of technical debt that we can address during lulls in new projects. We should be spending more time on upgrading skills.

[@timfatout7082]

You hit the nail on the head. Managers that don't know what they are doing is the primary cause of low production.

[@79bull]

Best interview I’ve watched this year, thank you 🙏

[@davetfft]

I also work in information technology and as a consultant one-time I had a project where we did literally nothing for 8 months straight. I didn't even start my computer or login or have any meetings, we did nothing and I mean literally nothing by the proper use of the word.

[@quantumpotential7639]

That's because all your work was quietly off loaded to the robot.

[@benzemamumba]

That doesn't seem like a project.

[@theapexfighter8741]

What the hell was this job supposed to be then?

[@badpuppy3]

Every AI image generator should be required to record every output on a blockchain, so that image can later be traced back to that AI.

[@kylewollman2239]

Looking forward to reading the book. I mostly hear about AI from the people trying to sell AI so it's nice to hear a different perspective.

[@ac0rpbg]

As someone in the aviation industry, and what you described in gatewick with the A-SMGCS system. I can give you some insights why that is the case. First of all such systems exist for very very long time. But they are expensive and the certification for aviation safety of such system is very very complex task. The GPS/GNSS used to have too large of an error for ground movement operations and there are way way too many vehicles so you can't really have them all equipped with Squitters because you will just just block the frequency. Parked vehicles will always have squitters off. GPS is also not secure enough and can be easily jammed, thus in order to use for operational purposes ASMGCS system you will also have SMRs(Surface Movement Radars), From concept to operations of a technology in the sector takes more than 20 years. It is not cost or investment that is making it so long but the whole Safety First culture and the extreme regulation. About some of the points of AI I think your view is way too balanced and you are downplaying some facts. Yes it is basically machine learning but how is human learning diffferent? The chat GPT Kenya RLHF example is not different than a human going to school being tought and shown how to solve tasks,write essays etc. The fact is that LLMs and some other AI models have shown to develop emergent properties very similar to how humans do. Even tho current models are narrow they tend to scale a lot with more compute and even tho Moore's law is dead in the sense of transistors scaling compute is actually increasing, and the fact that Mixture of Experts or multiple interacting agents that are very narrow and specific can work together and show synergy means that even tho we may hit a ceiling that it might be so high that the world can change very very fast.

[@tobyhendricks9951]

While Neural Net AIs learn in a way that's... similar... to humans, they lack the logical association that humans use to learn. Knowledge, to a human, is interconnected in a way that today's LLMs could only dream of. When person A says "I want an apple", there's A LOT of meaning/processing behind that statement. This person has recognised a state of hunger/craving, they can visualise the presence of an apple alleviating it, based on past experience. They understand that the apple is food, they have an understanding of what it takes not only to acquire an apple, but how the apple comes to be in the first place (and most steps in-between). So in addition to intent, a statement like this typically communicates an understanding of what fulfilling that intent will cost as well as why the intent is there in the first place (among many other things). When person B replies "How about an orange?" it holds a similarly ridiculous amount of meaning underneath. Both AI and humans decide through likelihood, but the likelihood estimations are happening on completely different levels. When person B replies "How about an orange?", many layers of meaning have been exchanged, whereas, when ChatGPT replies "How about an Orange?", it's because it calculated that those are the most likely words to follow the statement "I want an apple". So yeah, when a human goes to school, hopefully they're extracting a vast amount of meaning from every lesson. When an AI reads a book, it's (mostly) skipping over the meaning and saying, "Ah, so this word is more likely to occur when preceded by these words". Completely different ballpark of intelligence. (Attention and embedding are cool, but they're a single step on the thousand mile journey to human level intelligence)

[@AndreasAndersson-ve4jx]

The A-SMGCS sounds like what always appears to be missing in the discussion about driverless vehicles... Concidering the great expense & certification issues (for even the comparatively limited movement of planes/vehicles around airports), how could ever a generic driverless car system be created? Not least flying driverless car (there is a company Alef flying car, which what appears to be a totally unrealistic product idea...) Even if you just limited it to "2D", not flying. It will simply never happen..

[@normanstewart7130]

@@AndreasAndersson-ve4jx Not really, the biggest thing that's missing is a control centre, an operational centre that can track vehicles via surveillance and communicate with them. And why are robotaxis the big story in autonomous vehicles? Because they have a control centre. People point to robotaxi operators like Waymo as the pioneers of autonomous vehicles, what they don't mention is that they have a control centre that can manage vehicles remotely, so theyr'e not truly autonomous.

