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EnderMB

@EnderMB@lemmy.world

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EnderMB ,

I'm fine with that, but let's put some rules against this.

  • Any AI models should be able to determine the source of their data to a defined level of accuracy.
  • There should be a well-defined way to block data from being used by AI. If one of these ways (e.g. robots.txt) has been breached, the model has to be rebuilt without the data, and reparations made to the content owners.
EnderMB ,

Respectfully, I worked for Alexa AI on compositional ML, and we were largely able to do exactly this with customer utterances, so to say it is impossible is simply not true. Many companies have to have some degree of ability to remove troublesome data, and while tracing data inside a model is rather difficult (historically it would be done during the building of datasets or measured at evaluation time) it's definitely something that most big tech companies will do.

EnderMB ,

I think the "underpaid teacher" thing isn't necessarily rooted in reality,. especially outside of the US. My wife is a teacher in the UK, and she's a head of her subject. For many years her pay was similar to mine as a software engineer, but everyone often treated her as if she was poor and that I was rich.

EnderMB ,

To be fair, outside of London you'll find that the starting salary for many degree-level jobs is around that, including jobs like software developer. I'm in Bristol, and the pay disparity is hilariously bad - a senior designer will earn less than a manager at Burger King...

EnderMB ,

A lot of people are giving Tesla shit here, but surely there should be regulations in place to ensure something like this isn't allowed to be released for public use?

EnderMB ,

All of big tech is really worried about this.

  • Apple is worried about its own science output, with many of their office heavily employing data scientists. A lot of people slate Siri, but Apple's scientists put out a lot of solid research.
  • Amazon is plugging GenAI into practically everything to appease their execs, because it's the only way to get funding. Moonshot ideas are dead, and all that remains is layoffs, PIP, and pumping AI into shit where it doesn't belong to make shareholders happy. The innovation died, and AI replaced it.
  • Google has let AI divisions take over both search and big parts of ads. Both are reporting worse experiences for users, but don't worry, any engineer worth anything was laid off and there are no opportunities in other divisions for you either. If there are, they probably got offshored...
  • Meta is struggling a lot less, probably because they were smart enough to lay off in one go, but they're still plugging AI shite in places no one asked for it, with many divisions now severely down in headcount.

If the AI boom is a dud, I can see many of these companies reducing their output further. If someone comes along and competes in their primary offering, there's a real concern that they'll lose ground in ways that were unthinkable mere years ago. Someone could legitimately challenge Google on search right now, and someone could build a cheap shop that doesn't sell Chinese tat and uses local suppliers to compete with Amazon. Tech really shat the bed during the last economic downturn.

EnderMB ,

Definitely not a US thing. Here in the UK I don't think I've worked 9-5 for over 20 years...

I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again — Ludicity (ludic.mataroa.blog)

How stupid do you have to be to believe that only 8% of companies have seen failed AI projects? We can't manage this consistently with CRUD apps and people think that this number isn't laughable? Some companies have seen benefits during the LLM craze, but not 92% of them. 34% of companies report that generative AI specifically...

EnderMB ,

I work in AI as a software engineer. Many of my peers have PhD's, and have sunk a lot of research into their field. I know probably more than the average techie, but in the grand scheme of things I know fuck all. Hell, if you were to ask the scientists I work with if they "know AI" they'll probably just say "yeah, a little".

Working in AI has exposed me to so much bullshit, whether it's job offers for obvious scams that'll never work, or for "visionaries" that work for consultancies that know as little about AI as the next person, but market themselves as AI experts. One guy had the fucking cheek to send me a message on LinkedIn to say "I see you work in AI, I'm hosting a webinar, maybe you'll learn something".

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of cool stuff out there, and some companies are doing some legitimately cool stuff, but the actual use-cases for these tools where they won't just be productivity enhancers/tools is low at best. I fully support this guy's efforts to piledrive people, and will gladly lend him my sword.

EnderMB ,

My dream is an "internet archive" for all video games, modded to run offline. If the game becomes unavailable for purchase, the archive opens that game and makes it available for all.

The next step is for this kind of release to become law, and supported by manufacturers.

EnderMB ,

In the UK, the training requirements for police is still surprising to me, as I had assumed it would take years to train as police.

