Author Topic: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!  (Read 17805 times)

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Offline wraper

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #75 on: December 28, 2017, 05:02:14 pm »
However, until I can get a computer to design a circuit, or write a program to do X for me, with minimal input, I'll remain sceptical about general AI.
At that point you won't be required.
I'm not worried. I'll be either dead or retired, long before that happens.

People have made all sorts of optimistic predictions about general AI, since the invention of computers, yet so far they've failed to come true. AI has progressed a lot since then, but like anything else, it's different to what was predicted.
Considering you are only 35 according to your profile, I wouldn't be so sure. AI is development is exponentially accelerating right now.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2017, 05:04:34 pm by wraper »
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #76 on: December 28, 2017, 05:12:09 pm »
However, until I can get a computer to design a circuit, or write a program to do X for me, with minimal input, I'll remain sceptical about general AI.
At that point you won't be required.
I'm not worried. I'll be either dead or retired, long before that happens.

People have made all sorts of optimistic predictions about general AI, since the invention of computers, yet so far they've failed to come true. AI has progressed a lot since then, but like anything else, it's different to what was predicted.
Considering you are only 35 according to your profile, I wouldn't be so sure. AI is development is exponentially accelerating right not.
I base a lot of my opinions on research from the past. AI development has gone through various periods of growth. The prediction has always been for general AI to appear in the next 20 years. I think the next 50 years is being optimistic, even at today's rate of development.

I'd like to be wrong. General AI will solve many of the world's problems. I don't feel threatened by AI. I'm still confident I'll be able to find a job, in future.
 

Offline wraper

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #77 on: December 28, 2017, 05:35:27 pm »
I base a lot of my opinions on research from the past. AI development has gone through various periods of growth. The prediction has always been for general AI to appear in the next 20 years. I think the next 50 years is being optimistic, even at today's rate of development.

I'd like to be wrong. General AI will solve many of the world's problems. I don't feel threatened by AI. I'm still confident I'll be able to find a job, in future.
10 years ago there was basically nothing, today we have cars which can drive on their own.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #78 on: December 28, 2017, 06:12:03 pm »
I base a lot of my opinions on research from the past. AI development has gone through various periods of growth. The prediction has always been for general AI to appear in the next 20 years. I think the next 50 years is being optimistic, even at today's rate of development.

I'd like to be wrong. General AI will solve many of the world's problems. I don't feel threatened by AI. I'm still confident I'll be able to find a job, in future.
10 years ago there was basically nothing, today we have cars which can drive on their own.
Self driving cars are not an example of general AI and are not widespread. There are a few self-driving cars which will not work everywhere. Self-driving locomotives aren't even widespread and that's theoretically mush easier to implement.

And there was a lot of AI 10 years ago, if you care to look.
 

Offline wraper

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #79 on: December 28, 2017, 07:02:27 pm »
And there was a lot of AI 10 years ago, if you care to look.
Ai is a broad term, a lot of things fall under that term. If we talk about AI where serious machine learning is involved, there was barely any. What was available then is a joke compared to what is available now.
https://enterprise.microsoft.com/en-ca/articles/industries/microsoft-in-business/grow-your-business-with-microsoft-ai/

 

Offline bd139

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #80 on: December 28, 2017, 07:05:55 pm »
Hmm Microsoft sponsored AI offering statistics...

Compare to windows phone sales projections  :-DD
 

Offline wraper

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #81 on: December 28, 2017, 07:19:07 pm »
Hmm Microsoft sponsored AI offering statistics...

Compare to windows phone sales projections  :-DD
You may laugh but AI driven advertising already empties peoples pockets quiet successfully.
 

Offline wraper

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #82 on: December 28, 2017, 07:21:16 pm »
 

Offline bd139

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #83 on: December 28, 2017, 07:26:33 pm »
Further comments - analysts are full of shit when it comes to things that don't exist yet.

I am working in a sector dominated by machine learning and usefulness is very hyper-inflated because it brings in revenue. It's another bubble which will burst.
 

