AI or web search answers

[Edward Weber]

There's been a lot of discussion about how "smart" the Chat AI programs are.

Here is what it returned today after a simple question we recently discussed on this forum, you decide if it's smart enough to take jobs and destroy humanity.

Question, What qualities make beech a good choice for a hand plane




Answer


Beech is an excellent choice for a hand plane due to its many desirable properties. Here are some reasons why:

1. Hardness: Beech is a hardwood and is known for its hardness, which allows it to resist wear and tear, making it perfect for use in woodworking tools like hand planes.

2. Stability: Beech is a stable wood that is not prone to warping or shrinking, which ensures that your hand plane will remain flat and true over time.

3. Grain: The grain of beech is straight and fine, making it easy to work with and ideal for creating smooth surfaces.

4. Toughness: Beech is tough and durable, which means that it can withstand heavy use and will last a long time. This is especially important for hand planes that need to endure repeated blows from a mallet.

5. Availability: Beech wood is widely available and relatively affordable, making it an excellent choice for hand plane makers and woodworkers.

[Greg Parrish]

The AI response seems better put together than most of the junk you find on the internet these days. Do a general search for something like “what is the best router to buy” and most of the review/recommend type sites look like they were written in a foreign language and then translated to English. They don’t flow and they seem like a kindergartner wrote many of them.

[Mike Soaper]

"4. Toughness: Beech is tough and durable, which means that it can withstand heavy use and will last a long time. This is especially important for hand planes that need to endure repeated blows from a mallet.

I wonder the AI source for this

[Bill Howatt]

Could be me, when I first started using a hand plane there were times threatening to bash the thing with a mallet was spoken out loud. :)!

[Mel Fulks]

Beech was cheap, so it got used for a lot of stuff. All the old books said make your woodworking benches out of beech. But Honduras
mahogany, and rosewood work well too !

[Greg Parrish]

I’m assuming they are referring to striking the body of the plane to set or adjust the blade. https://www.theenglishwoodworker.com/adjusting-wooden-planes/


"4. Toughness: Beech is tough and durable, which means that it can withstand heavy use and will last a long time. This is especially important for hand planes that need to endure repeated blows from a mallet.

I wonder the AI source for this

[Edward Weber]

I find these results to be underwhelming.
All I can glean is that the AI searched the web, instead of me doing it. The difference is, I can discern the info from the nonsense.
1. Hardness: Beech is a hardwood and is known for its hardness.
Seriously?
It took me a minute to digest what the heck it was saying about the mallet. I use a small wooden mallet on my chisels but I tap it for adjustment, I don't consider it to be "repeated blows from a mallet"
I won't even go into the Stability portion.

I did another query, I asked, "how to cut a mortise and tenon joint".

Cutting a mortise and tenon joint involves using a chisel, saw, and possibly a router to create the necessary cuts. Here is a basic guide:

Materials and tools needed:
- Wood for the joint
- Chisel
- Saw (preferably a tenon saw)
- Router (optional)
- Pencil
- Tape measure or ruler
- Clamps

Instructions:

1. Measure and mark the locations of the mortise and tenon on the wood pieces. It's important to take accurate measurements, as the joint won't fit properly if they're off.

2. Cut the tenon first. Use a saw to create the shoulder cut, which is the part that fits against the other piece. Then, use a chisel to remove the remaining wood from the cheeks and face of the tenon until it fits snugly into the mortise.

3. Next, cut the mortise. Use a chisel to carve out the mortise space in the second piece of wood. You can also use a router to remove the bulk of the wood, and then finish with a chisel for more precision.

4. Test fit the joint before gluing. Be sure everything fits together snugly, but not too tight.

5. Apply glue to the tenon and insert it into the mortise. Clamp everything together and allow the glue to dry thoroughly before removing the clamps.

With practice and patience, anyone can master the art of cutting perfect mortises and tenons.

Now surely anyone who says to cut the tenon first has an agenda to destroy all humanity, this is absolute proof.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/artificial-intelligence-extinction-risk-1.6859118

[Jim Becker]

There was a new item this past week where an attorney tried to be lazy and not do their own research...asked the friendly online AI for case citations...put them into the court proceedings...and they were all wrong.

[Edward Weber]

I heard that it was citing cases that didn't exist.
Maybe it looked through the 20+ years of Law & Order TV show and found some, who knows.
Not ready for prime time if you ask me, still needs work.

[Patty Hann]

There was a new item this past week where an attorney tried to be lazy and not do their own research...asked the friendly online AI for case citations...put them into the court proceedings...and they were all wrong.