Either way, our police meet a lot of the criteria here. The budgets are nonexistent, they aren't armed outside of specific circumstances, and they all go through regular de-escalation training.

It hasn't stopped many of the issues we see that are also shared in law enforcement in the states. Our force often uses force unnecessarily, there is institutional corruption and racism, and even in instances where the police have done something bad AND there is evidence it's very hard to find justice.

I think that a degree would help, or a training programme that takes many years and involves extensive training. It's depressing to say, but the demand for good jobs with decent pay and employment protection would probably result in people becoming police just for the pension. I would also add that a good avenue to policing would be for it to link heavily with the law profession. Add a route for police to train part-time to be criminal lawyers, or for lawyers to join the police force.

EnderMB ,

Sadly, I don't see Gimp ever competing with Photoshop. It's not necessarily a feature parity thing, nor is it a mind share thing. It's as you've said - it's not built by creatives to be the best possible tool for many types of design.

It's truly a shame, because for years Adobe slept on different aspects of digital design, and there was a true opportunity to build a Linux-first tool that made things like Web Design so much simpler. It's an unpopular opinion, but Linux window managers have always lacked creative input. There has always either been a design-by-commitee, or a design-by-engineer feel - and this is reflected in how poor Gimp and design tools are in the Linux space.

In reality, Linux could have the best photo editing and design-specific tooling, but sadly the tooling either lacks a creative touch, or lacks features that are truly needed to be competitive.

Microsoft in damage-control mode, says it will prioritize security over AI (arstechnica.com)

Microsoft is pivoting its company culture to make security a top priority, President Brad Smith testified to Congress on Thursday, promising that security will be "more important even than the company’s work on artificial intelligence."...

EnderMB ,

Like most big tech companies, they're actually several divisions all competing with each other. Lately, the AI divisions have latched on to the hype and they're pushing their wares to other divisions, often with enough clout to keep those in security/privacy quiet. Integrating LLM's is also a great way for a middle manager type to curry favour with the bosses, and to build little empires for themselves.

EnderMB ,

I use Windows. It does what it needs to do, and while I haven't upgraded past 10, it's not complained about much.

At home I switch between Fedora and Windows, but at work I use OSX because using Linux at work gets you a shitty laptop instead of a MBP. I work for a big tech company, with the Windows and Mac user communities being pretty much the same size. What I've noticed is that Windows is fairly tolerable, and often has few issues that don't need IT intervention. The MacOS community, while often being more technical because it's used by tech workers, has a lot more issues than any other. Major OS updates are events that take months of planning because it's guaranteed that thousands of people will essentially brick their laptops trying to just do a standard upgrade. Everything seems to break all the time, which is mad when you consider that Apple is a trillion dollar company with one hardware line. Windows and Linux support many hardware lines.

Ultimately, you know what you're getting with each choice. All I care about is that my OS does what it intends to do.

A PR disaster: Microsoft has lost trust with its users, and Windows Recall is the straw that broke the camel's back (www.windowscentral.com)

It's a nightmare scenario for Microsoft. The headlining feature of its new Copilot+ PC initiative, which is supposed to drive millions of PC sales over the next couple of years, is under significant fire for being what many say is a major breach of privacy and security on Windows. That feature in question is Windows Recall, a...

EnderMB ,

Outside of the "Microsoft bad" comments, this is a prime example of why big tech companies need to stop promoting AI leads to a position where they are able to have influence over initiatives outside of AI.

The worst thing to happen to basically every product/service in tech right now is AI. It's made Google unreliable in the eyes of normal people for the first time in decades, it's destroying trust in Amazon content across reviews and Kindle, it's adding features to Facebook that no one ever wanted, etc.

EnderMB ,

There have been several instances where people have released ebooks that are fully AI generated, and are basically scams with no real content or information.

EnderMB ,

I mentioned this the last time there was a "hur dur stealing is fine" thread, but I once watched two guys steal hundreds of pounds (currency, not weight) of meat from a supermarket. They obviously did this to sell it on, but many of the comments here were saying not to side with shareholders or that the store could handle the losses no problem.

Tell someone that is actually struggling about shoplifting, and many of them will say there are two minds to this: you're either desperate or stupid. It's clear as day when someone is desperate (i.e. stealing formula - frankly if they got caught I'd pay for it for them and would happily give them all of my newborn stuff that I no longer use for free), but it's also really fucking obvious when someone is doing it to be a cunt.

