• cheddar@programming.dev
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    3 days ago

    One of my favorite examples is when a company from India (I think?) trained their model to regulate subway gates. The system was supposed to analyze footage and open more gates when there were more people, and vice versa. It worked well until one holiday when there were no people, but all gates were open. They eventually discovered that the system was looking at the clock visible on the video, rather than the number of people.

  • ShaunaTheDead@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    Reminds me of an early application of AI where scientists were training an AI to tell the difference between a wolf and a dog. It got really good at it in the training data, but it wasn’t working correctly in actual application. So they got the AI to give them a heatmap of which pixels it was using more than any other to determine if a canine is a dog or a wolf and they discovered that the AI wasn’t even looking at the animal, it was looking at the surrounding environment. If there was snow on the ground, it said “wolf”, otherwise it said “dog”.

    • driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br
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      4 days ago

      Early chess engine that used AI, were trained by games of GMs, and the engine would go out of its way to sacrifice the queen, because when GMs do it, it’s comes with a victory.

      • papalonian@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Reg, why’d you just stab yourself in the shoulder?

        Ah cmon, ain’t ya ever seen a movie?

        Well of course I’ve seen a movie, but what the hell are ya doing?

        Every time the guy stabs himself in a movie, it’s right before he kicks the piss outta the guy he’s fightin’!

        Well that don’t… when that happens, the guys gotta plan Reg, what the hell’s your plan?

        I dunno, but I’m gonna find out!

        • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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          3 days ago

          You don’t use it for the rule-set and allowable moves, but to score board positions.

          For a chess computer calculating all possible moves until the end of the game is not possible in the given time, because the number of potential moves grows exponentially with each further move. So you need to look at a few, and try to reject bad ones early, so that you only calculate further along promising paths.

          So you need to be able to say what is a better board position and what is a worse one. It’s complex to determine - in general - whether a position is better than another. Of course it is, otherwise everyone would just play the “good” positions, and chess would be boring like solved games e.g. Tic-Tac-Toe.

          Now to have your chess computer estimate board positions you can construct tons of rules and heuristics with expert knowledge to hopefully assign sensible values to positions. People do this. But you can also hope that there is some machine learnable patterns in the data that you can discover by feeding historical games and the information on who won into an ML model. People do this too. I think both are fair approaches in this instance.

            • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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              All possible moves one step from a given position sure.

              But if you then take all possible resulting positions and calculate all moves from there, and then take all possible resulting positions after that second move and calculate all possible third moves from there, and so on, then the possibilities explode so much in number that you can’t calculate them anymore. That’s the exponential part I was refering to.

              You can try and estimate them roughly, let’s say you’re somewhere in the middle of the game, there are 12 units of each side still alive. About half are pawns so we take 1.2 possible moves for them, for the others, well let’s say around 8, thats a bit much for horses and the king on average, but probably a bit low for other units. So 6 times 8 and 6 times 1.2, lets call it 55 possibilities. So the first move there are 55 possible positions, for the second you have to consider all of them and their new possibilitues so there are 55 times 55 or 3025, for the third thats 166375, then 9.15 million, 500 million, 27.6 billion, 1.5 trillion etc. That last one was only 7 moves in the future. Most games won’t be finished by then from a given position, so you either need a scoring function or you’re running out of time.

    • kandoh@reddthat.com
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      4 days ago

      That’s funny because if I was trying to tell the difference between a wolf and a dog I would look for ‘is it in the woods?’ and ‘how big is it relative to what’s around it?’.

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      4 days ago

      While I believe that, it’s an issue with the training data, and not the hardest to resolve

      • dondelelcaro@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Maybe not the hardest, but still challenging. Unknown biases in training data are a challenge in any experimental design. Opaque ML frequently makes them more challenging to discover.

        • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
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          The unknown biases issue has no real solution. In this same example if instead of something simple like snow in the background, it turned out that the photographs of wolves were taken using zoom lenses (since photogs don’t want to get near wild animals) while the dog photos were closeup and the ML was really just training to recognize subtle photographic artifacts caused by the zoom lenses, this would be extremely difficult to detect let alone prove.

          • dondelelcaro@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Exactly.

