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Generative AI is still a solution in search of a problem
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this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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Technology
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"A solution in search for a problem" is a phrase used way to much, and almost always in the wrong way. Even in the article it says that it has been solving problems for over a year, it just complains that it isn't solving the biggest problems possible yet. It is remarkable how hard it is for people to extrapolate based on the trajectory. The author of this paper would have been talking about how pointless computers are if they were alive in the early 90s, and how they are just "a solution in search for a problem".
I am not a huge fan of generative AI, but even I can see it's potential (both for good and for harm). Today I found out about Suno in another thread on here, and tried it out. As a mid-millennial (1988) who grew up with CD players and still thinks MiniDiscs and ZIP discs are the coolest cartridge formats, aesthetically, that thing absolutely blows my mind.
We are like, 5 years into generative AI as a widely-available technology, and I can use it to generate entire songs on the fly based on just a couple sentences, complete with singing. I can use it to create logos and web graphics on my laptop in a matter of seconds, as I build a webpage. I can use it to help me build said webpage, also running locally on my laptop.
And it's still accelerating. 10 years from now, this stuff could be generating entire movies on-demand, running on a home media box.
Yeah, I absolutely agree. About a month ago, I would have said that Suno was clearly leading in AI music generation, but since then, Udio has definitely taken the lead. I can't imagine where things will be by the end of the year, let alone the end of the decade. This is why it's so crazy to me when people look at generative AI and act like it's no big deal and just a passing fad or whatever. They have no idea that there is a tsunami crashing down on us all and they always seem to be the ones that bill themselves as the weather experts who have it all figured out. Nobody knows the implications of this, but it definelty isn't an inconsequential tech.
I have a deep love of change, just intrinsically. I have medical issues which have meant that since I was a kid I've been accutely aware of my significantly shorter prospective lifespan, and I think that really drives the desire in me to witness major changes and historical events, sort of like truly internalizing that I (literally) can't afford to wait for slow change.
That doesn't mean I want to see changes that cause suffering, like wars, it means I want to see incredible changes that have the potential to better peoples' lives, like electric vehicles, space exploration, ^socialistrevolution^, advancements in healthcare, etc. I am hopeful that the wide-ranging availability of AI, beyond just corporations, means it has the potential to be one of those changes (I'm also wary that it may end up just being subsumed by Capitalism into enriching the already-wealthy even further).
I still feel that desire that many tech-folks do, to buy a plot of land in the middle of nowhere and just raise llamas and serve artisanal coffee to the parents of the kids that come to play with the llamas, and never look at a computer again, but I still want the world to be out there advancing and getting better even if I don't engage with every new advancement directly, myself.