EnderMB ,

To be fair, she's definitely a breakout star of the show. I believe that before Witcher she had mostly worked in theatre, and even then was new to the industry.

EnderMB ,

No one man has done more harm to the UK in recent years than Farage.

EnderMB ,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ee7252dc-0afa-4153-b95a-753b04f23cf7.jpeg

EnderMB ,

Most serious SW development is now on Linux laptops/desktops,

I'd love a source for this. To my knowledge, most people that build to Linux hosts still use OSX.

EnderMB OP ,

The article says what part of Amazon it was for. It's for logistics, not AWS, which is a separate division.

EnderMB ,

Some companies have you sign things after leaving.

Obviously, when you start laying people off, or do stupid shit like stack ranking, some people are going to walk out and just blab about all the dumb shit your employer does/did - and they're heroes for doing so.

EnderMB ,

I think that Amazon and Meta (where this is a known practice) do both. I've not signed anything in tech that stops me talking about internal company practices or any work that might have resulted in "voluntary" dismissal, but others in these companies that do the Jack Walsh thing and fire their employees do...

EnderMB ,

For many, it's the severance offered that makes them sign. If you're about to lose your job, a few months pay, and free relocation back home if your visa is due to be cancelled is likely enough to make you sign something.

I'm not condoning it, at all. I think the practice is fucking disgusting, and have seen it wreck lives, but it's a reality in many tech companies, including Google under Sundar.

EnderMB ,

My understanding is that while you're 100% being terminated (and are ineligible for rehire) what you sign indicates that you're actually volunteering to resign.

For more info on it, look up Amazon's Focus and Pivot programs.

EnderMB ,

Given that this was the prime time for Bonzi Buddy, I'm inclined to say I agree with you. People chose these things years ago, because it added more to the experience outside of "here is your word processor, here is notepad, here are the three games you have to play".

EnderMB ,

Uhhh....it's had AI backing it for most of the decade

EnderMB ,

Alexa has had AI backing its services for the better part of a decade.

Source: I worked on some of it.

EnderMB ,

A good macaroni cheese is built from a roux, and uses several cheeses to get that flavour.

With that being said, I don't get why Americans lose cheese so much. It's fine, I guess? I would much prefer most other pasta sauces over cheese, because cheese alone is just a bit bland.

EnderMB ,

As someone not from the US...this is a bit weird.

Why have they got a gun?

EnderMB ,

There has never been a better time for someone to swoop in and remake web search. Hell, there are probably dozens of software engineers from Google that have direct experience with search AND were laid off.

I'm surprised that no one is trying to compete with Google at the weakest point it's been since going public.

EnderMB ,

I'm not so sure that's true in big tech any more.

When goals aren't met, or projects don't show validity in the market, those teams get wound down and the employees are laid off. Moonshot projects still exist, but it's not uncommon to see execs be parachuted into new orgs with the plebs being fired.

EnderMB ,

That's definitely not what's happening right now at Amazon (where I work), and based on what I've heard from coworkers from Google and Meta, it's basically the same story over there.

Hell, we've just had another layoff in our Games division, and many software engineers were enticed to work there so they could cut their teeth on games tech instead of standard micro-services. Now, they're frantically battling against external candidates for the few internal roles available.

After announcing increased prices, Spotify to Pay Songwriters About $150 Million Less Next Year (www.billboard.com)

When Bloomberg reported that Spotify would be upping the cost of its premium subscription from $9.99 to $10.99, and including 15 hours of audiobooks per month in the U.S., the change sounded like a win for songwriters and publishers. Higher subscription prices typically equate to a bump in U.S. mechanical royalties — but not...

EnderMB ,

I'd love to, but in terms of pure availability I can get almost everything I've ever wanted to listen to, aside from some weird geoblocking or removal of defunct band's back catalogues.

EnderMB ,

You would be mortified at how many people in big tech, including those that have directly experienced injustice or unfair treatment at work, simply want no part of a tech union.

Frankly, some industries absolutely need it (e.g. games). If they'll put up with what they put up with and still choose not to unionize I don't really know how software engineers will...

EnderMB ,

They also committed to providing open dumps of their data to make it free to all. At the start, they were doing all the right things.

