link to archived Reddit thread; original post removed/deleted
Apparently that reddit post itself was generated with AI. Using AI to bash AI is an interesting flex.
How did people find out it was AI generated? Seems natural to me. Scary.
Have any evidence of that? The only thing I saw was commentors in that thread (who were obvious AI-bros) claiming it must be AI generated because "it just wouldn't happen"...
I'm a data analyst and primary authority on the data model of a particular source system. Most questions for figures from that system that can't be answered directly and easily in the frontend end up with me.
I had a manager show me how some new LLM they were developing (which I had contributed some information about the model to) could quickly answer some questions that usually I have to answer manually, as part of a pitch to make me switch to his department so I can apply my expertise for improving this fancy AI instead of answering questions manually.
He entered a prompt, got a figure that I knew wasn't correct and I queried my data model for the same info, with a significantly different answer. Given how much said manager leaned on my expertise in the first place, he couldn't very well challenge my results and got all sheepish about how the AI still in development and all.
I don't know how that model arrived at that figure. I don't know if it generated and ran a query against the data I'd provided. I don't know if it just invented the number. I don't know how the devs would figure out the error and how to fix it. But I do know how to explain my own queries, how to investigate errors and (usually) how to find a solution.
Anyone who relies on a random text generator - no matter how complex that generation method to make it sound human - to generate facts is dangerously inept.
I don’t know how the devs would figure out the error and how to fix it.
This is like the biggest factor that people don't get when thinking of these models in the context of software. "Oh it got it wrong, but the developers will fix it in an update". Nope, they can fix traditional software mistakes, LLM output and machine learning things... They can throw more training data at it (which sometimes just changes what it gets wrong) and hope for the best, they can do better job at curating the context window to give the model the best shot at outputting the right stuff (e.g. the guy who got Opus to generate a slow crappy buggy compiler had to traditionally write a filter to find and show only the 'relevent' compiler output back to the models), they can try to generate code to do what you want and have you review the code and correct issues. But debugging and fixing the model itself... that's just not a thing at all.
I was in a meeting where a sales executive was bragging about the 'AI sales agent' they were working, but admitting frustration with the developres and a bit confused why the software developers weren't making progress when those same developers always made decent progress before, and they should be able to do this even faster because they have AI tools to help them... It eternally seemed in a state that almost worked but not quite no matter what model or iteration they went to, no matter how much budget they allocated, when it came down to the specific facts and figures it would always screw up.
I cannot understand how long these executives wade in the LLM pool and still believes in capabilities beyond what anyone has experienced.
I cannot understand how long these executives wade in the LLM pool and still believes in capabilities beyond what anyone has experienced.
They leave the actual work to the boots on the ground so they don't see how shitty the output is. They listen to marketing about how great it is and mandate everyone use it and then any feedback is filtered through all the brownnosers that report to them.
It eternally seemed in a state that almost worked but not quite no matter what model or iteration they went to, no matter how much budget they allocated, when it came down to the specific facts and figures it would always screw up.
This is probably the biggest misunderstanding since "Project Managers think three developers can produce a baby in three months": Just throw more time and money at AI model "development" for better results. It supposes predictable, deterministic behaviour that can be corrected, but LLMs aren't deterministic ny design, since that wouldn't sound human anymore.
Sure, when you're a developer dedicated to advancing the underlying technology, you may actually produce better results in time, but if you're just the consumer, you may get a quick turnaround for an alright result (and for some purposes, "alright" may be enough) but eventually you'll plateau at the limitations of the model.
Of course, executives universally seem to struggle with the concept of upper limits, such as sustainable growth or productivity.
I-want-to-believe.jpg
I guarantee you this is how several, if not most, fortune 500 companies currently operate. The 50k DOW is not just propped up by the circlejerk spending on imaginary RAM. There are bullshit reports being generated and presented every day.
I patiently wait. There is a diligent bureaucrat sitting somewhere going through fiscal reports line by line. It won't add up.. receipts will be requested.. bubble goes pop
When you delegate, to a person, a tool or a process, you check the result. You make sure that the delegated tasks get done and correctly and that the results are what is expected.
Finding that it is not the case after months by luck shows incompetence. Look for the incompetent.
