I don't trust Nate B Jones at all. This guy has a podcast about AI for CS people and I think it's propaganda designed to bring the doubters back. All of his podcasts lead with validating some problem we've all noticed with the way AI has been implemented, but then it pivots to "but it's not really as bad as you think."
This gives the illusion of balanced reasoning. Considering both sides.
But the real reason I don't trust this guy is he put up a graph like this:
If you don't know who "Nate B Jones" is don't worry about it too much. Just make note of his face since one of his videos might drift across your feed if you follow AI news. He gets like 100k views a day, which is a lot for a technical podcast with a narrow focus like AI.
But about that graph... He said something like "dark code is going to 10 X as a problem in the next year" which is a fine thing to say, but also just, like, your opinion … man.
But then he puts up a graph about it?
@futurebird Very much "some number I pulled out of my arse".
Arse-numbers. Is there an OEIS for those?
@passenger Oh, that's what Joe Camel is up to these days…
oh yes the “anty-see-data”
Technically it is "coherent" it's just a suspect tactic. It's fine to say "I think this thing will be ten times worse in the future" ... but making a graph about it can only be about abusing the patina of objectivity that comes with graphs to make an opinion seems like it is supported by research.
That makes me see the speaker as manipulative, a charlatan.
Even though his point was probably ... fine. Is "dark code" a problem? Yea. Probably it is. But this is bad communication.
@futurebird @Tak
My rubric for trusting things that I can't be bothered to research myself is: are they using emotional arguments to convince me?
Charts without axes or contexts fall into this. 10x on one instance a year is a lot less interesting than 10x on a million instances a year. This chart is trying to trigger my worst case scenario emotion by making me think "10x bad is really bad".
@futurebird @Tak there are so few considered opinions on the subject at the moment - it's so new and politically charged that it's difficult to separate the issues and evaluate.
Many of the people who I generally trust and are deep experts on these subjects turn into weird corporate parrots when they start talking about AI. The sense I get in the valley is that you're expected to either believe that AI will solve everything or that it's an existential danger to us all. The opinion that it's just a tool, and that it's up to us to figure out the best way to approach it and (dare I say) regulate it, is not a popular one.
@futurebird @flipper @Tak Part of that is that "AI" is a marketing term. It _can_ (but usually does not, in general discussion) also mean a category of CS research.
A key tactic of the propaganda is to use that ambiguity to change the terms of the discussion whenever convenient.
My personal vehement opposition is to LLMs. The techbros have succeeded in convincing the public that LLMs == AI, and so I engage on that basis.
Captains, it's April. 🫠
"I wonder if anyone can top it."
shhhhh. please. please don't speak these things into being.
but this is a *good* graph
@WesternInfidels @david_megginson
This graph is bad but it *feels* true.
I'm always in favor of making fun of anyone who uses 'graphs' like this.
The more I think about it the more annoyed it makes me. When graphs are abused to lend a patina of scientific rigor to mere opinions and "hot takes" ... they steal that valor from the real graphs, the graphs based on data that help expose important insights that weren't visible until someone did the hard work of collecting data and doing real research.
This is why you can show some people data, and they dismiss it, because anyone can make a graph.
Stolen scientific valor!
If science was credible because it's using graphs (or equations, or jargon, or is in a paper, or any other superficial sign of sciencyness), then it doesn't deserve the credibility at all.
I think this is fine. The problem is that people think plots = science = trustworthy.
Just like scientist is not any person wearing a lab coat, scientific opinion is not any opinion presented with plots.
People should know that and we should tell them (and repeat it often).
Yeah this dude has got all the signifiers to maybe make the real nerds listen.
But, that chart? No legos can make up for that.
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