EnderMB ,

Amazon has been trimming employee numbers for close to three years now. Any large layoffs now see a dip in stock, so most of the layoffs this year have been small-scale to not worry the investors.

EnderMB ,

Source: I've done student outreach for Amazon (sitting at a booth, chatting to students, doing student program interviews).

That ship has sailed. While big tech still means big salaries, many graduates are now smart enough to realise that the magic number a company says they'll pay you every year is meaningless if they'll lay you off three months from now to appease some shareholders.

They see OpenAI, and they see a startup that basically mopped the floor with ALL of big tech in something they supposedly did for the better part of a decade. I genuinely think we're a few small success stories away from FAANG being completely relegated to boomer tech like IBM.

Google is done, IMO. The same goes for Meta, the two big tech companies that showed people how "fun" an office could be. They're now relegated to normal companies...and their output over the last few years show a set of companies with few stand-out winners. Do you really want to slog through a tough CS degree and a 4-5 stage interview process requiring months of prep to work on Google Docs, or work hard for years only to be woken up every night for a whole week because Amazon Fashion is suffering downtime, all while VP's move to different departments in a blindingly obvious move to avoid department shutdowns and being associated with mass job losses?

IMO, if Google stick with Sundar, and Amazon stick with Jassy, they are done. They'll lose their status and go into slow decline over the next decade.

EnderMB ,

Are you disputing that their AI offering is better than what Google have produced in the same space?

EnderMB ,

The Python team weren't just random folks writing Python. Several are core Python contributors who maintained official forks, ran library matching for internal software, and gave back to the language and community. They didn't just go for cheaper talent, they replaced some arguably irreplaceable engineers and shat over OSS at the same time.

EnderMB ,

Isn't he the personal assistant to Mr Burns?

EnderMB ,

I mean...if operating in a country meant selling your US business, you're probably not going to say "oh gods someone please buy us 🙏", if you want a big payout...

Nurses Protest 'Deeply Troubling' Use of AI in Hospitals (www.404media.co)

“Life-and-death decisions relating to patient acuity, treatment decisions, and staffing levels cannot be made without the assessment skills and critical thinking of registered nurses,” the union wrote in the post. “For example, tell-tale signs of a patient’s condition, such as the smell of a patient’s breath and their...

EnderMB ,

Way back in 2010 I did some paper reading at university on AI in healthcare, and even back then there were dedicated AI systems that could outperform many healthcare workers in the US and Europe.

Where many of the issues came were not in performance, but in liability. If a single person is liable, that's fine, but what if a computer program provides an incorrect dosage to an infant, or a procedure with two possible options goes wrong and a human would choose the other?

The problems were also painted as observational. Often, the AI would get things with a clear solution right far more, but would observe things far less. It basically had the same conclusions that many other industries have - AI can produce some useful tools to help humans, but using it to replace humans results in fuck-ups that make the hospital (more notably, it's leaders) liable.

EnderMB ,

It's sad to say, but I'm glad we're at a point where shareholders now look at job cuts as a negative, and layoffs don't result in an increase in share price.

Amazon have been cutting jobs for their third year running now, on top of URA, and the only thing keeping our CEO in a job right now is happy shareholders.

Tesla’s in its flop era (www.theverge.com)

When Tesla releases its first quarter earnings this afternoon, the company’s CEO Elon Musk will field the usual questions about new products, new factories, and progress toward its futuristic vision of self-driving cars and robot workers. But Musk will also face increasingly urgent questions about its current state of affairs...

EnderMB ,

I wonder if there was ever an entry-level model to begin with. It's been on the cards for about a decade, and many people have looked at Tesla saying "wow, a good electric car, I'll definitely get one once they're affordable".

EnderMB ,

It's weird, because in many ways he could've been viewed as a champion of the left. He owns one of the largest brands in "sustainable" travel, owns a space company, and has money to burn.

I think he probably had a mental breakdown a few years ago, and that what we've seen is from him is basically untreated mental illness, exacerbated by being pals with the likes of Rogan and Chappelle, two guys that can handle fame and not give a fuck.

But things could've been very different if he weren't such a cunt.

EnderMB ,

When put like that, that's absolutely mad! How can shareholders possibly think that this is good value?

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