The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Random Chat Thread...

[MJ DeMarco]

@MJ DeMarco wondering if you have tried Hemingway Editor for that purpose.

I tried it years ago, didn't much like it.

I'm sure its change though, so it might be worth another peek.

 

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[EmotionEngine]

I tried several basic ways to re-frame the question but got 17 every time.

This is what it took to “jailbreak” it and give me an (apparently) truly random response after running a random number program.

Definitely not truly random. Computers can't generate truly random numbers, only pseudo-random numbers. They need a seed (like a clock) which is probably why it was the same multiple times.

 

[Kevin88660]

Finally I changed my phone from iphone 11 to 16 pro max after 3.5 years.

I was delaying it and procrastinating it because of the cumbersome data migration and app reactivation. Delete necessary files. Backing it in itune that takes hours. Remember banking and broker apps secret qns for ease of reactivation….making sure no clients contacts are lost.

But thanks to chatgpt I overcome the fear and procrastination.

As a consultant it broke down the steps one by one and we discussed in details.

 

[StrikingViper69]

Eleven v3 (alpha) — The most expressive Text to Speech model

Generate lifelike speech in 70+ languages with emotion, direction, and multi-speaker control using inline audio tags.

elevenlabs.io

V3 from Eleven Labs released, which now allows personality and inflection tags for text to speech.

You can insert foreign accents, pace, laughs, all kinds of things.


View attachment 66842

AI can finally model that annoying inflection that makes everything sound like a question. Excellent.

 

[AceVentures]

It's easy to prompt LLMs.

But it's hard to verify their output.

I find them practical for several uses, like drafting code or helping me brainstorm. And in every case, I have to diligently swift through and verify the output. Which is why I find them wonderful for "mood boarding" type of work. Like using Pinterest.

What concerns me is watching people I consider smart outsource their thinking to these things.

All over X now I see in the comment section "Grok is this true?".

It's never been easier to be misled. Especially when one attributes "super intelligence" to the program.

I believe "AI" creates a sort of false God, and it's being embedded into everything.

For the critical thinkers in here, it's worth keeping these ideas in the back of your mind, so as to continuously learn to exploit the program for what it's worth and avoid falling into potential traps.

The bigger question is not whether AI will make people retarded because of it's use cases, but whether centralization of the force can throttle and manipulate information highways, by design or by bias, and meaningfully change the signal-noise ratio for important topics.

In other tasks, I believe these agents can unironically diminish the value of the work by association with other unrelated/incorrect data.

Are people learning about historical events with it? Are people asking it about weather phenomena? About biology? And how much of the made up shit is possibly paradigm changing in your understanding of the thing?

Ultimately, I think philosophically, socially, economically, politically, if we mislabel this thing as "artificial intelligence" it makes a big difference in how we understand and act in the world. This is the most important distinction I wanted to make in the conversation.

 

[Xeon]

AI is indeed the 2nd coming of God Himself.

Had to create a new webpage for my employer's site. The IT dept don't allow installation of additional plugins on the existing site, so some widgets or features I want can't be installed, such as a carousel slider. There's an existing slider using a plugin but it was buggy.

So I described the look of the carousel and asked Chatgpt to code one which I just dumped the code into the WordPress site, and bam, viola!

I mean, look, Chatgpt's coding even beat out a popular carousel plugin!

In the past, I would have needed to learn JS for this, or hire someone on Upwork or Fiverr.

AI is really starting to have a negative impact on my writing insofar as now I need to steer clear of heavily used AI conventions, in order to avoid sounding like AI.

This means I have to eliminate words/phrases from my vocabulary, like "brutal" "savage" "gut punch" "here's the kicker" "tapestry" etc. I also have to limit use of EM-DASHES when I've always used them, probably more than a normal writer would, and to the point an editor would call it out.

In some sense it makes editing a bit easier, but in another dimension, it is adding an extra layer of complexity to my writing which, IMO, was already complex.

Maybe you should put together a 20,000 word sample text which you write in your own style, feed it to the AI in parts, and get it to write that for you in your style. Basically train it to write just like MJ would lol

The idea is to get AI to replace as much of you as possible.

 

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[The-J]

The Internet was the democratization of information. Anyone could easily learn anything they wanted.


AI will be the democratization of action. Anyone will be easily able to do anything they want.


The barriers to entry for accomplishing anything is falling.


Immense wealth will transfer to those who take advantage of this fact sooner rather than later.

