memes

This is the truly scary part for students using LLMs. We’re going to end up with civil engineers who don’t know how to calculate weight distribution. Doctors who don’t know how to read an EKG. Lawyers who lose cases they should have won, because they didn’t follow basic procedures.

I work in live events. I do things like hanging like array speakers for concerts. Just last month, I was on a show that was hanging an LED wall behind the stage. A LED wall is made up of individual panels, which lock together and form a solid screen in the size and shape you need. There have been several high-profile LED wall collapses, because they’re huge, heavy, and easy to fuck up. And when they collapse, people get seriously injured.

Typically, you build them by hanging truss from chain motors, and then mounting the screen to the truss. The screen gets built in rows, with one row getting snapped together across the truss, then the truss is raised slightly, then you snap the next row on. Repeat until the screen is at the desired size. So this means the screen gets heavier and heavier as you build it. Part of the reason why collapses can be so dangerous is because it often happens while the screen is actively being worked on. You’ll have crew underneath the truss, hanging panels to build the next row. And then suddenly the chain motors start to slip because they quietly blew right past their weight limits as the crew added additional weight with each row.

While working that gig, I overheard the lead rigger (the one in charge of calculating weight distribution on the hanging motors, designing the truss system to hold everything, deciding exactly where the motors should be mounted, etc) utter the words “yeah, ChatGPT says these panels are only 25 pounds each. That means we’re right at our weight limit. We should be good.”

In stagehand work, we use 25 pound sandbags all the time. I know what 25 pounds feels like. The same way a farmer would be able to feel if a hay bale is too light. I had been snapping these panels together all morning, and I knew without a doubt that they didn’t feel like 25 pounds. I looked up the actual tech specs directly from the LED panel’s manufacturer. Each panel was 35 pounds, not 25.

ChatGPT just hallucinated the 25 pound weight, and the dumbass rigger didn’t bother to double check any of it. We were going to be ~40% over our chain motors’ posted weight ratings, and needed like four extra motors to help carry the load. The screen was already halfway built on the truss, so hanging new motors was a giant pain in the ass. It required a scissor lift and climbing riggers to go install new pick points. It easily added an extra hour to the install, while we just sat and waited for the riggers to work.

That rigger is still working in the industry. I hope that it was a learning experience for him.

It's becoming an excuse for mass layoffs, when the end result isn't more productivity but lower quality.

That already happens, doge used LLMs to decide which programs to cut.

graphic designers have been out of work for almost 18 years. the job market was flooded by mediocre no talent hack designers. this drastically dropped the annual salary to basic minimum wage.

now, those same "improved" mediocre designers are losing their jobs to AI.

if the guy can't read the writing on the walls, he won't learn until it blows up in his face.

Everybody here keeps assuming LLMs will go away when the bubble pops. Definitely not. They're still going to be a big part of the world, like it or not.

But yes, generally speaking, people who didn't brain rot and cheat through school are probably more valuable to have as employees. Although llms can be good learning aids if used not dumbly

schizoposting

I'm sorry your not paid to think, your paid to hit enter when the LLM wants to do something sketchy and take the blame when it blows up in our face.

Machine learning is a monkey bashing keys on a typewriter. Improvements will result in a better typewriter, so the monkey will more often hit the good keys instead of the bad ones, but it won't result in a smarter monkey. It will still be random because probability is inherent to the technology, which means that AI will never be trustworthy. Would you ever trust a calculator that sometimes says 1+1=3? Even if it only did that 1% of the time?

You aren't wrong about GenAI replacing jobs though, because there are people willing to use faulty, untrustworthy tools. Your manager, people in the C-suite, Business Idiots who have no idea what the the job actually needs to function properly are being tricked into thinking that chat boxes will let them cut operational costs without incurring any significant consequences.

It doesn't really matter how good or not AI is; the reason jobs are being cut is because Business Idiots with more money than sense fire people based on vibes. This has been a known problem since the 1980's when Jack Welch destroyed GE through his idiotic "Rank and Yank" strategy. His foolish business practices made a lot of money in the short term, which is why he is lauded as the CEO of the Century, even though those same business practices destroyed one of the greatest American companies in a handful of years.

That might take 15 or 30 years

Great. I'll probably be among the last generation that has to work for a living.