[nsteel]

> These “AI is a gimmick that does nothing” articles

I don't think that's an accurate summary of this article. Are you basing that just on the title, or do you fundamentally disagree with the author here?

> We call something a gimmick, the literary scholar Sianne Ngai points out, when it seems to be simultaneously working too hard and not hard enough. It appears both to save labor and to inflate it, like a fanciful Rube Goldberg device that allows you to sharpen a pencil merely by raising the sash on a window, which only initiates a chain of causation involving strings, pulleys, weights, levers, fire, flora, and fauna, including an opossum. The apparatus of a large language model really is remarkable. It takes in billions of pages of writing and figures out the configuration of words that will delight me just enough to feed it another prompt. There’s nothing else like it.

[keiferski]

Not sure how that definition of a gimmick applies to what I wrote. Labeling AI tools as gimmicks would imply that they both save labor and inflate it and therefore offer no real fundamental improvements or value.

In my own experience, that is absolute nonsense, and I have gotten immense amounts of value from it. Most of the critical arguments (like the link) are almost always from people that use them as basic chatbots without any sort of deeper understanding or exploration of the tools.

[-__---____-ZXyw]

Another commenter on here talked about AI's ability to "impress an idiot". I see lots of this. Your usage sounds decidedly unidiotic, and I'm not saying you are an idiot - but it sounds like your view of the criticism is based on the idea that everyone who isn't using it as cleverly as you essentially is an idiot who simply hasn't realised how to get to a "deeper understanding" in the "exploration" of these tools.

Please consider that there are some very clever people out there. I can respond to your point about languages personally - I speak three, and have lived and operated for extended periods in two others which I wouldn't call myself "fluent" in as it's been a number of years. I would not use an LLM to generate images for each word, as I have methods that I like already that work for me, and I would consider that a wasteful use of resources. I am into permacomputing, minimising resources, etc.

When I see you put the idea forward, I think, oh, neat, but surely it'd be much more effective if you did a 30s sketch for each word, and improved your drawing as you went.

In summary - do read the article, it's very good! You're responding to an imagined argument based on a headline, ignoring a nuanced and serious argument, by saying: "yeah, but I use it well, so?! It's not a gimmick then, for me!"

[keiferski]

I did read the article and wrote my comment afterward. I didn't find it to be nuanced at all, and the author's description of using LLMs was amateurish at best, which is my point.

30 second sketches also are not nearly as effective as detailed images and would likely have dubious value in implementing the Picture Superiority Effect.

Nowhere did I say that people who write essays about AI being useless are idiots. That's your terminology, not mine. Merely that they lack imagination and creativity when it comes to exploring the potential of a new tool and instead just make weak criticisms.

[-__---____-ZXyw]

I feel like we're talking past each other. In the interest of understanding, this is what I feel like I'm reading from you:

1. In a couple of contexts, as a non-expert, I'm getting excellent use out of these LLM tools, because I'm imaginative and creative in my use of them.

2. I get such great use out of them, as a non-expert, in these areas, that any expert claiming they are gimmicks, is simply wrong. They just need to get more imaginative and creative, like me.

Am I misunderstanding you here? Is this really what you're saying?

The holes in the thinking seem obvious, if I may be blunt. I would suggest you ask an LLM to help you analyse it, but I think they're quite bad at that, as they are programmed to reflect your biases back at you in a positive way. The largest epistemic issue they have is probably that - it is only possible to overcome this tendency to placate the user if the user has great knowledge of their biases, an issue even the best experts face!

[keiferski]

I said that people making blanket statements about LLMs being gimmicks need to be more creative. Then I listed a couple examples of how I find them useful, with the key point being that I don’t expect perfection.

This isn’t that complicated. Someone wrote an article saying X is a gimmick and made a weak argument. I said no, in my experience that isn’t the case, and here are a few examples.

Your patronizing tone is pretty irritating and distracts from whatever point you’re trying to make. But I’m not sure you’re actually engaging in good faith here, so I think that’s the end of this conversation.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> I said that people making blanket statements about LLMs being gimmicks need to be more creative. Then I listed a couple examples of how I find them useful, with the key point being that I don’t expect perfection.

I just want to point out that this is precisely how they described your perspective. It’s hard to see how you find their tone patronizing given they’re just explaining their point of view. It’s worth noting that others may find your words to be patronizing:

> These “AI is a gimmick that does nothing” articles mostly just communicate to me that most people lack imagination.

> Most of the critical arguments (like the link) are almost always from people that use them as basic chatbots without any sort of deeper understanding or exploration of the tools.

> I said that people making blanket statements about LLMs being gimmicks need to be more creative.

[namaria]

> When I see you put the idea forward, I think, oh, neat, but surely it'd be much more effective if you did a 30s sketch for each word, and improved your drawing as you went.

Or, you know, just imagine something. Which is what I have done for learning to speak 3 languages fluently other than my mother tongue.

[-__---____-ZXyw]

I actually don't really imagine anything, I like the sounds and contours of words and find them easy to learn in the context of punchy sentences. But vividly imagining sounds fun too