Was thinking the same thing earlier. Basically the world will be split into (1) those who are passively entertained most of the time and (2) those who commit to an idea and see it through.

The currency of the modern day is our attention. Attention is the only thing that will cover for AI's faults.

"The eyes of the master do more work than his hands", except now everyone's the master (if they wanna be)

 

[jimbeam]

I am using obsidian which is a markdown note taking app/platform, with a plugin using AI to chat and digging in my notes. It's really powerful as it gets my data out and can enhance them on the go. I am really impressed and the developper of the plugin is 100% dedicated to his project.

 

[23Infinity]

Agreed. The whole "AI automation agency" is the new SMMA, everyone and their mother is jumping on ship. There is a real need for it and many will agencies will be born and die, a few outlasting, productizing, and consolidating. Go on /r/n8n and you will see it in full swing. Selling shovels, anyone?

I was wondering about this - is it hype/selling shovels or is actual value being exchange between these agency guys and business owners?
At least one guru (Nick Saraev) is definitely hitting about $500k/month right now selling 1-2 courses on AI automation (see his skool course page, numbers are pretty public due to a build in public approach)

 

[DareDevil]

I was wondering about this - is it hype/selling shovels or is actual value being exchange between these agency guys and business owners?
At least one guru (Nick Saraev) is definitely hitting about $500k/month right now selling 1-2 courses on AI automation (see his skool course page, numbers are pretty public due to a build in public approach)

Do it and find out

 

[The-J]

I was wondering about this - is it hype/selling shovels or is actual value being exchange between these agency guys and business owners?
At least one guru (Nick Saraev) is definitely hitting about $500k/month right now selling 1-2 courses on AI automation (see his skool course page, numbers are pretty public due to a build in public approach)

Just like SMMA it's both

Every business in a box opportunity has a kernel of reality to it. There are loads of businesses out there who are terrified of being left behind and are willing to pay large sums to people who can sell them the solution to this fear.

At the same time, there are charlatans who learn sales skills & sell a bullshit product to people, then turn around and package selling bullshit products as a course.

With SMMA, if you provide a good service, you can actually help businesses grow. But if the opportunity is being sold to people with no experience, what are the odds that everybody will be able to provide a good service? And out of those people who buy the opportunity, what separates those who succeed versus those who don't?

Same thing with AI. If your AI automation is actually solving a business problem, then you're providing value. But if the guru is selling to people with no experience, how many of them does the guru actually expect to sell a valuable service?

I've never liked business-n-a-box/guru/MMO/bizopp stuff, regardless of what it sells, because it always markets to the lowest common denominator: people with no relevant experience looking for easy money. Then out of those people, the ones who succeed tend to be the ones who are willing to sell polished turds and convince people it's gold. Then you end up with their communities rallying around the polished turd salesmen, and it just becomes toxic all around.

 

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[Kevin88660]

AI is indeed the 2nd coming of God.

The God of Redemption for those who are
(1) Too young during the dot com bubble
(2) Too lazy to learn coding 10-15 years back
(3) Ignored Bitcoin as a scam in 2012

 

[23Infinity]

Do it and find out

I'd be tempted to launch my own course instead lmao, but I've been modestly successful with e-comm over the past few years and don't want to fall for shiny object syndrome.

I do believe in the huge potential of AI in general though, have plenty of non-agency ideas I'm evaluating.

 

[23Infinity]

I've never liked business-n-a-box/guru/MMO/bizopp stuff, regardless of what it sells, because it always markets to the lowest common denominator: people with no relevant experience looking for easy money. Then out of those people, the ones who succeed tend to be the ones who are willing to sell polished turds and convince people it's gold. Then you end up with their communities rallying around the polished turd salesmen, and it just becomes toxic all around.

Fair points, I am also reminded of the whole FBA guru craze while it was in its peak

 

[MarkLavagne]

It's easy to prompt LLMs.

But it's hard to verify their output.

That's exactly the reason why all that LLM stuff wont find any practical application in real world (think automotive, logistics, etc). At this point in time it is simply no way to check outcome correctness under all permutations of incoming variables.

Rock solid software and hardware development always require rigorous testing involving all possible variations of real life situations. Good luck doing it with "AI"....

At areas where garbage generation became a sign of prudence (looking at internet marketing) yea, but real life applications - not so much.

 

[DareDevil]

That's exactly the reason why all that LLM stuff wont find any practical application in real world (think automotive, logistics, etc). At this point in time it is simply no way to check outcome correctness under all permutations of incoming variables.