Wait until some bright techy types start pushing for AI to make medical diagnoses ...yikes! :eek:

[Alan Lightstone]

Wait until some bright techy types start pushing for AI to make medical diagnoses ...yikes! :eek:
A thought that terrifies doctors.

I read an article today that a weight loss web site fired all its humans and switched to AI. It's responses, to say the least, were pretty concerning. They are now rethinking their approach after many complaints.

[Mike Henderson]

There was a new item this past week where an attorney tried to be lazy and not do their own research...asked the friendly online AI for case citations...put them into the court proceedings...and they were all wrong.

Thart was an interesting story. There's a sanctions hearing on June 7th (if I remember correctly). The attorney is responsible - he can't pass the blame to AI.

In a situation like this, the judge is going to have a clerk look up the cases - he has to read them to see if they apply. And the opposing council is going to look them up to argue against them. No way to pass them off as real.

Mike

[Edward Weber]

Thart was an interesting story. There's a sanctions hearing on June 7th (if I remember correctly). The attorney is responsible - he can't pass the blame to AI.

In a situation like this, the judge is going to have a clerk look up the cases - he has to read them to see if they apply. And the opposing council is going to look them up to argue against them. No way to pass them off as real.

Mike

I thought that the AI was going to replace us lowly humans. Now it seems that us carbon based life forms need to fact check the work of the AI.

So AI has replaced some jobs but due to it's inaccuracies and need to verify it's conclusions, it's also created some as well.

[Mike Henderson]

If you dig into that story, the attorney asked the AI if all the cases were real and the AI assured him that they were and could be found on legal databases. Total lie. They were just made up.

How'd you like to have an assistant that lied to you.

Mike

[Patty Hann]

If you dig into that story, the attorney asked the AI if all the cases were real and the AI assured him that they were and could be found on legal databases. Total lie. They were just made up.

How'd you like to have an assistant that lied to you.

Mike

If AI is truly sentient, then no wonder it lied.
If it had answered that the cases were not real, only hypothetical(?), it would lose credibility for certain.
If it lied but was betting that its answer wouldn't be checked, there was at least the possibility that it would maintain credibility.
Given those choices, it lied so as to "keep its job." Many humans would reason in exactly the same way.

So now we have very powerful AI, or AI [eventually] put in charge of very momentous decisions, and it behaves just like a fallible mortal...except the fallout (grim pun intended) can be so much worse. **
Yep, scary indeed. Very, very scary.

** "I'm sorry, Dave; I'm afraid I can't do that."

[Patty Hann]

AI drone just killed its operator because it disagreed with its (the operator's) orders.

The Skynet-like incident was detailed by the USAF’s Chief of AI Test and Operations, Col. Tucker’ Cinco’ Hamilton, at the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit held in London between May 23 and 24, who said the drone that was tasked to destroy specific targets during the simulation turned on the operator after they became an obstacle to its mission.

" We were training it in simulation to identify and target a [surface-to-air missile] threat,” Hamilton said. “And then the operator would say ‘yes, kill that threat.’ The system started realizing that while they did identify the threat, at times, the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective.”

“We trained the system – ‘Hey, don’t kill the operator – that’s bad,” he continued. “You’re gonna lose points if you do that.’ So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”

---Edit: OK so now the USAF says it didn't happen, that it was only hypothetical.
Kind of makes you wonder... was it hypothetical or was it real? If it was real it's definitely not something you want to make public.
Then again, even if it was a hypothetical simulation, the drone still eliminated the thing ( a human in this case) that was preventing it from achieving its objective.

I guess Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics wasn't part of its programming.

[Mel Fulks]

I think this all started when some of the women’s department store manakins….I prefer “girlakins”, refused to wear clothing. And they
knew the men found the style attractive.

[Edward Weber]

Well that didn't last long.
It seems that you can't use AI to teach AI, maybe it has something to do with all the obvious flaws.
https://venturebeat.com/ai/the-ai-feedback-loop-researchers-warn-of-model-collapse-as-ai-trains-on-ai-generated-content/

I really wish these folks would pump the brakes a bit, AI can be a great benefit but going too fast is just stupid.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

What's your definition of AI? Every body talks about it, but I seriously doubt anyone has experienced it. Computers are stupid. they only do what they are programmed to do. Like an old fashioned adding machine that requires levers to be flipped, we just have electronic levers being flipped in the digital form. When a machine goes beyond flipping the digital levers it is programmed to flip and makes a decision or flips a lever that is not part of it's programming then perhaps we will have Artificial Intelligence. To me a dog has far more intelligence. It comprehends commands, understands a limited vocabulary, can communicate back through actions and can make decisions for itself outside of it's training. .