[@gemmasmit3577]

Would it ever gain free will?

[@donharrold1375]

Fantastic interview. Maggiori is a very convincing, bright young guy.

[@WisdomofHal]

I needed that first 5 minutes. I've been in the dumps. I studied CS and programmed like a mad man to get good enough to do really fun things. My first job, I really enjoyed it. I was writing tons of code, but it was nothing new. It wasn't exciting or innovative. I thought joining one of the big tech companies would give me that itch. I somehow made it to one of the big tech companies and I feel so empty, oddly enough my ambition is actually draining. I'm making great money, but I honestly didn't do this for the money. I did it to make an impact. I'm actually getting depressed because I don't feel like I'm making an impact. I'm actually taking a role in tech that is considered less "prestigious" then software engineering, but I actually find it to be more satisfying and it requires you to actually work constantly. I mean, where is my head at - that I'm willing to actually take a role that requires me to work when I can literally cash in on stock, continue making well above six figures and coast? I am really on a dry spell right now and I need to build something, but idk how I lost my edge.

[@amdenis]

You are working for the wrong companies. Do your research and make sure to invest in learning what you find interesting, and then research and find companies where you can do that sort of work that you find interesting. YOU are the solution yo that problem, but you have to take that initiative.

[@WisdomofHal]

I completely agree. I have a one or two domains that I'm very interested in, but I've been pursuing roles that are outside of those domains and I work on things that are, sadly, uninteresting to me. @@amdenis

[@darylallen2485]

You say you're making good money. Why not save a money cushion and launch your own business doing what you find fulfilling?

[@BruceWayne15325]

You and the guest speaker are both working for the wrong companies. You can find jobs where you are a high paid lump if that's really what you want, but I've only ever been in one job where that was even a possibility. Most places that I've worked, if you tried to work 3hrs in a month or more like the guest speaker says he does, you'd be tossed out on your butt, as you should.

[@Karim-ik5ij]

DOuble dip and work 2 jobs at once. Just don't tell anyone.

[@notetec1]

Finally an AI expert I can respect.

[@andrewhancock2451]

Dr. Maggiori commented on how many organizations try to make AI work without much insight into whether it makes sense. But the people making these decisions don't necessarily have the inside view. I think that it sometimes makes sense to just try it to see whether it works. Since it's new territory, of course, there will be lessons learned about the challenges to advantageously exploiting AI. These may arise from poor fit with the problem and/or from implementation challenges. They may be too great to permit success, or they may provide a vantage point from which to try again with greater prospects of success. Many will have more a pessimistic view of the prospects, but ultimately, the only way to know is to invest the resources in trying. I fully acknowledge that some endeavours will be riskier than others, involving more unknowns, and which more insiders might disagree with. That's the nature of innovation. Hindsight is 20-20. Each investor or stakeholder (including employees) decides whether it fits their risk appetite. Just like in investments, it's good to have a spectrum of risks.

[@fractal_gate]

What a breath of fresh air on this topic!

[@kajkabea]

Very interesting. Thank you.

[@surethebest]

Good man with a clear, reasonable mind. Will get his book. Thanks for bringing him on.

[@jgonsalk]

Interesting conversation. I didn't have time to watch the whole thing but didn't watch part of the section on ChatGPT. I do think you are mistaken on the idea that ChatGPT doesn't have an understanding of the world and that hallucinations can't be understood. The architecture of ChatGPT (particularly transformers and vectors) do create an empirically derived view of the world. It is a pity we don't get the probability distributions generated by each individual prediction, but OpenAI can investigate this. Also, the embeddings do seem to extract a semantic map of human language across that 12K dimensional space (in the case of GPT 3, it's likely much more for GPT4). I do agree that it is overhyped but the scaling laws are yet to be broken and we might see more emergent capabilities from larger models and will likely see smarter ways to apply them (i.e. multi-agent approaches) that lead to improvements. That said, the idea that we'll be able to generate literary works of art with a prompt is clearly misguided, as are similarly fanciful notions based purely on AI hype.

[@elliotanderson1585]

When the best AI scientists suddenly start working on AI safety, you know it's not just hype.