Rock solid software and hardware development always require rigorous testing involving all possible variations of real life situations. Good luck doing it with "AI"....

At areas where garbage generation became a sign of prudence (looking at internet marketing) yea, but real life applications - not so much.

you are mistaking the beginning with the ending , it is just the beginnning

 

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[Xavier X]

@MJ DeMarco what's your take on the thousands of solo founder AI businesses popping up these days which are just wrappers?

Most vanish quickly. A few succeed but briefly.

Built on someone else’s model, vulnerable to price hikes or native features making them obsolete.

Does this break the principles of Control and Entry?

Does it matter if you’re still making money?

What are you seeing as the best opportunities in such a quickly evolving market?

An AI wrapper should be evaluated mostly based on its wrapper.

Does the wrapper offer something that "productizes" it in a useful way beyond simply using ChatGPT or Claude?

For instance, there are language-learning apps that use LLM. But their unique value is in offering a structured learning and tracking environment that's more efficient than what's obtainable directly on ChatGPT. Some offer voice practice with AI avatars, include intonation corrections, progress tracking, leaderboards and such.

The point is, there are many "AI wrappers" that are genuinely useful beyond the LLM model behind them. So again, evaluate them on the additional usefulness of the wrapper, not the LLM powering some or most functions.

This forum runs on XenForo. Anyone can get XenForo and start a forum today, but the value of this forum is what MJ built on XenForo, not the fact it's running that software to power the community.

 

[MarkLavagne]

you are mistaking the beginning with the ending , it is just the beginnning

Not sure if I am following you.

Its hard to speculate right now how it will (if it will) evolve.

The key points are:

1. There is no way to thoroughly test the "AI" output. Its unlikely for this way to appear anytime soon.
2. Hence, any real world application of that is unpredictable and any real world use must factor the unpredictability in.

 

[amp0193]

That's exactly the reason why all that LLM stuff wont find any practical application in real world (think automotive, logistics, etc). At this point in time it is simply no way to check outcome correctness under all permutations of incoming variables.

It’s why we still don’t have gpt5.

All models more or less hitting performance ceiling here and LLMs becoming a commodity.


Will take 1-step back, 2-steps forward here. Or go down the branch of another research tree.

But today is the worst it will ever be. And there are billions to be made as it stands.

 

[The Sandman]

That's exactly the reason why all that LLM stuff wont find any practical application in real world (think automotive, logistics, etc). At this point in time it is simply no way to check outcome correctness under all permutations of incoming variables.

It doesn't need either of those things to be useful. I think of most complex problems as a nonlinear programming optimization problem, where it's either impossible or impractical to prove a solution is the global optimum.

In practice, you don't need the very best possible solution. You need a good solution, hopefully the best solution found so far, and if AI can help people find then it will be used.

 

[The Sandman]

On a lighter note, I highly recommend the Merlin app from Cornell. It's free and uses AI and you're phone's microphone to identify bird songs. Very cool.



I'm keeping "Yellow-rumped Warbler" in my pocket for a classy-sounding insult.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Dropping this here...

ASSERTION - Your redemption and second chance is here. Will you take it?

I highly recommend the Merlin app from Cornell.

My wife loves this app.

 

[MarkLavagne]

It doesn't need either of those things to be useful. I think of most complex problems as a nonlinear programming optimization problem, where it's either impossible or impractical to prove a solution is the global optimum.

In practice, you don't need the very best possible solution. You need a good solution, hopefully the best solution found so far, and if AI can help people find then it will be used.

While I do agree it is not necessary on some applications, real life applications usually require quite predictable and reliable one. Would you fly on a plane flown by "not the very best possible AI"? Driven by a car where the "AI" is "not the best out there"? Eat food made by not the very best "AI"? Doubt so.

Yea, as an assistant to educated individual (capable to understand when AI is feeding garbage and hallucinating) it can be tremendously useful. Outside of the context? I wouldn't bet on that. After the new fad fades away, we shall see.

 

[i_like_quinoa]

I have been thinking about the implication of AI on large scale companies, given that there has been a fair few layoffs due to AI. I have a suspicion that companies that do fully implement AI without thinking of succession planning will struggle to be sustainable over the longer term. An AI is only is as good as the user, so what happens when that user retires and the industry, market conditions, demand etc. changes. Especially when the next generation was so reliant on AI, they didn't really have the basic skillset.

