this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
389 points (97.1% liked)

Technology

86879 readers
3535 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] eah@programming.dev 13 points 58 minutes ago (2 children)

In other words, corporate leadership is starting from the premise that AI has (or will) radically change the business, and they're working backwards from that premise to find the evidence to support this article of faith.

Sounds familiar. The proof-of-work blockchain scheme which was the fad a while ago is also often described as a solution in search of a problem.

[–] JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 2 points 30 minutes ago

I feel like block chain as a public ledger has found quite a few purposeful uses, and was a solution to a handful of problems most people rarely if ever encounter. Then fake money got involved

[–] LavaPlanet@sh.itjust.works 1 points 45 minutes ago

That's top down thinking for you.

[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 3 points 24 minutes ago

If AI data centers drastically accelerate us towards a point of no return for climate change, then they will in fact have “changed everything”.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 2 points 41 minutes ago

It's also notable that MBAs tend to be people who are into the networking versus the work and they will follow the trends wherever they leave because that's what good monkeys do.

[–] AgentSeven@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 hours ago (3 children)

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful.

This is stupid. The tools are helpful. Overhyped? Sure. But to pretend they are in no way helpful is just wrong.

[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 minutes ago

LLMs are like a dishwashers. You could wash all the dishes yourself and probably get them cleaner in less time, but it’s useful to let a machine do the work, even I though it’s mandatory inspect every single dish to make sure the machine got them clean enough and re-wash a certain percentage of them. Dishwashers are useful, but the world wouldn't end if we didn’t have them.

[–] vane@lemmy.world 17 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Nothing is helpful until you need help. The fact that you think AI is helpful for you don't have to force me to use AI. If you pay me $100k+ per year and you force me to use your tools to do my job why you even hired me ? To force this cult on me or to do the job ?

[–] JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 0 points 29 minutes ago

I don't need you to use you turn signals, but it's helpful. I'm pretty sure I could come up with a multitude of situations where your first sentence is refuted without contest.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 45 minutes ago (1 children)

Part of the problem is AI isn’t a literal thing with a fixed definition. It’s more of a marketing term that translates into “I want you to buy this thing”. So some things are considered AI that are legitimately useful and others are not and then there’s the debate if wether it’s because it really is AI or if it is and AI just sucks.

[–] TheLegendaryAssholeOfJushinLiger@sh.itjust.works 3 points 40 minutes ago (1 children)

In other words, corporate leadership is starting from the premise that AI has (or will) radically change the business, and they’re working backwards from that premise to find the evidence to support this article of faith.

This quote is quite funny in this context, because it's literally what people do with AI. Half of the frontpage of lemmy is AI. The other half is people saying AI is bad with no realization of the irony, because they don't see good AI. It's like CGI. Everybody hates CGI, except they don't. CGI is everywhere. They just hate bad CGI.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 37 minutes ago (3 children)

What is AI? Explain as if i just woke up from a coma. We don’t have flying cars, we have dumpster deloreans, but everyone is talking about AI. What is it?

[–] jerakor@startrek.website 1 points 24 minutes ago

AI is any compute model performing complex enough reasoning that the output does not always resemble the input. They are by definition non deterministic and the same ask can provide different outputs without being influenced by other inputs.

[–] rezifon@lemmy.world 1 points 30 minutes ago (1 children)

AI is a vague term used colloquially to describe a variety of dissimilar and unrelated technologies each carrying a unique mixture of pros and cons.

[–] muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 28 minutes ago (1 children)

So it doesn’t actually mean anything.

[–] rezifon@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago

The utility of the term “AI” depends on what you’re trying to communicate.

Since that was a lazy question I decided to be lazy and just copy paste it into Gemini. Enjoy! I have no idea what the point of this is!

Artificial Intelligence isn't a single technology; it has been a massive umbrella term since the 1950s. Broadly, it means creating computer systems capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence.

If LLMs are just one tiny branch on the tree, here is what the rest of the tree looks like:

Machine Learning (ML): This is the engine driving most modern AI. Instead of a human programmer writing strict "if/then" rules, we feed the computer massive amounts of data and let it figure out the rules itself. This is what powers your Netflix recommendations, credit card fraud detection, and the algorithm deciding what you see on social media.

Computer Vision: Teaching computers to "see" and interpret the visual world. This is how self-driving cars identify stop signs versus pedestrians, how your phone unlocks when it sees your face, and how medical software spots anomalies in X-rays faster than human doctors.

Robotics: The physical application of AI. This isn't just mechanical engineering; it is the software that allows a machine to navigate the unpredictable, physical world. This covers everything from the Roomba vacuuming your floor to automated factory arms and those creepy, dog-like robots from Boston Dynamics.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): This is the branch focused on understanding and generating human language. LLMs live here, but so do older, simpler technologies like spellcheck, Google Translate, and the early versions of Siri or Alexa.

Expert Systems & Rule-Based AI: This is the older, "classic" AI. It relies on a massive database of human knowledge programmed as logical rules. When the IBM computer Deep Blue beat the world chess champion in 1997, it wasn't using an LLM; it was using raw computational power to calculate millions of possible moves and their outcomes based on strict rules.

Predictive Analytics & Optimization: The invisible math running the modern world. This is AI used by logistics companies to find the absolute most efficient routes for delivery trucks, or by hedge funds to execute high-frequency stock trades based on market micro-fluctuations.
[–] Krusty@quokk.au 30 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

I was talking about roof sheathing with the latest chat gpt.

It was confident the joists should go above the sheathing.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 26 points 3 hours ago

You might want a 2nd opinion, did you ask Grok?

[–] Sirius006@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I work in construction and so far I must admit that I have no idea what the hype is about.

But I have decades of experience, meaning I don't know shit about anything BUT I know how to quickly find usefull information in the codes or in pertinents books.

If I were younger I might have fallen into the trap. If so I would probably be in jail by now, because in my tests I've seen LLM be dangerously wrong.

[–] sammy_miami@piefed.world 12 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

LLMs seem to be pretty bad at home improvement sort of questions in my experience. I suspect they don’t have a team of carpenters they use to RL the models, like they do for software engineers, etc

[–] tempest@lemmy.ca 7 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Software is easier because you can basically 'inspect the house' and the 'home inspector' via software.

Harder to do that with a house. Also a lot of different rules based on locality.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 13 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Reminder it doesn't know anything.

It is just mimicking text it has been programmed for.

For it to be "good" at mimicking home improvement, it's source needed to be full of home improvement talk. The best carpenters, plumbers, whatever aren't on reddit, or wherever talking shop. They're working, or making OSHA jokes at the bar.

How do people work? Are there ones born knowing how to use a hacksaw?

[–] theuniqueone@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago

I mean they are changing everything because they are being pushed and forced to be used even if they are making jobs and things in general worse and harder.

[–] adespoton@lemmy.ca 53 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I don’t think they’re all lying; most are just misinformed or using the term differently than Cory.

It’s like saying “global warming is changing everything.” Technically, not true, but the knock on effects of specific aspects of it recently hit an inflection point that causes it to affect the lives of everyone.

This has also happened in the field of artificial intelligence; LLM chatbots are only the visible mushroom fruits of the vast mycelium network that has been silently growing underground for years.

[–] MangoCats@feddit.it 11 points 3 hours ago

silently growing underground for years.

And not so silently, for decades. Even J. Edgar Hoover was using early forms of AI to manage his data trove.

load more comments
view more: next ›