            The general approach is to use interpretable models where you can understand how the model works and what features it uses to discriminate, but that doesn’t work for all ML approaches (and even when it does our understanding is incomplete.)

      • Mirodir@discuss.tchncs.de
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        4 days ago

        So is the example with the dogs/wolves and the example in the OP.

        As to how hard to resolve, the dog/wolves one might be quite difficult, but for the example in the OP, it wouldn’t be hard to feed in all images (during training) with randomly chosen backgrounds to remove the model’s ability to draw any conclusions based on background.

        However this would probably unearth the next issue. The one where the human graders, who were probably used to create the original training dataset, have their own biases based on race, gender, appearance, etc. This doesn’t even necessarily mean that they were racist/sexist/etc, just that they struggle to detect certain emotions in certain groups of people. The model would then replicate those issues.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        4 days ago

        Yes, “Bias Automation” is always an issue with the training data, and it’s always harder to resolve than anyone thinks.

  • Colonel Panic@lemm.ee
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    3 days ago

    I really hate that we are calling this wave of technology “AI”, because it isn’t. It is “Machine Learning” sure, but it is just brute force pattern recognition v2.0.

    The desired outcomes you define and then the data you train it on both have a LOT of built-in biases.

    It’s a cool technology I guess, but it’s being misused across the board. It is being overused and misused by every company with FOMO. Hoping to get some profit edge on the competition. How about we have AI replace the bullshit CEO and VP positions instead of trying to replace fast food drive through workers and Internet content.

    I guess that’s nothing new for humans… One human invents the spear for fishing and the rest use them to hit each other over the head.

    • racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      I agree with most of your points, but i don’t entirely like the “this is not intelligence” line of thought. We don’t even know yet how to define intelligence, and pattern recognition sounds a LOT like what our brains do. The hype is of course ridiculous, and the ways it’s being used is just stupid, but i do think pattern recognition could be a solid basis for whatever we end up considering intelligence.

      • BluesF@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Pattern recognition is one thing that our brains do, it is a very long way away from the only thing our brains do.

        • racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          2 days ago

          [citation needed]

          But yeah, that’s the kind of discussion i’d love to see in more depth :). When would an AI be considered intelligent? It used to be passing the turing test, but now that’s being achieved the goalposts are moving, and that’s maybe for a good reason, but what will be the actual measure :).

      • Colonel Panic@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        Maybe it is human-like intelligence. It’s dumb as shit, but have you met people?

        LMAO

        But yeah, I guess at its core, human intelligence and machine intelligence are both just pattern recognition, but I guess my point is that calling it “AI” gives people this false sense that it is something it is not. AI has been a thing in Sci-fi for so long that we all think of Data from Star Trek or C-3PO from Star Wars and similar. When in reality it is more akin to a robot arm in a factory doing the same task really fast and really precisely, but it isn’t some adaptable all-purpose thing yet.

        • racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          That for sure is a problem with all modern bullshit technologies they want to hype in order to get people to use/buy it.

          Look at smart tv’s… everyone assumes they’re awesome since they’re smart tv’s, that’s of course better than a regular tv. They’ll of course never mention that this just means that it’s a tv with a 100$ android box embedded that they’ll abuse to try to serve you extra ads, that they’ll not bother to update so your tv becomes obsolete in a couple of years, and that you can achieve the same thing by just buying the android box sepearately and connect that to a regular tv, which won’t make your entire tv become obsolete when the cheap android box doesn’t get updated anymore…

          So yeah, i can imagine you have an issue with it being marked as (competent) AI.

          • Colonel Panic@lemm.ee
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            3 days ago

            Yeah for real.

            Smart TVs, Subscription services, etc.

            It’s all just capitalism doing its thing, everyone racing to sell sell sell.

      • Rekorse@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        All you are saying is, is that intelligence isnt as smart as we think, that human intelligence is actually pretty dumb. That doesnt change anything about the current situation even if thats true though.

        So we all agree its actually human level intelligence now, what then? Can we stop developing it and do something else now?

        • racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 days ago

          Lol, wtf XD

          “That doesnt change anything about the current situation even if thats true though.”