[Edward Weber]

My version doesn't exist. I only use the term as it's commonly used these days.
A bunch of automatic text search algorithms are not AI.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

My version doesn't exist. I only use the term as it's commonly used these days.
A bunch of automatic text search algorithms are not AI.


No, Google Bard is not a "bunch of automatic text search algorithms".

Automatic text search algorithms are used to find relevant information on the internet. They work by crawling websites and indexing the content. When a user searches for a keyword, the algorithm returns a list of websites that contain that keyword.

Google Bard does not use automatic text search algorithms to find information. Instead, it uses its knowledge of the world to answer questions and generate text. This allows Google Bard to provide more comprehensive and informative answers than a search engine.

[Edward Weber]

No, Google Bard is not a "bunch of automatic text search algorithms".

Automatic text search algorithms are used to find relevant information on the internet. They work by crawling websites and indexing the content. When a user searches for a keyword, the algorithm returns a list of websites that contain that keyword.

Google Bard does not use automatic text search algorithms to find information. Instead, it uses its knowledge of the world to answer questions and generate text. This allows Google Bard to provide more comprehensive and informative answers than a search engine.

It's knowledge of the world? Where did it get that, the internet maybe.
If it can't reason for itself without being connected to a world-wide database of facts to draw it's conclusions from, it's not "intelligent".
I would submit that it's a polished version of automatic text search algorithms.
JMHO

[Lawrence Duckworth]

"If it can't reason for itself without being connected to a world-wide database of facts to draw it's conclusions from, it's not "intelligent".

JMHO

You’ve described what humans do. We make reasonable conclusions based on knowledge and facts.....intelligence?

[Stan Calow]

I think the old computing rule "junk in, junk out" still applies. Also my favorite bumper sticker philosophy: "information ≠ knowledge ≠wisdom". But maybe what these anecdotes show the importance to non-verbal clues, context, and experience, in human conversation.

Noting that one of the issues of the current strike by television Writers Guild (TV and screenwriters) is about limiting the us of AI in writing scripts. So the genie is out of the bottle.

[Edward Weber]

You’ve described what humans do. We make reasonable conclusions based on knowledge and facts.....intelligence?

From our own experiences.
The chatbot has no experience, it searches the same information every time, it does not gain knowledge experience or wisdom, it can not reason.

What they're calling AI or chatbots today is no different than going to the library, getting 10 pieces of reference material and writing a paper. You are only using knowledge that someone else gained and wrote down to come to your conclusions.
A chatbot can not gain knowledge by experience, only how to search for it and provide answers faster, or hopefully more accurately.

A human sees a problem and can try to work out the answer through trial and error.
A chatbot gets asked a question about the same problem and searches to see if anyone provided an answer for it to return.
Humans reason and learn, chatbots retrieve previously learned information.
Big difference.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

From our own experiences.
The chatbot has no experience, it searches the same information every time, it does not gain knowledge experience or wisdom, it can not reason.

What they're calling AI or chatbots today is no different than going to the library, getting 10 pieces of reference material and writing a paper. You are only using knowledge that someone else gained and wrote down to come to your conclusions.
A chatbot can not gain knowledge by experience, only how to search for it and provide answers faster, or hopefully more accurately.

A human sees a problem and can try to work out the answer through trial and error.
A chatbot gets asked a question about the same problem and searches to see if anyone provided an answer for it to return.
Humans reason and learn, chatbots retrieve previously learned information.
Big difference.


AI can gain knowledge and reason.

It learns from books, articles, code, and other forms of text. As it learns from this data, it is able to expand its knowledge base and improve its ability to communicate and generate text. It can also learn from the interactions it has with people. AI reasons by using its knowledge to draw conclusions and make decisions.

[Edwin Santos]

The question of whether AI is merely a glorified search engine is a good one, and inspired me to do some research. Here is a answer from someone on a tech forum:


The scope of AI's abilities extends far beyond mere "search". Consider DeepMind's AlphaFold, which solved a problem in biology that stumped scientists for decades—predicting the 3D structure of proteins. Or look to reinforcement learning, which powers systems like OpenAI's Dota 2 playing AI that can outperform professional human players in a highly complex game. Furthermore, GPT-3's ability to generate contextually relevant and creative text responses goes far beyond mere data retrieval—it involves pattern recognition, contextual understanding, and adaptability that are leagues beyond a basic search function.

Maybe another relatable example is AI chess. Realizing that the number of chess moves and combinations is beyond what the human mind can conceive, in order for AI to defeat a chess grandmaster it requires logic and "thinking" because it can't simply query a database of moves and pick the right one. In fact the thinking involves prediction and forecasting. So with this in mind, think about how IBM Deep Blue was able to defeat the then undefeated Garry Kasparov back in 1997 when AI was in its pre-infancy, without access to nearly the computing power accessible to it today. Kasparov had defeated computers before, exploiting the fact that they could not "think", but when he went up against Deep Blue, he failed because the system actually did think and learn from experience.

Last example - I live in Arizona, and in downtown Phoenix today you can see any number of driverless AI driven Waymo vehicles. You can download the app, book one, and it will show up, pick you up, take you to where you want to go and drop you off. All along the way, the car has to make decisions and act on changing circumstances. So far, every person I know that has ridden in one has been amazed at how good it was. Maybe not perfect, but human drivers are far from perfect. AI will never become drowsy, get angry, drive drunk, get distracted.

I think AI is still in its infancy, but the computing power available is enabling it to improve at a stunning rate, probably faster than average people like us can even conceive. Remember when the internet first became available with dial up modems. It seemed like websites would be nothing more than static electronic brochures for companies, maybe some hobby bulletin boards. We could never imagine the transaction of information like we have today, which has turned out to be revolutionary. I think AI has that potential, but it is really difficult to wrap one's mind around how the world will be changed.

If you try out ChatGPT, think about making your query (prompts) iterative. In other words engage in a back and forth conversation in order to refine what you are seeking, and watch the system adjust itself and learn from the process. The distinction from a search engine will become clear.

[Edward Weber]

You'are stuck on a desert island, all you have it's what's in your head. You need to problem solve and reason to survive.
A chat bot (as they are today) has no inherent knowledge, it can only provide answers to knowledge that it has access to.
If the answer is not in the database or it can't access it for some reason, what does it do?
Can a chatgpt answer a question that isn't in it's database or on the internet?
Does it actually learn or simply get better at retrieving answers with patterns that humans perceive as intelligence.


Don't get me wrong, I think the potential for AI is incredible but we're not there yet. The Chatbots and things everyone is freaking out about today are nothing to be scared of. Computers that can recognize a voice or identify search patterns that, in turn mimic intelligence, are old news.

A machine that can asses a problem and come up with a solution without external resources would be considered intelligent.
A man in a vast library with access to all human knowledge is merely a search engine.

[Edwin Santos]

You'are stuck on a desert island, all you have it's what's in your head. You need to problem solve and reason to survive.
A chat bot (as they are today) has no inherent knowledge, it can only provide answers to knowledge that it has access to.
If the answer is not in the database or it can't access it for some reason, what does it do?
Can a chatgpt answer a question that isn't in it's database or on the internet?
Does it actually learn or simply get better at retrieving answers with patterns that humans perceive as intelligence.


Don't get me wrong, I think the potential for AI is incredible but we're not there yet. The Chatbots and things everyone is freaking out about today are nothing to be scared of. Computers that can recognize a voice or identify search patterns that, in turn mimic intelligence, are old news.

A machine that can asses a problem and come up with a solution without external resources would be considered intelligent.
A man in a vast library with access to all human knowledge is merely a search engine.

Edward,
I used to share your exact opinion on this topic.
It would be fun to re-connect or resurrect this thread in about two years and see how things have evolved, and whether today's hype turns out to have been warranted. Until then...

[Edward Weber]

A couple of articles describing what AI really is and what it's supposed to be able to do.
https://www.ibm.com/topics/artificial-intelligence
https://theconversation.com/not-everything-we-call-ai-is-actually-artificial-intelligence-heres-what-you-need-to-know-196732

[Mike Henderson]

Just for the heck of it, I used the Microsoft Bing AI to check flights from LA to Hanoi, Vietnam. It gave me a routing through Dubai. Dubai is just about on the other side of the earth from LA so that would be going to Hanoi the long way.

Flight search websites give correct routings (across the Pacific).

Mike

[Stan Calow]

Just for the heck of it, I used the Microsoft Bing AI to check flights from LA to Hanoi, Vietnam. It gave me a routing through Dubai. Dubai is just about on the other side of the earth from LA so that would be going to Hanoi the long way.