[@AbadonBIack]

​@@elliotanderson1585That's ridiculous. You don't put airbags in a car because you know it's going to crash, you put them in to account for the possibility of them crashing. I know AI is cool and you're excited for a Star Trek future, but don't believe everything people who want your money (AI companies) tell you about the future of a product they haven't successfully created a product for.

[@QuinnJohnson-pj7no]

Just a better way to keep people from thinking for themselves .

[@rursus8354]

Thank you! I knew intuitively that the ChatGPT and OpenAI stuff are hypes, but I had too few arguments, just a gut feeling.

[@OnigoroshiZero]

You clearly don't know anything if you think that.

[@rursus8354]

@@OnigoroshiZero I certainly do know something about neural nets and language models. (And using AI)

[@howmathematicianscreatemat9226]

@@OnigoroshiZero can it be a new Mozart or DaVinci without copying those works before ?

[@stevrgrs]

It’s not hype. This guy is delusional. Just because he worked as a guy in Ai doesn’t mean squat. The reason he didn’t have any work is probably because he wasn’t trusted with the important stuff :P Ai is already drastically changing Art, music, writing, programming, computer animation, videos , editing etc and it’s only getting more insane.

[@stevrgrs]

@@howmathematicianscreatemat9226of course it can. But who cares ? Davinci was mentored by Veroccio and Mozart was mentored by Haydn and others. It’s the ability to take information and twist it and use it in unique ways that make “geniuses”. AI can LITERALLY mash up millions of disparate topics / ideas instantly and try novel techniques in simulations etc. Even if it never saw a Davinci painting , or heart a Mozart concerto, it would discover it on its own by basically simulating all the possibilities of painting and music from the initial fundamentals of color and sound :)

[@kcm624]

I have worked as a software engineer for 15 years. Worked at two large Silicon Valley companies and never heard about people being idle. Everyone was doing work every day.

[@crybabychrononaut]

"work"

[@sebastianschweigert7117]

Because you didn't have an "AI" job. You were probably doing real work

[@PinkyMcPinksAlot]

I believe you. I think he is describing his experiences in an AI department that was basically a solution in search of a problem. I assume people writing real code are diligently working

[@Billy4321able]

His explanation of how AI works was presented as if it were damning evidence against current methodologies, but that's not the case. The "function finding" capability of AI in controlled environments is what makes it so powerful. Machines can learn to perform a wide variety of tasks without explicit instruction, which is crucial in domains where the steps are unknown or too complex to write out. Interestingly, adding more real-world tasks to a model's training set can improve performance across those tasks, even if they seem unrelated. For example, teaching a model the difference between a dog and a cat can enhance its ability to perform other tasks. Some researchers believe this might be due to a form of model pruning, where useless paths are avoided, hinting at an emerging general intelligence. This has led to the adoption of a "more data and modalities" approach, hoping for exponential performance increases. However, so far, the gains have been marginal. We still don't know if this generalization will extend to edge cases not in the data. Technologies like self-driving cars continue to struggle with edge cases and lack a comprehensive world model. As far as whether or not AI will go rouge, I think that is unlikely. That doesn't mean it isn't possible though. You talk about how the constraints put on AI are currently integral to their success in completing their tasks, but that doesn't preclude someone from making an AI without such limited capabilities. So I don't really understand how you can state the problem, but in the same breath claim it won't be a problem, just because. In an almost child-like curiosity I have to ask, "because why?" I understand we don't yet have the level of AI that would even be considered dangerous, but I don't want to risk everything "just because". So maybe we should start thinking about the why right now.

[@toby9999]

Finally a realist talking about the AI hype.

[@liam3284]

"you need to be either highly positive or highly negative" So much of Tech at the moment.

[@dm8579]

It's not just tech. It's everything else as well.

[@Matowix]

AI isn't magic or a new form of electronic consciousness. Its just a programme accessing internet-based resources.

[@rociomiranda5684]

Well, so am I

[@mrtriffid]

Critical point here at 9:15: "very low interest rates, free money." Something that should have been obvious for years has to do with this deplorable misallocation of social resources. Simply put, the money and resources lavished on hi-tech represents a huge gamble, or bet, wherein the players (big banks; rich investors; hedge-funds) are seeking huge, short-term gains. This obscene concentration of wealth allows for the outcomes described in this video. Consequently, society's future is based on the gambling addiction of wealth-owners, not upon rational long-term goals that would benefit society at large.

[@johnslagboom1836]

I was involved in Operations Automation using Robotic Process Automation as a Business Analyst (non-IT type) for almost ten years. My last project 2018 thru 2019 involved the use of Machine Learning to recognize the differences in manufacturing invoices, i.e. the different positions and formats of a half a dozen data capture fields for automated input into the clients' accounts receivable system. It was refreshing to hear you say that such a use of AI is currently one of the most productive! BTW - I definitely got caught up in an almost Sci-Fi optimism of the advances that AI was going to make in a short period of time!

[@socialmedianewsnetwork9598]

i remember bill balmer saying people would not use phones without buttons.

[@arcomarco7131]

And I remember people saying planes will replace cars (it was 50 years ago) or that by 2010 we will have a moon colony. P.S. It was Steve and people give him too little credit for what he actually did.

[@deker0954]

But they do have buttons.

[@2LegHumanist]

​@@arcomarco7131 I remember people making the OP's argument when I said ipads won't replace laptops, especially for software engineers.

[@pieterkock695]

@@deker0954 :D cant argue with that

[@benzemamumba]

Are there any phones without buttons? I genuinely want to know.

[@BeachLookingGuy]

I’m not sure what’s more embarrassing, not being able to get a real girlfriend or getting a chat bot and claiming it’s your girlfriend

[@LogosFlow]

What I want is an AI that can do what Adobe InDesign can do but based entirely on verbal commands, and has an in-built library of all published literature and real-time search capabilities. What I got is a snarky robot that reminds me that diversity and inclusion is important to consider if I ask it a question about Templars or alligators or something. I've come to the conclusion there are no real philosophers in the tech industries.

[@winst2000]

I worked in upper management, I can tell you many non-technical executives, including the CEOs have no ideas how things work. They just want numbers they can measure and see improvements over time. The board doesn’t really care because it is not their money. You see companies keep hiring people then get rid of entire division when strategies change. It is depressing but that is just the way it is. When you have leadership who is technical competent, people do good work.

[@TheGammelfjols]

Read the book Bull shit jobs by the late David Graber, it hits this phenomenon right on the nail

[@robbe4711]

Best podcast for a long time. I also talked to real Phd experts about AI and came to the same conclusion. It has many limits and this AGI thing is a scam to get money. Thank you for telling the truth about this whole complex.

[@ronmc1677]

really good podcast brother, you asked all the right questions that were on my mind as well. keep it going and cheers!

[@elpodcastmedia]

Thank you. Much appreciated

[@VIsTheMusic]

Love this content. Truth ! 😮

[@goodrobotsai]

I work in tech as a Machine Learning / AI Engineer and I gave up looking for fulfilment after my 5th job role. I earn 6 figures, work from home 5 days a week and only work ~3-5 hours per week. No joke. Nothing new. Like seriously, the most little task that can be done in 1 hour takes 5 sprints (1 sprint = 2weeks). Like bruh, it's 10 lines of codes..

[@ricardogarciarevilla6922]

and what's the problem? lol or are you braggin'

[@ruffethereal1904]

​@@ricardogarciarevilla6922I feel a sense of "Is this it?" An easy job can feel like bullshit and devour your soul, material compensation is just one aspect of job satisfaction.

[@ricardogarciarevilla6922]

@@ruffethereal1904 You are probably depressed or have some sort of mental illness. It's not normal to have a huge profit low risk job and feeling quite down about it.

[@totalermist]

@@ruffethereal1904 that's a problem of the individual then. I've been working in tech for almost 3 decades now and I live in this awful parallel universe where compensation is shit , expectations are high, and the workload can be overwhelming. Software "engineers" in particular seem to be so mentally dysfunctional that they don't even realise they actually live in paradise. The US corporate structure also seems to amplify this by a lot. I mean, come on, what do think working at a factory production line, a cashier job, data entry clerk, or being butcher in a large-scale slaughterhouse feels like? Sometimes a job is just that - a means to an end, something to bring food on table and pay your bills. It being "fun" or "fulfilling" is just a bonus. If you want meaning or fun - that's what hobbies are for and if someone claims to only work a couple of hours per week, there's plenty of time for fun projects, self-improvement, education, etc.