          Yeah, i assumed me writing “I agree with most of your points” conveyed that. Do you always imagine random things to attack instead of just reading what people actually write?

          wtf O_o

          I just don’t like people being like “but it’s not real intelligence” while we don’t even know what intelligence is, and we’re thus avoiding the one part of this stupid hype that could be interesting:: philosophical questions about our own intelligence/humanity/…

          • Rekorse@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 days ago

            Do you always argue the most boring parts of any issue as a rule? You win the argument, congratulations I hope it changes the world.

            • racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 days ago

              Do you always change the topic to try and “win” online discussions? And act so unnecessarily hostile for no reason at all to people who want to have interesting online discussions?

              I find the topic of whether it’s intelligence the most interesting part of this. It raises a lot of questions. That the current hype is ridiculous that a lot of the energy expended on it is a complete waste, and that most of the ways AI is used is beyond stupid isn’t even worth talking about, that’s just plain obvious.

              • Rekorse@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                3 days ago

                I think you might be projecting your own hostility there.

                And you are just hijacking the AI conversation to argue about what the word intelligence means. I thought you wanted to talk about AI thats why I originally replied. When I realized you just wanted to apparently correct the public about their use of your favorite word, I decided this wasnt worth it.

                Its sort of like you went to a bowling forum, and were very excited to discuss the mineral contents of the oil on the bowling lane, but got upset when noone cared to discuss with you because they just want to talk about bowling.

                • racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  Dude, just stop. You’re looking for things that aren’t there. Period.

                  I find it an interesting question whether it’s intelligent or not, and find it sad people throw out that question together with the rest of the hype. It’s not “my favourite word”, and i’m not projecting my hostility. You just can’t seem to handle someone bringing any bit of nuance to a discussion…

                  And me projecting hostility XD. yeahhhh… introspection isn’t one of your gifts it seems XD. I’m the one being hostile XD. roflmao XD. I mean just here “your favorite word”… wtf dude, exaggerate much to make yet another pointless jab at me?? I’m not allowed to find this an interesting question without you painting me as someone who fixates on that one thing in the world and makes it sound as if my world revolves around “AI IS INTELLIGENT!!!”… I’m not even convinced it is, but i find it a mighty interesting question that requires more thought than it’s getting.

                  Sorry for trying to argue something i find interesting on lemmy. I’ll just shut up next time and not try to bring up points you might not find interesting since you seem to take that as a personal offence, while you could have just shut up and let the adults have a nice conversation on the one interesting part of this hype.

  • Th4tGuyII@fedia.io
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    4 days ago

    The idea of AI automated job interviews sickens me. How little of a fuck do you have to give about applicants that you can’t even be bothered to have even a single person interview them??

    • Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de
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      But god forbid the applicant didn’t spend hours researching every little detail about a company, writing a perfect letter with information that could have just been bullet points and being able to explain exactly why they absolutely love the company and why it’s been their dream to work there since they were a child. Or even worse: Use AI to write the application.

      • Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world
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        Cover letters fucking make me hateful. I love generating AI cover letters and sending them. Fuck your cover letters in a market where you need to send 100 applications to get 10 bites

      • Th4tGuyII@fedia.io
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        4 days ago

        Exactly!

        Applicants are expected to dedicated hours of their time to writing their application and performing background research - both of which are becoming increasingly more tedious over time - so the least a company could bloody do is show some basic respect by paying an actual human being to come interview you!

    • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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      That’s more like an excuse to keep those stupid 5, 6, and even more interview round processes. Basically making you work an entire week for free in exchange of a chance of getting an offer. Make the first or second rounds with AI and only bother after that.

  • TAG@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    That reminds me of the time, quite a few years ago, Amazon tried to automate resume screening. They trained a machine learning model with anonymized resumes and whether the candidate was hired. Then they looked at what the AI was looking at. The model had trained itself on how to reject women.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      Another similar “shortcut” I’ve heard about was that a system that analyzed job performance determined that the two key factors were being named “Jared” and playing lacrosse in high school.

      And, these are the easy-to-figure-out ones we know about.

      If the bias is more complicated, it might never be spotted.

  • cley_faye@lemmy.world
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    There’s a ton of great small scale things we can do with machine learning, and even LLM.

