In many cases we need something less like AI and more like a basic algorithm (2023)

[gcp123]

This is about selling solutions vs solving problems.

There's an excellent quote about this common phenomenon from Lant Pritchett (Prof @ Harvard Kennedy School) that has stuck with me for years, and helped improve how I begin a working relationship with my clients:

"A lot of the time when we first interact with people and ask them to come up with problems that they want to solve they often name a solution because they have a preset idea of the solution and hence they never really have thought through to the problem to which this that was a solution"

Here is a great quick explanation of this from him and how he addresses it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--ewJatFeZU

[not_your_vase]

This doesn't seem to be about improvement nor about algorithms. It's about bolting AI on top of everything (because that's the style at the time) for the sake of being able to tell that it has AI.

From marketing pov it kind of makes sense. If I think about it, if there are two otherwise equal toilet brushes, I will pick the one that has AI too.

[BriggyDwiggs42]

If the prices were comparable id take the non ai one because the manufacturing cost probably went into better materials

[karmakaze]

Cars are a good counterexample. Low-tech cars have much less troubles. Eventually full-featured ones will also be consistently reliable and secure but we're going through growing pains. Safety features that can be enabled/disabled are a good advancement though.

[rolph]

out of all the things an ai proffers, i have yet see one, wash windows; swweep floors; scrub toilets; or make coffee.

if AI could do those things, seamlessly, then i would bite, other than that it looks and smells like a grift.

[rightbyte]

> If I think about it, if there are two otherwise equal toilet brushes, I will pick the one that has AI too.

Really? Will you, or do you believe other people will? (I realize toilet brush is a metaphor).

[appsDev]

I completely agree, I think even in some cases eventually AI should be combined with a basic algorithm, for example chatGPT sometimes gives wrong math answers, which makes sense because it is just generating what it "says" based on it's data. If it could take the equation it finds though and plug it into a simple calculator algorithm then the answer would be correct. Just simple example, but you know what I mean..

[jondwillis]

AI (language models) are already being combined with basic algorithms as you say to solve issues like not being able to “do” math.

[shmerl]

Yes, indeed. This push for "AI has to do everything" is dumb. It seems to be the new buzzword and koolaid that has to be attached to every context just because.

[TYPE_FASTER]

They used to be called “expert systems.”

[ldjkfkdsjnv]

Claiming that AI is not useful is absurd and oxymoronic. If you cant figure out how to use it, you are locked in a paradigm that is becoming obsolete.

[allears]

The post doesn't claim that AI is useless. It just makes the point that sometimes there are much simpler (faster, cheaper) solutions that are just as effective if not more so.

[darby_nine]

I honestly have no clue what people expect ai to "obsolete". The world doesn't work like that.