[@pablovirus]

@@totalermist agree 100% with you. Lol if I was earning 6 figures working a couple hours per day, you bet I'd be learning new crafts, trying out new sports, and other hobbies. IMO if one wants fulfillment one can help others by volunteering for local causes.

[@ChrisAthanas]

Yes cult of agile is way overblown 6:45

[@bloopbleepnothinghere]

What are the alternatives though? I've seen a lot of all of it and agile is as good as any. The problem is dogma. You can't be dogmatic about agile, that defeats the whole purpose. Agility accommodates the nature of tech. Engineering is ambiguous at times, and an engineering team needs to be able to accommodate spikes, injections, outages, change in business demand, etc. Other industries can't do that, manufacturing requires rigid planning because once a die is set, it is expensive to change. Software enjoys the ability to pivot at a moment's notice but to be able to take advantage of that you need a process that embraces that. That is where agile comes in. It's tried and tested, but often abused, and seen as the end, rather than simply a means to an end. On my team we work in whatever way makes sense for the work we are doing. We change processes whenever we feel like it. We can adapt to a significant roadmap change without too much fuss because there really isn't anyone stopping us. We are asked to deliver, and no one cares how we do it. To me, that is an agile team.

[@piotrd.4850]

@@bloopbleepnothinghere Decades of experience in legitimate project management methodologies?

[@bloopbleepnothinghere]

@@piotrd.4850 lol, agile is a decades old legitimate project management process. Waterfall is up there too, but it doesn't fit all either. People hate on agile, but that's because they take it as gospel which is basically the antithesis of agile. If you start believing in Jira, and heavy process and think that's agile and you've already lost your way.

[@EiziEizz]

Exactly estimating time of single sprint tasks is a total waste of time and useless. Kanban without estimation is the only real management tool.

[@bloopbleepnothinghere]

@@EiziEizz estimating effort is useful for estimating capacity. If we got ten tickets done in the last sprint, we may only get four this sprint. Sizing a ticket helps explain why that is. That, in turn, helps plan capacity, staffing, and make a good enough estimate on delivery. Estimating time can be a comfortable way to estimate effort. Some folks like to estimate with story points. Some with t-shirt sizes. It doesn't really matter, like at all. As long as your team understands what how to calibrate estimations then you can make good enough plans which ARE useful.

[@angelastubbe6445]

Very good interview. I am not a tech but I intuitive sense what this dude is talking about.

[@masterpep7218]

Not surprised a bit about the assessment by an insider. I've been saying since the start of this hype that AI is nothing more than a program and it needs a human to program it. The concept of "self awareness" will never be a reality, as it will always require guidelines, so directly (through calibration) or indirectly (through the original guidelines) it will always be under our control. You could see AI as a ship on the sea, that when it reaches land, it cannot go any further, as it was only meant to be on water. In order to be able to transform into a land vehicle, the initial programming will need to contain the concept of land as well, otherwise the ship just stops as soon as it reaches land and you have the BSOD. The misconception on machine learning is that the program will find solutions by itself, without original guidelines. That's impossible: if said ship reaches land and it has no concept of land, it will not be able to continue. If the coding tells it to approach any new problem in a random way however, it also means that there is no guideline tied to any rules, which means that anything goes. So just like in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the program can assume a plant or a whale, as there are no rules any longer. And as a consequence, it will fail, since it will not be able to function within a logical ruleset of its environment, as it behaves totally randomly, hence chaotically. Anything that is chaotic ends in disaster without direction. As for the hype, it's clear why there are so many interests pushing this narrative of self awareness and a plethora of "solutions" (for non-existing problems most of the time, like self-driving): the AI will become the convenient scape-goat. Once the masses are led to believe that AI are more intelligent than humans and can take over tasks (initially only driving, then complex tasks like work and finally ethical decisions, like court cases, war, etc.), AI will be installed instead of critical tasks and the owners and programmers will no longer be accountable. After all, the "superior intelligence" can only make the right decision, no matter what that is! And noone will ever find out how the AI have a pre-set of guidelines along hidden agendas. Just look at how ChatGPT is steering thinking along woke guidelines or the utter failure of Google's Gemini. So the brainwash is in full force to convince the masses that AI use is justified. Hence the lies surrounding its ability to learn by itself and obviously the smokescreen is prepared by using popular and superficial means, like art, music, visuals. People are so gullible, they think that a close to perfect visual picture means intelligence..