    Unfortunately, it seems the main usages will be crushing people down even more.

    • Riskable@programming.dev
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      The base assumption is that you can tell anything reliable at all about a person from their body language, speech patterns, or appearance. So many people think they have an intuition for such things but pretty much every study of such things comes to the same conclusion: You can’t.

      The reason why it doesn’t work is because the world is full of a diverse set of cultures, genetics, and subtle medical conditions. You may be able to attain something like 60% accuracy for certain personality traits from an interview if the person being interviewed was born and raised in the same type of environment/culture (and is the same sex) as you. Anything else is pretty much a guarantee that you’re going to get it wrong.

      That’s why you should only ask interviewees empirical questions that can identify whether or not they have the requisite knowledge to do the job. For example, if you’re hiring an electrical engineer ask them how they would lay out a circuit board. Or if hiring a sales person ask them questions about how they would try to sell your specific product. Or if you’re hiring a union-busting expert person ask them how they sleep at night.

      • snooggums@midwest.social
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        But all the other questions are to find out if they are a good fit for the office culture.

        You know, if they are also white middle class dude bros.

      • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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        I’ve just started doing practical interviews. I basically get really young people with little overall experience and I just want to know if they can do common technical tasks.

        So one question is to literally have them explain how to tighten a bolt. One person failed.

        • Riskable@programming.dev
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          To be fair, that’s a very open ended question. I mean, what kind of bolt are we talking about? A standard lag bolt? If so you don’t tighten it! That’d be a trick question! You tighten the nut. Same thing applies with car wheel bolts. Tricky tricky!

          Is it a hex bolt that also has a cross head? How tight are we talking?

          I’m just going to assume bolts of lightning and Usain Bolt are off the table.

          • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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            Not really in a bolt tightenning domain, but I have done technical interviews for a lot of devs including junior ones, and them asking all those questions about the task is something I would consider a very good thing.

            At least in my domain the first step of doing a good job is figuring out exactly what needs to be done and in what conditions, so somebody who claims to have some experience who when faced with a somewhat open ended question like this just jumps into the How without first trying to figure out the details of the What is actually a bad sign (or they might just be nervous, so this by itself is not an absolute pass or fail thing).

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            I’m just going to assume bolts of lightning and Usain Bolt are off the table.

            The only thing I know about the procedure for tightening Usain Bolt is that I am not part of performing it.

          • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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            I did actually make the mistake of asking just “which way do you turn a screw” once and the person had the sense to ask “to tighten or loosen it?”

              • Bertuccio@lemmy.world
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                Yeah but if they don’t show which is which I ask them to show too.

                Almost everyone gets screw turning right, it just weeds out a few people who say the right things in emails.

      • Xephonian@retrolemmy.com
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        That’s why you should only ask interviewees empirical questions that can identify whether or not they have the requisite knowledge to do the job.

        Hol up. ThAt sOuNds LiKe RaCisM!

  • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    That shit works IRL too. Why do you think therapy practices often have themselves positioned in front of a wall of books? Not that it’s a bad thing; it’s good for outcomes to believe your therapist is competent and well educated.

  • SOB_Van_Owen@lemm.ee
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    One web LLM I was screwing around with had Job Interview as a preset. Ok. Played it totally straight the first time and had a totally positive outcome. Thought the interviewer way too agreeable. The next time I said the most inappropriate stuff I could imagine and still the interviewer agreed to come home with me to check out the rock collection I keep under my bed and listen to Captain Beefheart albums.

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    I do that shit when I have a web interview. Put up a guitar just visible in the camera, a small bookshelf, a floor lamp, make sure my tennis bag is visible despite not playing in ages…

    Whether they realize it or not, people do take this stuff in. Not sure why some algorithm based on these very same interviews wouldn’t do the same.

  • fubarx@lemmy.ml
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    Someone should build a little AI app that scrapes a job listing, then takes a resume and rewrites it in subtle ways to perfectly match the job description.

    Let your AI duke it out with their AI.

  • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemm.ee
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    Recruiters: “people are using AI to apply! Shame on those lazy wage slaves!”

    Also recruiters: