Notes on Generative AI

note

  • OpenAI and other LLMs (large language models, which are behind the generative AI such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT) employ de facto slave labor to make their product palatable and to fireproof it against litigation. https://qz.com/open-ai-underpaid-200-kenyans-to-perfect-chatgpt-1850005025 
  • Other Silicon Valley corporations, such as Meta, have also employed economic slave labor in this way.
  • OpenAI is trained on the UN Declaration of Human Rights but that is a meaningless publicity stunt, since (a) a single document is an a drop in the ocean and (b) it can’t actually process its ideas; it’s not cognitive at all
  • Noam Chomsky said at WebSummit that GPT amounts to nothing more than a massive waste of electricity in California (probably in the PNW, actually) but point taken
  • I don’t quite agree with that statement; when it comes to scientific inquiry, he is right; it doesn’t seem to advance the field of AI or to in any way deepen our understanding of the world
  • But GPT is incredibly useful; it’s more useful than Google search, that’s for sure
  • Jasper.ai is in trouble, obviously, because it’s nothing more than an ecommerce storefront for ChatGPT. Ditto for the other 50 such startups.
  • Who’s not in trouble who is also reselling GPT? Specialized, lean, agile products, such as Message Maps
  • Products that are not based on AI but rather, use it to enhance the product, such as Brightr