Yeah. Trust is also a thing, like if you delegate to a person that you've seen getting the job done multiple times before, you won't check as closely.
But this person asked to verify and was told not to. Insane.
100%
Hallucinations are widely known, this is a collective failure of the whole chain of leadership.
Problem being is that whoever is checking the result in this case had to do the work anyway, and in such a case... why bother with the LLM that can't be trusted to pull the data anyway?
I suppose they could take the facts and figures that a human pulled and have an LLM verbose it up for people who for whatever reason want needlessly verbose BS. Or maybe an LLM can do a review of the human generated report to help identify potential awkward writing or inconsistencies. But delegating work that you have to do anyway to double check the work seems pointless.
Like someone here said "trust is also thing". Once you check a few time that the process is right and the result are right, you don't need to check more than ponctually. Unfortunatly, that's not what happened in this story.
Leopard meets face.
Tbf at this point corporate economy is made up anyway so as long as investors are gambling their endless generational wealth does it matter?
This is how I’m starting to see it too. Stock market is just the gambling statistics of the ownership class. Line goes down and we’re supposed to pretend it’s harder to grow food and build houses all of a sudden.
There's a difference. If I go and gamble away my life savings, then I'm on the street. If they gamble away their investments, the government will say 'poor thing' and give them money to keep the economy ok.
Ah yes, what a surprise. The random word generator gave you random numbers that aren't actually real.
Surely this is just fraud right? Seeing they have a board directors they have shareholders probably? I feel they should at least all get fired, if not prosecuted. This lack of competency is just criminal to me.
Are you suggesting we hold people responsible?
Ask Bernie Madoff. Scamming rich people is the one and only instance where even rich people are held accountable.
In the current world, probably the one going to jail is the one reporting it. So I don't expect much no.
This is why I hate search engines promoting AI results when you are researching for something. It is confidently giving incorrect responses. I asked for sources on one LLM model before while using Duckduckgo, and it just told me that there are no sources and the information is based on broad knowledge. At one point, I challenged the AI that it is wrong, but it insisted it doesn't. It turns out that it is citing a years old source written by a different bot long ago. But on the one hand, most of you are probably familiar that on occasions that the AI is incorrect and you challenge it, it will relent, although it will be a sycophant even though you yourself are actually incorrect. This is Schrödinger's AI.
My broseph in Christ, what did you think a LLM was?
Bro, just give us a few trillion dollars, bro. I swear bro. It'll be AGI this time next year, bro. We're so close, bro. I just need need some money, bro. Some money and some god-damned faith, bro.
To everyone I've talked to about AI, I've suggested a test. Take a subject that they know they are an expert at. Then ask AI questions that they already know the answers to. See what percentage AI gets right, if any. Often they find that plausible sounding answers are produced however, if you know the subject, you know that it isn't quite fact that is produced. A recovery from an injury might be listed as 3 weeks when it is average 6-8 or similar. Someone who did not already know the correct information, could be damaged by the "guessed" response of AI. AI can have uses but it needs to be heavily scrutinized before passing on anything it generates. If you are good at something, that usually means you have to waste time in order to use AI.
I had a very simple script. All it does is trigger an action on a monthly schedule.
I passed the script to Copilot to review.
It caught some typos. It also said the logic of the script was flawed and it wouldn't work as intended.
I didn't need it to check the logic of the script. I knew the logic was sound because it was a port of a script I was already using. I asked because I was curious about what it would say.
After restating the prompt several times, I was able to get it to confirm that the logic was not flawed, but the process did not inspire any confidence in Copilot's abilities.
I mean it hallucinates numbers when you ask it to extract some numeric daha publicly available online so yeah...
Even when it does pull numeric data, it gets very confused.
I asked about rough price of something and of course the AI summary came back and said something like:
It typically costs 400-500 but could cost up to $200 in extreme circumstances, with 750 being the average
Basically did get three figures from three different internet results and combined them into a single sentence in a nonsense way.
At least in such a scenario, someone with at least a couple of active brain cells would stop and recognize some bullshittery going on, but the executive probably TLDRs the sentence and stops after '400-500'.
I've said it time and time again: AIs aren't trained to produce correct answers, but seemingly correct answers. That's an important distinction and exactly what makes AIs so dangerous to use. You will typically ask the AI about something you yourself are not an expert on, so you can't easily verify the answer. But it seems plausible so you assume it to be correct.