[@Llortnerof]

I'm still opposed to calling it "AI" at all. It does nothing but give people overblown ideas of what these systems can actually do.

[@GarryGri]

@@Llortnerof We are talking about Machine Learning, not Artificial Intelligence here. It's sad how many people don't bother to learn the difference. We haven't developed AI yet, maybe some time in the future. Possibly with a quantum computer or with analogue chip circuitry.. I would suggest that anybody who thinks we have developed AI should read up on the ELIZA project from the 1960s and the Eliza effect.

[@Llortnerof]

@@GarryGri Yeah, that's what i mean. AI has been turned into a marketing buzzword and very little that is named such is even remotely connected to it. I remain as yet unconvinced that we're even capable of actually creating one.

[@111street]

Its a concentration of sinful, evil, mans knowledge, imagination an invention without God so in rebellion and perverted. A.i doesnt know or care for right wrong good or evil. Its a weapons system they can target you around the world by reading brainwaves even from space. These people dont believe in or acknowledge God, Gods creation, therefore to them man has any worth or value. Its dangerous, but tbey continue with it in complete rebellion against God and nature. The last many years they even war against reality.Think of prophecies how theyll worship the image of the beast (a beast or an image - like A.i. of mans fallen sinful state. AntiChrist technology)..Or another prophecy about bringing life to the image of the beast..Look how they are desperate to bring life to it.And say these are our new gods! You must comply its the future! No God is the future.

[@benzemamumba]

What's with pamphlet you have written? Be concise.

[@enricobulic]

Great topic, great questions and awesome answers!

[@geno755]

Great interview - thank you very much. Finally someone rational and proficient on this topic.

[@SleazyMartines]

Such a refreshing talk hearing someone with sensible views

[@TheManinBlack9054]

No, its not a rational or proficient interview

[@tubeorip]

Great talk :)

[@josketcha]

AI "Art" is overhyped. I still think digital art is safe. AI is limited to it's database and it can't make anything new or original. It might look impressive at first glance but it has a lot problems and doesn't understand the fundamentals of art or color theory. It only understands patterns. Honestly do what you love and keep drawing.

[@zacharychristy8928]

Im not even an artist and I feel like I can always tell AI art because it lacks any sense of composition at all levels. For example, when a person decides they want to make a picture of a hyper-detailed scifi cyborg woman flying through space, there'd be intentionality in the woman's pose, how it shows off different mechanical details, they might choose to give her an open cybernetic ribcage to add an element of body horror, or instead make the robot body parts look sleek and smooth, like an Apple product. Then the background and other scene elements come together in a cohesive way that takes lighting and perspective into account. Maybe there's a ringed planet, or an asteroid belt, or something causing conflict or intrigue like a spaceship flying after her. Whenever I see AI art try to make something like this, it always seems like it combines the elements at random, because they can technically make sense, but don't cohere into a complete vision. It feels like it was created through cold iteration on forms (because it basically was). Not to mention, there isn't nearly as much control over these tools as people like to think. You can't really make minute adjustments with the level of precision and control that an actual artist has, and those details are what separate art that's great, from art that's "good enough".

[@ricardogarciarevilla6922]

Worst part is, AI dummies don't care. The fact that they can write a prompt, makes them look intelligent in their own eyes and they have started to belittle other humans with actual skills and calling his shit 'art' better because it takes less time to produce (newsflash, it's shit, no matter how much they tweak it, only anime art looks barely decent, but it's AI shit it could look good but it's the same vaseline crap!)... then they start to cope that they can fix it, it's all so tiresome, the technology of mediocre people

[@joshua.desmoines]

Isn't that how humans work. What is original? When I see some drawing of a Sci-Fi alien creature, its usually put together of parts from existing creatures. Everything you know and create is based on a database of experiences and consequences in your life. This is the same for all of us. None of us go deep into minds and create anything new. At least my thoughts, based on the lectures I've listened to, and my experiences.

[@ricardogarciarevilla6922]

@@joshua.desmoines you are not an artist and don't understand the difference between "AI" art and actual art done by humans... my god, the fallacy of everything has been done is the most ridiculous one. Then AI art is shit by definition, and most people defend it to death given they lack any artistic merit without it.

