The Princeton researchers calling out ‘AI snake oil’

https://www.semafor.com/article/09/15/2023/the-princeton-researchers-calling-out-ai-snake-oil

by irtefa • 3 years ago

38 6 3 years ago

pedalpete• 3 years ago

I'm surprised they are only providing 2 buckets for AI, predictive and generative, and that they say "most of the snake oil is in predictive".

Most of the snake oil being in predictive isn't the same as saying most predictive AI is snake oil.

With predictive most predictive AI, we can provide a result of how often the AI gets the prediction correct.

We're in the sleep space, and do sleep stage classification using neural nets. My co-founder decided for fun to see how the model would work in predicting sleep stages, and it was surprisingly good (above 80% coherence with manually scored data if I remember correctly).

I think there is a different challenge in things like psychology, where it is very difficult to get a true reading on what is happening with the subject. However, we're also building EEG, so maybe we'll get some insights there as well (but psychology is not our focus).

dang• 3 years ago

Related. Others?

Princeton ‘AI Snake Oil’ authors say GenAI hype has ‘spiraled out of control’ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37243354 - Aug 2023 (101 comments)

ML is useful for many things, but not for predicting scientific replicability - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37089573 - Aug 2023 (37 comments)

The greatest risk of AI is from the people who control it, not the tech itself - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36139852 - May 2023 (504 comments)

GPT-4 and professional benchmarks: the wrong answer to the wrong question - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35245626 - March 2023 (185 comments)

ChatGPT is a bullshit generator but it can still be amazingly useful - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34618376 - Feb 2023 (154 comments)

AISnakeOil• 3 years ago

Finally my time to shine.

Nevermark• 3 years ago

One example is non-consensual deepfakes. This is an area where you don’t need information to spread virally for it to cause harm.

At some point soon, in a galaxy you are living in, AR headsets are going to let you see everyone naked!

Seriously, deep fakes are going to be so easy to find, make and animate that society is going to stop being sensitive to them. There is no other option.

Today I can draw anyone I choose doing any odd thing. I can put horns on their head and have them bubble talk every kind of nonsense. Nobody cares. At all. It's going to get there for these fakes too, out of sheer fatigue.

Let's call it "Deep Outrage Exhaustion".

irtefa• 3 years ago

I love this way of thinking. I can totally see this happening.

sbalamurugan• 3 years ago

Black Mirror took this to the dystopian extreme - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Callister

The Princeton researchers calling out ‘AI snake oil’

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