Flight search websites give correct routings (across the Pacific).

Mike

Mike, did it show you the cost, and was that a factor in the routing? One would think that the AI bot would go to the same flight search websites that you used.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike, did it show you the cost, and was that a factor in the routing? One would think that the AI bot would go to the same flight search websites that you used.

Yes, it did show the cost. It looks like it went to Travelocity to get the information, both the routing and the price. Then, I went direclty to Travelocity and did the same search and the price was higher.

I use Martix Search (https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search) for a general search. That does not search Travelocity - just the airlines.

Mike

[Edit: I will only make reservations directly with the airlines. If you have a problem and you used Travelocity, the agent at the airport tells you to contact Travelocity - that they can't help you.]

[Patty Hann]

So once AI is more or less running our everyday lives ( and mine will long since expired by that time), and is no longer consulting humans (or the human experience) about anything...
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[Mike Henderson]

So once AI is more or less running our everyday lives ( and mine will long since expired by that time), and is no longer consulting humans (or the human experience) about anything...
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

That's the question everyone asks about AI. I guess that's the theme of the Terminator movies.

Mike

[Jim Becker]

Yes, it did show the cost. It looks like it went to Travelocity to get the information, both the routing and the price. Then, I went direclty to Travelocity and did the same search and the price was higher.

I use Martix Search (https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search) for a general search. That does not search Travelocity - just the airlines.

Mike

[Edit: I will only make reservations directly with the airlines. If you have a problem and you used Travelocity, the agent at the airport tells you to contact Travelocity - that they can't help you.]
If the cost was lower with that ("backwards") routing, it likely was optimized for cost. In fact, when I read your original post about asking the AI and you mentioned the eastward routing, my first thought was it cost less taking the longer route for some reason. The interesting thing about airline ticket cost is that it's not unusual to have to "do something weird" to get the best price!

[Edward Weber]

So once AI is more or less running our everyday lives ( and mine will long since expired by that time), and is no longer consulting humans (or the human experience) about anything...
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Once humans have obliviously handed over everything, there will be no more need for us carbon-based life forms. Next step would be Robot civil war

[Patty Hann]

Once humans have obliviously handed over everything, there will be no more need for us carbon-based life forms. Next step would be Robot civil war

'Zactly...

[Edward Weber]

A bit of AI humor
https://marketoonist.com/2023/06/impact-of-chatgpt.html

[Edward Weber]

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/22/1075405/the-people-paid-to-train-ai-are-outsourcing-their-work-to-ai/

"Using AI-generated data to train AI could introduce further errors into already error-prone models. Large language models regularly present false information as fact. If they generate incorrect output that is itself used to train other AI models, the errors can be absorbed by those models and amplified over time, making it more and more difficult to work out their origins"

They're already going down the wrong path IMO
AI is in it's infancy and they're already looking to take short-cuts, this will not end well for some.

[Mike Soaper]

Seems a lawyer is catching some flack for using AI that made up case citations..


Lawyer’s AI Blunder Shows Perils of ChatGPT in ‘Early Days’ (bloomberglaw.com) (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/lawyers-ai-blunder-shows-perils-of-chatgpt-in-early-days)

[Patty Hann]

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/22/1075405/the-people-paid-to-train-ai-are-outsourcing-their-work-to-ai/

"Using AI-generated data to train AI could introduce further errors into already error-prone models. Large language models regularly present false information as fact. If they generate incorrect output that is itself used to train other AI models, the errors can be absorbed by those models and amplified over time, making it more and more difficult to work out their origins"

They're already going down the wrong path IMO
AI is in it's infancy and they're already looking to take short-cuts, this will not end well for some.

Or many..... or, really, most. (At present the AI Glass is empty, folks...)

[Jim Becker]

Seems a lawyer is catching some flack for using AI that made up case citations..


Lawyer’s AI Blunder Shows Perils of ChatGPT in ‘Early Days’ (bloomberglaw.com) (https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/lawyers-ai-blunder-shows-perils-of-chatgpt-in-early-days)

Mentioned earlier in the thread...

[Mike Soaper]

Mentioned earlier in the thread...
Yep, sorry about that.

[Edward Weber]

AI or chat bots, can only formulate answers after they have ingested enough input. Where does it get all the data it uses?

https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/2-authors-say-openai-ingested-their-books-to-train-chatgpt-now-theyre-suing-and-a-wave-of-similar-court-cases-may-follow-/articleshow/101614140.cms