[@zacharychristy8928]

@@joshua.desmoines it's "part" of how humans work, but humans do a LOT more. Humans can take inspiration from different contexts and re-shape them into new ones. Humans can form more global compositional intentions and make far more cohesive art. We are not simply statistical collage machines. Think very hard about how would go about making something creatively. Yes, you may be able to relate every element to some inspirational source, but you did much more than just place those elements together and make them roughly fit. That's more or less all an AI is doing.

[@manasuniyal2897]

Listen to your podcast in 2024 , it's amazing

[@yapdog]

I wrote an AI-centric novel where I actually predicted much of what's happening. Of course, no one cared since the story was neither dystopian nor utopian.

[@ricardogarciarevilla6922]

I asked

[@yapdog]

@@ricardogarciarevilla6922 If you don't mind my asking, what did you ask?

[@vis4083]

That's still great, and a big accomplishment that you wrote an entire novel! good for you!

[@yapdog]

@@vis4083 Thanx😁

[@satvikarora5813]

where can i read it?

[@EE_GEEK_369]

I’ve been working as a self employed and independent programmer and EE for more than a decade now. I’ve been doing a number of products that serve my own industry, my own vision, and still working on dozens of projects simultaneously. I work some times 15 hours per day and some time I don’t sleep well for several days. Laziness? Where/How? Well, in the world of embedded, EE, and product design, I just don’t see how that lazy nature can get you where you want without spending hundreds if not thousands of hours building prototypes, testing them, modifying, then build another version again until you have a robust system that functions and behaves like you expected it to be. Well, since I used to be my own boss ever since, I have no idea how the climate at companies for tech employees look like, but I expected anything but laziness.

[@enermaxstephens1051]

Well it's always "just a matter of time" so I don't think you have an argument there. If this was the year 1890, you'd be saying the same thing about cars replacing the horses. You'd say "Oh yeah suuure, we'll see a Model-T Ford... I'll believe it when I see it!" But it was just a matter of time wasn't it? Sure it was 20 years later. But 20 years is a matter of time. And the way Ai works is that once a certain point is reached (which we haven't reached yet) it is capable of improving itself. So that "matter of time" is smaller than waiting on the Model T Ford. It's 5 or 10 years from GPT 3. Or you could say 20 or 30 years from OpenAi's inception. So while you do make a lot of other good arguments, that isn't one of them.

[@gergerger5888]

Best comment in this section.

[@MohamedShoeb-hz5re]

AI is just imitating and learning from human work, mostly plagiarism

[@MohamedShoeb-hz5re]

It's unethical by nature, and it's not thinking, it's at best a parrot

[@rociomiranda5684]

That it can not be done yet doesn’t mean it never will. That it doesn't exist yet doesn’t mean it's impossible.

[@unrealdevop]

Yeah Ai won't be replacing Tech jobs anytime soon. If Tech Jobs are being laid off it's because they are over-staffed not because Ai is replacing them.....simply put the Tech field is too over-hyped and everyone wants a Tech Job.

[@crybabychrononaut]

Uh-huhhhhh... I'm sure AI will have a really tough time figuring out...software coding... 😂

[@unrealdevop]

@@crybabychrononaut It will, and the reason why is simply that, Ai has no reasoning skills. You would have just as much luck teaching a Parrot to code because just like the fact that a Parrot doesn't understand what it's saying....neither do Neural Networks.

[@PinkyMcPinksAlot]

This! Some of the layoffs were due to irresponsible hiring by the companies. They go on hiring sprees and then waves of layoffs and the normalization of that is a problem in of itself.

[@fertilizerspike]

It won't eliminate many jobs but it can certainly do those jobs with negligible human input

[@nickspeelman9174]

As an all-purpose coder/developer for a small, not-tech, mission-driven, high-performing organization I am consistently shocked at how long it takes entire teams of people to do the same amount of work as me. And it's not because I'm particularly talented. (I'm competent but not a genius by any stretch.) It's just because most for-profit organizations are so incredibly bloated I'm surprised they're able to function at all.

[@glennm7086]

The last 17 years of my 30yr career was at Intel. I never had a job that was working only a few hours a week. It was normal to work 50 to 70 hours a week. One time I was scolded by the boss, “we missed you on Saturday“. I had another boss who called his staff meeting on Saturday morning at 10 AM. There’s a serious lack of credibility of anyone who had a real job at a real high-tech company, saying he wasn’t working very hard. He would’ve never made it off probation at Intel.

