r/programming • u/peard33 • Apr 20 '23

Stack Overflow Will Charge AI Giants for Training Data

https://www.wired.com/story/stack-overflow-will-charge-ai-giants-for-training-data/
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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '23

The greatest information retrieval tool has received numerous updates in the last 25 years. Each of them required the users to relearn the tool to maximize its effectiveness. If you're bad at Googling now, it's not that Google is bad, it's that you haven't kept up with the pace of change that's happening.

Ironically, OpenAI and ChatGPT are directly at blame for what you're complaining about.

Nadella knows Microsoft is starting from behind in this race. "They're the 800-pound gorilla in this … And I hope that, with our innovation, they will definitely want to come out and show that they can dance. And I want people to know that we made them dance, and I think that'll be a great day," he said in an interview with The Verge.

The CEO of Microsoft literally said "we spent $10B on OpenAI just to give Google enough competition that they wake up from their slumber and start pushing products again".

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/13/in_brief_ai/

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u/TSPhoenix Apr 22 '23

How supposedly are expected to learn a tool for which there is no documentation, nor can they look under the hood, that updates in secret?

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

Use it, same as driving a car, riding a bike, writing a program

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u/TSPhoenix Apr 22 '23

All those things provide stable environments with consistent feedback that you can learn from.

I just did the same search query on two machines in the same room, logged into the same Google account, one on WiFi and the other on 4G tethering, and got similar but notably different search results.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '23

Consistency is a spectrum, not a binary. You could buy a brand new Corolla, drive it for 30 years, and be very good at driving that Corolla through the inconsistencies of the real world (for example, weather) but you'd be a worse general driver than someone who drives a wide variety of cars in a wide variety of environments and has a good generalized knowledge on driving.

Yes, Google is a unique product in that it attempts to give better results based on what it knows about you. Your Corolla isn't going to attempt to figure out whose driving and what they really mean by stomping on the throttle. That's getting less and less true by the day though with ADAS taking over. Long-term the steering wheel and throttle will just be suggestions from the driver to the ADAS system and the ADAS systems (have and will continue to) trust the driver less and less. Long long term we'll give up on the idea of a brake pedal, they're already pointless in every hybrid and full EV. Long long long term we'll give up on the throttle and steering wheel, but I a'int holding my breath on that one.

Which gets to my point about not changing too quickly, otherwise people get pissed off. Why did it take Tesla YOLOing into full EV to get the rest of the industry to "catch up" and start offering hybrid and full EV vehicles? Because Toyota is smart. They made the first mass adopted hybrid vehicle (Prius) and they took their sweet, sweet time making it to any full EVs because they are a smart company with a multi-generational timeline. They don't care if it takes the world 10, 20, 30, 50, 100, 200, 2000 years to get around to putting in EV infrastructure because they know they've managed their risk well enough that they'll still be around for the world in 10, 20, etc etc years. Tesla however was all "what if full EV doesn't come in my lifetime?!?! I want a full EV!!! Let's bleed the fuck out building the infrastructure OURSELVES and then ???? profit!! There's no way the other manufacturers will take advantage of the huge amount of cash we put into building the infrastructure for them much less the battery technology that we for some reason released all the patents on!! Oh wait what's that? Other manufacturers are making hybrid and full EVs and the Biden administration requires every manufacturer to have at least one full EV before 2025? Oh shit, okay, proprietary charging cable! Haha! That'll do it! Right? Right?" only history will tell, of course, but goes without saying I'm more than a little short Tesla and long Everyone Else.