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Ask HN: Are you seeing AI used in places where it shouldn't be?
It's no surprise, really, but I'm starting to see companies sticking AI into places where it just doesn't make any sense. I'm not talking about the use of AI all over marketing materials. That's a given.
I'm talking about things like my CEO wanting me to build an AI sales assistant when a simple web form would actually be faster to develop and use.
What are you seeing?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cratermoon 3y agoLaw enforcement and war come to mind readily.
- hmcq6 3y agorelevant: https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1218643254/israel-is-using-an-ai-system-to-find-targets-in-gaza-experts-say-its-just-the-st https://www.npr.org/2023/12/14/1218643254/israel-is-using-an...
- namaria 3y ago> The military claims that the AI system, named "the Gospel," Are we living in a badly written sci fi book?
- krapp 3y agoI'm increasingly convinced we're living in a draft of Snow Crash discarded for being too ridiculous.
- cratermoon 3y agohttp://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-cre...
- billy99k 3y agoyeah. Our marketing department tries to find a use for AI everywhere, mostly to get on the bandwagon. The latest was for a chatbot that 100% needs to give exact information or it could be be a big problem form the company. The idea was shot down, but a traditional chatbot would have been a better idea.
- duffpkg 3y agoIt is infiltrating healthcare in all of the worst possible ways at present. It is sneaking into diagnosis and treatment in ways that are outright dangerous to patients.
- pedalpete 3y agoCan you give an example of this? Where I'm familiar with AI in healthcare is tools to help radiologists and cardiologists detect cancer early. This is a support AI, not the AI doing all of the work. I'm also hearing about the potential for generative AI to provide a good bedside manner in "discussing" a diagnosis with a patient. Not diagnosing, but having more patience and time than a doctor has to communicate with the patient on known entities. We use ML for measuring sleep state and finding opportunities to stimulate the brain to improve the efficiency of deep sleep. Where are these "worst possible ways" that I'm unfamiliar with?
- Devasta 3y agoThe above examples you've provided sound pretty dreadful to be honest. I can't imagine how awful it would be to be told I've a serious disease and then be stuck talking about it to a chatbot of all things.
- inheritedwisdom 3y agoThe clinicians themselves can be pretty dreadful. The uses being explored are to give coaching to them ahead of delivering news to help boost empathy and increase understanding. “It looks like you had a subdural hematoma cause a status epilepticus seizure” vs “that fall you took broke some blood vessels in your head which caused a longer seizure than we like to see”.
- viraptor 3y agoIt's also used for visit notes generation and works really well. Doctors are really loving this one in my experience https://www.lyrebirdhealth.com/ https://www.lyrebirdhealth.com/ It's also assistive of course - it basically generates a draft that you're supposed to edit.
- throwaway743 3y agoWaifu generators
- krapp 3y agoThat may be the only acceptable use of AI.
- weregiraffe 3y agoHusbandu generators are kinda lacking...
- gadders 3y agoThere is a new trend on 4chan called something like "dignif-ai" where they are taking images of scantily clad gym women/OF "performers" and using AI to put clothes back on them and tell them how much nicer they look dressed in a less revealing fashion.
- codegeek 3y agoAI is the new Gold rush at least for next 2-3 more years. So yes, expect it to be everywhere. Reminds me of blockchain days even though AI does have better use cases overall.
- imhoguy 3y agoAnd shovels sell very well - GPUs.
- pinkgolem 3y agoIndustrial knowledge management.(multi ton press, heated up multiple 100 degrees, furnaces, etc..) If you push 3-4 documents into a language model and then ask it questions, it creates some dangerous situations
- Loggias 3y ago[dead]
- crimsontech 3y agoOn a parcel tracking web app there was a “GPT” button next to the courier service so I clicked it and saw a very GPT like description of the courier company. When I inspected the code for the site I saw it was just hard coded in to the web page and figured someone demanded AI should be used on the app so the dev just faked it.
- qup 3y agoI like this dev
- netsharc 3y agoReminds me of this Dilbert strip: http://i.pinimg.com/originals/2d/90/38/2d90385bced70b3029ef0a059e888baf.gif http://i.pinimg.com/originals/2d/90/38/2d90385bced70b3029ef0...
- hammyhavoc 3y agoUpsettingly, I've been in that situation. Sigh. LMAO.
- replwoacause 3y agoLove it
- wkjagt 3y agoThis is the next generation: artificial artificial intelligence
- nextos 3y agoI think it is used in lots of places where modern probabilistic inference would be a better fit. In other words, look at methods that are in Murphy's volume 2, rather than 1, especially parts II, V, and VI: https://probml.github.io/pml-book https://probml.github.io/pml-book
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- testmasterflex 3y agoChatbots
- slimrec77 3y agoI would say I am more shocked by the lack of seeing AI being used. Given the LLM hype and over a year in, I was expecting there would be all these "why didn't I think of that" uses by now. I can't think of a single example. A chat bot no one is going to use seems to be the main use case.
- bwanab 3y agoThis makes me think of similar questions 30 or so years ago: Are you seeing the internet used in places where it shouldn't be? If AI is being used in places it shouldn't be, then presumably after a little (or lot) of money has been wasted, firms will figure out that it's a bad fit for the job. I don't see any good reason to rule anything out before there's been time to evaluate it's efficacy.
- aidantomcy 3y agoimo AI is just too overhyped and at this point I'm kinda sick of seeing companies update their product with 'AI features'
- Tcepsa 3y agoLots of "how to" articles written by AI with insufficient editorial oversight. For example, I was trying to learn about buffers for polishing things (like buffing the clear coat on a car, or buffing a floor) and one of the articles I found veered off into talking about electronic buffers (like for driving outputs) which I would have expected a Real Human to know was completely out of place, and not to have included it. That and how pointlessly rambly they are. Maybe good if I'm trying to fall asleep, but totally grinds my gears when I'm looking for information! (Pretty sure they do it that way to increase the number of ads shown to users over the course of the material)
- ssss11 3y agoIn the corporate world we’ll see all that shit before it stops. We’re in the peak of the hype cycle. Don’t worry when this one fades a new one will come right along…
- drakonka 3y agoI am seeing AI used in _ways_ that it shouldn't be. More specifically, ways that I believe decrease efficiency and quality rather than improve them. So many people seem to want to be able to want to contort themselves with prompt "optimizations" to try to get models to do exactly what they want. They think if they can just throw a good-enough prompt into this black box it'll miraculously write entire applications for them or do whatever else they want. I believe this is a misguided overcorrection. Instead, I think we should strive to use AI to _extend_ (and eventually even build) our non-AI tooling rather than replace it. GPT-4 is not a reliable magic box that will solve all your problems - but it is a powerful way to enhance your existing brain power _and_ other tools. We can likewise build tooling that will help us offload more work to AI (e.g., develop systems that analyze AI output and reflect on themselves). We can build systems that clarify and break instructions down into smaller steps (some of which may involve AI queries and others not). But to spend hours trying to tweak the perfect prompt to get just the right kind of usable output from GPT-4, just so you don't have to open a spreadsheet or write your own code? We're wasting time insetad of saving it.
- RecycledEle 3y agoWell said! Thank You!
- wkjagt 3y agoThe Weather Network has an IA bot now that you can ask “do I need to wear a coat tomorrow” or “should I bring an umbrella”. It really feels like a “how can we use AI for _anything_”, but only really shows that looking at a weather forecast doesn’t require a lot of intelligence in the first place, so there’s no real problem to be solved by adding the artificial variant.