I raised this as a concern at the corporate role I work in when an AI tool that was being distributed and encouraged for usage showed two hallucinated data points that were cited in a large group setting. I happened to know my area well, the data was not just marginally wrong but way off, and I was able to quickly check the figures. I corrected it in the room after verifying on my laptop and the reaction in the room was sort of a harmless whoops. The rest of the presentation continued without a seeming acknowledgement that the rest of the figures should be checked.
When I approached the head of the team that constructed the tool after the meeting and shared the inaccuracies and my concerns, he told me that he'd rather have more data fluency through the ease of the tool and that inaccuracies were acceptable because of the convenience and widespread usage.
I suspect stories like this are happening across my industry. Meanwhile, the company put out a press release about our AI efforts (literally using Gemini's Gem tool and custom ChatGPTs seeded with Google Drive) as something investors should be very excited about.
When I approached the head of the team that constructed the tool after the meeting and shared the inaccuracies and my concerns, he told me that he’d rather have more data fluency through the ease of the tool and that inaccuracies were acceptable because of the convenience and widespread usage.
"I prefer more data that's completely made up over less data that is actually accurate."
This tells you everything you need to know about your company's marketing and data analysis department and the whole corporate leadership.
Potemkin leadership.
I work in a regulated sector and our higher ups are pushing AI so much. And there response to AI hallucinations is to just put a banner on all internal AI tools to cross verify and have some quarterly stupid "trainings" but almost everyone I know never checks and verifies the output. And I know of atleast 2 instances where because AI hallucinated some numbers we sent out extra money to a third party.
If they have to verify the results every time, what is the point?
have some quarterly stupid “trainings”
Feeling this in my bones, executive just sent out a plan for 'fixing' the fact that the AI tools they are paying for us to use are getting roasted for sucking, they are giving the vendor more money to provide 200 hours of mandatory training for us to take. That's more training than they have required for anything before, and using LLM tools isn't exactly a difficulty problem.
Love it.
I fucking love this. It's amazing.
As an unemployed data analyst / econometrician:
lol, rofl, perhaps even... lmao.
Nah though, its really fine, my quality of life is enormously superior barely surviving off of SSDI and not having to explain data analytics to thumb sucking morons (VPs, 90% of other team leads), and either fix or cover all their mistakes.
Yeah, sure, just have the AI do it, go nuts.
I am enjoying my unexpected early retirement.
It doesn't matter. Management wants this and will not stop until they run against a wall at full speed. 🤷
Before anything else: whether the specific story in the linked post is literally true doesn’t actually matter. The following observation about AI holds either way. If this example were wrong, ten others just like it would still make the same point.
What keeps jumping out at me in these AI threads is how consistently the conversation skips over the real constraint.
We keep hearing that AI will “increase productivity” or “accelerate thinking.” But in most large organizations, thinking is not the scarce resource. Permission to think is. Demand for thought is. The bottleneck was never how fast someone could draft an email or summarize a document. It was whether anyone actually wanted a careful answer in the first place.
A lot of companies mistook faster output for more value. They ran a pilot, saw emails go out quicker, reports get longer, slide decks look more polished, and assumed that meant something important had been solved. But scaling speed only helps if the organization needs more thinking. Most don’t. They already operate at the minimum level of reflection they’re willing to tolerate.
So what AI mostly does in practice is amplify performative cognition. It makes things look smarter without requiring anyone to be smarter. You get confident prose, plausible explanations, and lots of words where a short “yes,” “no,” or “we don’t know yet” would have been more honest and cheaper.
That’s why so many deployments feel disappointing once the novelty wears off. The technology didn’t fail. The assumption did. If an institution doesn’t value judgment, uncertainty, or dissent, no amount of machine assistance will conjure those qualities into existence. You can’t automate curiosity into a system that actively suppresses it.
Which leaves us with a technology in search of a problem that isn’t already constrained elsewhere. It’s very good at accelerating surfaces. It’s much less effective at deepening decisions, because depth was never in demand.
If you’re interested, I write more about this here: https://tover153.substack.com/
Not selling anything. Just thinking out loud, slowly, while that’s still allowed.
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