[@piotrd.4850]

For one 'tech industry' is stretched. But yeah, cheap money made a lot of project look EXACTLY like the guy describes.

[@nestorsantana]

The true is obvious and simple. Some people lie about getting well pay and doing little work, just to get attention and feel better than others. It is hard to believe a business pays 6 figures just to do a few hours of work per day and if you find a top genius engineer makes sense get him busy, productive and happy working for you and not the competition, not let him get bored or work in their own stuff and leave you later. So, maybe in some rare cases, it would happen, that you got hired and is too much work to do.. but that is rare

[@richardwalker4518]

As an employee of a large corporate, I can absolutely vouch for what Emmanuel is saying. The new fashions come in, Machine Learning, Big data etc. and there is always a drive to adopt it. So you look at the portfolio of planned work and it becomes clear that these initiatives are not the product of real customer demand or flashes of brilliance on the part of their Progenitors, rather it comes from other employees who are expected to come up with something to hit a target of some kind, so the just kind of put something together for the sake of getting it over the line. It's usually a big fat zero burger

[@Hoser584]

Has no one ever watched Space Oddity 2000? And to see Stanley Kubrick's vision in 1968: he had an AI computer run a space station, which lost its mind and killed all the astronauts on board. Its name was Hal, and seeing this film and finding out when it was made is mind-blowing.

[@nosuchthing8]

Yes, great movie.

[@briansmythe3000]

Sorry Dave I can't do that 😮

[@adventurer3645]

Also 1984 and Idiocracy. Unfortunately prophetic.

[@carultch]

That was "2001 A Space Odyssey". An interesting Easter egg: HAL was named to match IBM. Every letter in HAL is one letter behind every letter in IBM, in the alphabet.

[@bauzaque]

ALL HYPE INDEED! Thank you for learning me AI in the 1st 15 minutes. As I suspected.

[@LEXICON369]

This conversation will not age very well.

[@robertlackey7212]

I have been working on a computer for farmers for about 3 years , this video made me think I am on the right track.

[@webopa7497]

My impression is that many people who have been working on machine learning for a long time have not yet grasped the latest generation of AI. It seems they think in their old (outdated) models. It's like with the engineers who have been working on the combustion motors and who now (try to) talk about electric motors and EVs.

[@kristinabliss]

Yes. And generally people who have all their lives identified as the smartest person in the room desperately grope for ways to call b.s. on recent tech to prove they will always be intellectually king of the hill.

[@gergerger5888]

Literally my boss (I hope he is not reading this).

[@gemmasmit3577]

Should we negate his opinion

[@evapirug112]

AI is very usefull tool. Someone who says it's just hype is stupid. AI is already changing world and will change world completely within 5-10 years.

[@GeePeeOoo]

Will be a lot less useful compared to the hype. Certainly it will spoil the whole social media bullshit and make the world less safe

[@kedamono6282]

Name a thing that AI can do that humans can't.

[@evapirug112]

@@kedamono6282 it can find useful information in a blink of an eye,, it can write an essay in 1 second. It can diagnose cancer more precisely than human, it can create new materials, new molecules and this is just a beginning.

[@nitesh-maharaj]

Majority of the tasks people are trying to resolve with AI can be done with a where clause.

[@bloopbleepnothinghere]

Example?

[@lalnuntluangachhakchhuak5767]

IF Else can still do so much

[@0512Kasia]

Gosh, I am soo on board with what the guests says at the end: SOLVING REAL problems and putting the cart in front of the horse.

[@jaye5632]

For a start, Scrum != Agile. Scrum is a practice, Agile is a methodology. Secondly not every Tech worker is working just microseconds a day. Some of us actually work. Thirdly AI is a super set, ML is a subset of AI. While as a pragmatist, I do agree that there is a lot of hype in the industry and in general to AI. I also believe that there is a limitation to current systems, even as impressive as they currently are, there are still major gaps. There is no concrete path currently which says LLMs are the future of AI, though their NLP capabilities are a major advancement, being able to communicate with a computer with natural language is very important. Chat GPT and others are not the AI we will end up with, it is a step along to the path of AI. The human mind is a predictive machine like LLMs, but that is not the only thing it is.

[@EdwardRost-5]

Ai is a puny god, I am pretty sure salt water is its kryptonite.