82,891
edits
Template:M intro technology rumours of our demise: Difference between revisions
Template:M intro technology rumours of our demise (view source)
Revision as of 22:29, 20 November 2023
, 20 November 2023→If AI is a cheapest-to-deliver strategy you are doing it wrong
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) |
||
| Line 176: | Line 176: | ||
Imagine we each had private [[large language model]]s at our personal disposal — free, therefore, of data privacy concerns — that could pattern-match by reference to our individual reading and listening histories, our engineered prompts, our instructions and the recommendations of like-minded readers. Our LLM would search through the entire human ''oeuvre'' — the billions of books, plays, films, recordings and artworks, known and not, that already exist, but instead of using that information to generate random mashups, it would return existing works from the canon of as yet undiscovered delight? | Imagine we each had private [[large language model]]s at our personal disposal — free, therefore, of data privacy concerns — that could pattern-match by reference to our individual reading and listening histories, our engineered prompts, our instructions and the recommendations of like-minded readers. Our LLM would search through the entire human ''oeuvre'' — the billions of books, plays, films, recordings and artworks, known and not, that already exist, but instead of using that information to generate random mashups, it would return existing works from the canon of as yet undiscovered delight? | ||
This is not just the Spotify recommendation algorithm, as occasionally delightful as that is. Any commercial algorithm has its own primary goal: revenue maximisation. A certain amount of “customer delight” may be a necessary by-product, but only as far as it intersects with that primary commercial goal. As long as customers are just delighted ''enough'' to keep listening, the algorithm doesn’t care ''how'' delighted they are.<ref>As with the JC’s school exam grades: anything more than 51% is wasted effort.Try as he might, the JC was never able to persuade his dear old ''Mutti'' about this.</ref> | |||
Commercial algorithms need only follow a ''[[cheapest to deliver]]'' strategy: they “[[satisfice]]”. Being targeted primarily at revenue optimisation, they will tend to converge upon what is likely to be popular, because that is easier to find. Rather than scanning the entire depth of human content, skim the top and keep the punters happy enough. | Commercial algorithms need only follow a ''[[cheapest to deliver]]'' strategy: they “[[satisfice]]”. Being targeted primarily at revenue optimisation, they will tend to converge upon what is likely to be popular, because that is easier to find. Rather than scanning the entire depth of human content, skim the top and keep the punters happy enough. | ||
| Line 184: | Line 184: | ||
A [[cheapest-to-deliver]] strategy will have had the counter-intuitive effect of ''truncating'' the “[[long tail]]” of consumer choice. As the long tail contracts, the commercial imperative to target common denominators gets stronger. ''This is a highly undesirable feedback loop''. It will homogenise ''us''. We will become less diverse. We will become more [[Antifragile|fragile]]. | A [[cheapest-to-deliver]] strategy will have had the counter-intuitive effect of ''truncating'' the “[[long tail]]” of consumer choice. As the long tail contracts, the commercial imperative to target common denominators gets stronger. ''This is a highly undesirable feedback loop''. It will homogenise ''us''. We will become less diverse. We will become more [[Antifragile|fragile]]. | ||
Now if artificial intelligence is so spectacular, shouldn’t we be a bit more ambitious about what ''it'' could do for ''us''? Isn’t “giving you the bare minimum you’ll take to keep stringing you along” a bit ''underwhelming''? | Now if artificial intelligence is so spectacular, shouldn’t we be a bit more ambitious about what ''it'' could do for ''us''? Isn’t “giving you the bare minimum you’ll take to keep stringing you along” a bit ''underwhelming''? | ||
===Digression: Darwin’s profligate idea=== | ===Digression: Darwin’s profligate idea=== | ||