These experts on AI are here to help us understand important things about AI.

Who are these generous, helpful experts that the CBC found, you ask?

“Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, vice-president of data science and advanced analytics at Unity Health Toronto”, per LinkedIn a PharmD, who also serves in various AI-associated centres and institutes.

“(Jeff) Macpherson is a director and co-founder at Xagency.AI”, a tech startup which does, uh, lots of stuff with AI (see their wild services page) that appears to have been announced on LinkedIn two months ago. The founders section lists other details apart from J.M.'s “over 7 years in the tech sector” which are interesting to read in light of J.M.'s own LinkedIn page.

Other people making points in this article:

C. L. Polk, award-winning author (of Witchmark).

“Illustrator Martin Deschatelets” whose employment prospects are dimming this year (and who knows a bunch of people in this situation), who per LinkedIn has worked on some nifty things.

“Ottawa economist Armine Yalnizyan”, per LinkedIn a fellow at the Atkinson Foundation who used to work at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Could the CBC actually seriously not find anybody willing to discuss the actual technology and how it gets its results? This is archetypal hood-welded-shut sort of stuff.

Things I picked out, from article and round table (before the video stopped playing):

Does that Unity Health doctor go back later and check these emergency room intake predictions against actual cases appearing there?

Who is the “we” who have to adapt here?

AI is apparently “something that can tell you how many cows are in the world” (J.M.). Detecting a lack of results validation here again.

“At the end of the day that’s what it’s all for. The efficiency, the productivity, to put profit in all of our pockets”, from J.M.

“You now have the opportunity to become a Prompt Engineer”, from J.M. to the author and illustrator. (It’s worth watching the video to listen to this person.)

Me about the article:

I’m feeling that same underwhelming “is this it” bewilderment again.

Me about the video:

Critical thinking and ethics and “how software products work in practice” classes for everybody in this industry please.

  • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    Ugh, fuck this punditry. Luckily, many of the views in this article are quickly dispatched through media literacy. I hate that, for the foreseeable future, AI will be the boogeyman whispered about in all media circles. But knowing that it is a boogeyman makes it very easy to tell when it's general sensationalist hype/drivel for selling papers vs. legitimate concerns about threats to human livelihoods. In this case, it's more the former.

    • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
      10·
      1 year ago

      Isn't it great how they aren't saying how to "learn" or "accept" AI? They aren't saying: "learn what a neural network is" or anything close to that. It's not even: "Understand what AI does and its output and what that could be good or bad for". They're just saying, "Learn how to write AI prompts. No, I don't care if it's not relevant or useful, and it's your fault if you can't leverage that into job security." They're also saying: "be prepared to uproot your entire career in case your CEO tries to replace you, and be prepared to change careers completely. When the AI companies we run replace you, it's not our fault because we warned you." It's so fucking sad that these people are allowed to have opinions. Also this:

      For people like Deschatelets, it doesn't feel that straightforward.

      "There's nothing to adapt to. To me, writing in three to four prompts to make an image is nothing. There's nothing to learn. It's too easy," he said.

      His argument is the current technology can't help him — he only sees it being used to replace him. He finds AI programs that can prompt engineered images, for example, useful when looking for inspiration, but aside from that, it's not much use.

      "It's almost treating art as if it's a problem. The only problem that we're having is because of greedy CEOs [of Hollywood studios or publishing houses] who make millions and millions of dollars, but they want to make more money, so they'll cut the artists completely. That's the problem," he said.

      A king. This should be the whole article.