2 Apr
2025
2 Apr
'25
5:44 p.m.
"Ancient BASIC dialects" seems like a rather small obscure domain
and as they say, they're not making any more of them. I'd think
that if you trained an AI on enough examples, they'd do much better.
The BASIC language isn't that complex compared to modern languages
where people are finding AI as a useful assistant, like it or not.
Think of it like old-school "pair programming" that gives you
a friend in your cube to talk to.
- John
2 Apr
2 Apr
6:34 p.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 4/2/25 10:44, John Foust via cctalk wrote:
"Ancient BASIC dialects" seems like a rather small obscure domain
and as they say, they're not making any more of them. I'd think
that if you trained an AI on enough examples, they'd do much better.
The BASIC language isn't that complex compared to modern languages
where people are finding AI as a useful assistant, like it or not.
Think of it like old-school "pair programming" that gives you
a friend in your cube to talk to.
BASIC is not "ancient" although I suppose one could assign a vintage
year. Plugboard programming is ancient, at least in the area of
electronic computing.
--Chuck
6:37 p.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 02/04/2025 19:44, John Foust via cctalk wrote:
Think of it like old-school "pair
programming" that gives you
a friend in your cube to talk to.
As long as you remember that the "AI" (really not AI, just a
generative large language model) doesn't actually understand
what it is doing - it is just telling you what people usually
wrote in that situation.
Julf
3 Apr
3 Apr
12:10 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 4/2/2025 2:37 PM, Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote:
On 02/04/2025 19:44, John Foust via cctalk wrote:
Except that no one ever wrote code like it offered me cause
it was just plain wrong and wouldn't work.
bill
Think of it like old-school "pair
programming" that gives you
a friend in your cube to talk to.
As long as you remember that the "AI" (really not AI, just a
generative large language model) doesn't actually understand
what it is doing - it is just telling you what people usually
wrote in that situation.
1:31 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 2025-04-02 6:10 p.m., Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
Except that no one ever wrote code like it offered me cause
it was just plain wrong and wouldn't work.
I write code like that all the time:)
bill
Have the tools really improved all that much to write better code
or debug it since the early 80's?
2:14 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 4/2/2025 9:31 PM, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 2025-04-02 6:10 p.m., Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
wrote:
What would you write code like that for? It won't run.
It is claiming the existence of and is using things that
don't exist on the system it was providing code for?
bill
Except that no one ever wrote code like it offered me cause
it was just plain wrong and wouldn't work.
I write code like that all the time:)
6:16 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 03/04/2025 02:10, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
Except that no one ever wrote code like it offered me
cause
it was just plain wrong and wouldn't work.
Indeed. As I wrote it has no actual understanding. It just combines
things based on statistics.
It is like Mark V. Shaney, the chatbot that Rob Pike and
Bruce Ellis did in the 1980s, but with enormous amounts
of computing power (and source material from the net)
thrown at it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney
Julf
6:44 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 2025-04-03 12:16 a.m., Johan Helsingius via cctalk wrote:
Indeed. As I wrote it has no actual understanding. It
just combines
things based on statistics.
It is like Mark V. Shaney, the chatbot that Rob Pike and
Bruce Ellis did in the 1980s, but with enormous amounts
of computing power (and source material from the net)
thrown at it.
Other than in Si-Fi novels and movies, what use is a AI?
Ben.
7:41 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
AIs that are wise rather than idiot-savants ought to be useful, in the way
sci-fi writers imagine.
However, statistical systems can't surpass their training, and their
training contains flaws - many, in the case of uncurated internet grabs.
And the compulsion to not admit to a lack of knowledge and substiture -
perhaps unknowingly - hallucinations is absurd. I cannot see any
justification for that.
On Thu, Apr 3, 2025 at 8:01 AM ben via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 2025-04-03 12:16 a.m., Johan Helsingius via cctalk
wrote:
Indeed. As I wrote it has no actual
understanding. It just combines
things based on statistics.
It is like Mark V. Shaney, the chatbot that Rob Pike and
Bruce Ellis did in the 1980s, but with enormous amounts
of computing power (and source material from the net)
thrown at it.
Other than in Si-Fi novels and movies, what use is a AI?
Ben.
10:02 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On 4/3/25 02:41, Adrian Godwin via cctalk wrote:
AIs that are wise rather than idiot-savants ought to
be useful, in the way
sci-fi writers imagine.
However, statistical systems can't surpass their training, and their
training contains flaws - many, in the case of uncurated internet grabs.
And the compulsion to not admit to a lack of knowledge and substiture -
perhaps unknowingly - hallucinations is absurd. I cannot see any
justification for that.
The justification for that compulsion is fairly obvious if you take
"do no harm" out of the equation. An AI that says "I don't know"
loses
more business, aka profit, than an AI that spouts garbage.
AI and LLMs strengthen my belief that humanity's technology surpassed
our ethics decades ago. Like, trampled any useful code of behavior into
the dirt. I don't have the faintest idea what to do about that, either.
Doc
10:58 a.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
Yes.
I should have said 'any honest justification'
But if we can expect only dishonesty from their promoters, there's no
future for them.
On Thu, Apr 3, 2025 at 11:31 AM Doc Shipley via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 4/3/25 02:41, Adrian Godwin via cctalk wrote:
AIs that are wise rather than idiot-savants ought
to be useful, in the
way
sci-fi writers imagine.
However, statistical systems can't surpass their training, and their
training contains flaws - many, in the case of uncurated internet grabs.
And the compulsion to not admit to a lack of knowledge and substiture -
perhaps unknowingly - hallucinations is absurd. I cannot see any
justification for that.
The justification for that compulsion is fairly obvious if you take
"do no harm" out of the equation. An AI that says "I don't know"
loses
more business, aka profit, than an AI that spouts garbage.
AI and LLMs strengthen my belief that humanity's technology surpassed
our ethics decades ago. Like, trampled any useful code of behavior into
the dirt. I don't have the faintest idea what to do about that, either.
Doc
6:08 p.m.
New subject: Why I am not worried about AI taking over the world!
On Thu, Apr 03, 2025 at 12:44:47AM -0600, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 2025-04-03 12:16 a.m., Johan Helsingius via cctalk
wrote:
The issue arises in that in the popular conception AI is
a thing where a grammatical construction like "an AI"
makes sense. However, that's not the way to look at it.
AI is a subject of study, like Physics or Electrial
Engineering. One doesn't talk about "a physics" or
"an electrical engineering." So what is the subject
of AI? It's studying the phenomenon of intelligence
and the mechanisms of the brain using the computer as
a laboratory and in ways that we can't do with ourselves.
What then is an LLM in that context? It's an experiment
in the subfield of AI called Natural Language Processing.
Is it possible for such an experiment to produce a
useful tool? Maybe, but so far I haven't seen anything
to suggest that this one has. So far, all of the output
I've seen triggers a recognition in my brain of a
student who doesn't understand the question and is
throwing information at the question, hoping something
will stick. The fact that a significant part of the
world seems to see that behavior as an example of
intelligence is the depressing part.
BLS
Indeed. As I wrote it has no actual
understanding. It just combines
things based on statistics.
It is like Mark V. Shaney, the chatbot that Rob Pike and
Bruce Ellis did in the 1980s, but with enormous amounts
of computing power (and source material from the net)
thrown at it.
Other than in Si-Fi novels and movies, what use is a AI?
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11 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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Adrian Godwin -
ben -
Bill Gunshannon -
Brian L. Stuart -
Chuck Guzis -
Doc Shipley -
Johan Helsingius -
John Foust