Below is a really good article from 10 years ago where the Toyota founder replaced robots with human, because he left that it was important for his staff to actually learn the craft of building automobiles, rather than rely soley on robots

Toyota To Replace Robots With… Humans?

The idea is that if employees are more skilled, and less a “human robot” that performs the same task repeatedly during their shift, they might be able to better identify inefficiencies in the process or think up ways to make it better.

www.manufacturing.net

 

[The-J]

While I do agree it is not necessary on some applications, real life applications usually require quite predictable and reliable one. Would you fly on a plane flown by "not the very best possible AI"? Driven by a car where the "AI" is "not the best out there"? Eat food made by not the very best "AI"? Doubt so.

Yea, as an assistant to educated individual (capable to understand when AI is feeding garbage and hallucinating) it can be tremendously useful. Outside of the context? I wouldn't bet on that. After the new fad fades away, we shall see.

Most real-life applications that require predictable deterministic outputs are already solved & it's just a matter of bringing down costs and working within constraints to make them viable in production. AI has little to do with it & won't add value there.

Where AI shines is when the outputs MUST be non-deterministic and where the solutions can't be engineered or coded. Which is a lot more applications than you think, including self-driving cars.

 

[MatiasAndres]

I made the jump and signed up for Google's Veo3. I have to say, it's a game changer, and since I'll be taking on more freelance projects, I think this tool is going to be crucial. Very excited to play around with this tool!

This is my very first creation.

 

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[The Sandman]

While I do agree it is not necessary on some applications, real life applications usually require quite predictable and reliable one. Would you fly on a plane flown by "not the very best possible AI"? Driven by a car where the "AI" is "not the best out there"? Eat food made by not the very best "AI"? Doubt so.

Yea, as an assistant to educated individual (capable to understand when AI is feeding garbage and hallucinating) it can be tremendously useful. Outside of the context? I wouldn't bet on that. After the new fad fades away, we shall see.

Using your examples, are you only willing to fly/ride/eat if the pilot/driver/cook is the very best in the world?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Not a fan of C. Wood, but its still worth a look.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZznpMh0DegE


00:00 Intro 02:16 Investing in the Most Disruptive Industries
05:33 Big Companies Will Crash If They Don’t Adapt Quickly
06:09 Where to Invest to Be Rich in the Next 10 Years
08:52 The Biggest Employer in the World
09:59 Flying Cars and EV Tools Will Shape the Future
10:47 Investing in AI Companies in the Health Care Industry
12:46 Why Tesla Will 10x in the Next 5 Years
15:13 Your Autonomous Car Will Make You Money
18:30 How Humanoid Robots Will Free Our Time
21:29 No Code Will Be Written by Humans
25:24 The Companies That Will Make Money in the AI Era
29:53 Will Unemployment Be Higher in 5 Years?
37:08 Meeting Elon Musk
40:36 Investing in Bitcoin at the Very Start
43:36 How Much of Your Portfolio Is Bitcoin?
46:05 Bitcoin Mining
50:33 Why Invest in Coinbase
54:56 Top 10 Public Investments People Should Consider
57:50 Ads
59:34 Where Would You Invest $1,000?
01:01:46 Investing in Other Cryptocurrencies Apart From Bitcoin 01:03:16 How to Invest in Stablecoins
01:03:46 The Mentality of a Good Investor
01:06:53 Trump’s Tariffs
01:11:38 What Keeps You Up at Night in the Current Situation
01:16:47 How to Hire in the Era of AI
01:25:27 Advice to Young People
01:30:20 Gratitude Letter From Cathie’s Mentor
01:36:50 If Elon Dies, Will It Impact the Progress of Human Evolution?

 

[MarkLavagne]

Using your examples, are you only willing to fly/ride/eat if the pilot/driver/cook is the very best in the world?

Yes, that's correct. Our life/health is our most precious assets so I don't see a reason for compromise. Everything that wouldn't fall under law of diminishing returns would fit.

 

[MarkLavagne]

Most real-life applications that require predictable deterministic outputs are already solved & it's just a matter of bringing down costs and working within constraints to make them viable in production. AI has little to do with it & won't add value there.

Where AI shines is when the outputs MUST be non-deterministic and where the solutions can't be engineered or coded. Which is a lot more applications than you think, including self-driving cars.

While I would still stick to my opinion on that, you have excellent point here. Thank you for sharing.