Offline wraper

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #84 on: December 28, 2017, 07:32:42 pm »
Further comments - analysts are full of shit when it comes to things that don't exist yet.
It includes numbers which already happened. And those numbers show that AI market was basically non existent a few years ago and has grown twice in the last year only.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2017, 07:35:32 pm by wraper »
 

Offline bd139

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #85 on: December 28, 2017, 07:34:37 pm »
Yes but the data points are very very few and there's some fuzzy description of what is "AI" and what is "machine learning" which are basically algorithmic / decision tree based. No autonomy there. Just teaching a monkey to dance.

That's like saying on Monday I took one step, Tuesday I took two steps and Wednesday I took four steps. Ergo next year I'll be on Mars.

It wasn't long ago that Ray Kurzweil was going on about the singularity and crazy guarantees of what our future holds. That's where the ideology breaks down; we haven't delivered anything notable yet, just propped up a few failing industries (advertising) for a few more years.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2017, 07:36:19 pm by bd139 »
 
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Offline tggzzz

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #86 on: December 28, 2017, 07:38:42 pm »
That's like saying on Monday I took one step, Tuesday I took two steps and Wednesday I took four steps. Ergo next year I'll be on Mars.

Too many people aren't on planet earth :(
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline bd139

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #87 on: December 28, 2017, 07:58:01 pm »
Indeed.

I think the problem with current marketing is that you need a problem that it is applicable to at the point of deciding to use it which is a very narrow subset of reality. Most problems can be solved with little or no intelligence. Actually even better than that, when you apply intelligence to something, be it human, machine learning or otherwise, it actually compromises the result significantly because it removes all determinism. You can't reason always as to why something happened and that's not something people can cope with.

I actually watched a commissions matching company burn through 200,000 financial commissions records with their "AI" system which got about a 50% hit rate and 70% certainty which they said was remarkable. For AI it was. But their competitor had a 95% hit rate with 90% certainty with no intelligence at all. No AI meat there; just string matching in SQL and a stemming algorithm.

The worst thing about the "AI" based system was that the rate of failure changed, sometimes better, sometimes worse as it was reacting to real data entered by dumbasses. On a bad day it created more work for humans to unpick than it did not existing.

Microsoft like to sell it as a use case for everything and project that. Same thing they did with their WS-* bollocks for distributed architecture (WCF, WPF, WWF etc).

It's not a bag of new tricks, it's a monkey with a gun if you put it in the wrong room.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2017, 08:00:08 pm by bd139 »
 
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Offline wraper

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #88 on: December 28, 2017, 08:29:03 pm »
I actually watched a commissions matching company burn through 200,000 financial commissions records with their "AI" system which got about a 50% hit rate and 70% certainty which they said was remarkable. For AI it was. But their competitor had a 95% hit rate with 90% certainty with no intelligence at all. No AI meat there; just string matching in SQL and a stemming algorithm.
For tesla autopilot it works pretty well. Or facebook facial recognition. If someone does crappy job, it does not tell about industry in a whole.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #89 on: December 28, 2017, 08:30:56 pm »
I'm not worried. I'll be either dead or retired, long before that happens.

People have made all sorts of optimistic predictions about general AI, since the invention of computers, yet so far they've failed to come true. AI has progressed a lot since then, but like anything else, it's different to what was predicted.
It's that classical tale of overestimating what'll happen in 20 years and underestimating what's possible in 50. Technology tends to develop exponentially, so even if developments have been disappointing so far, which I don't think they are, it's pretty much what's to be expected. That's not some bullshit selling analyst predictions either, technology in general does that consistently and AI is much too broad and already too profitable to fail at this point. I won't make the mistake of being overly optimistic, but it's hard to not see it change society as we know it within most of our lives and probably working lives.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #90 on: December 28, 2017, 08:33:10 pm »
I actually watched a commissions matching company burn through 200,000 financial commissions records with their "AI" system which got about a 50% hit rate and 70% certainty which they said was remarkable. For AI it was. But their competitor had a 95% hit rate with 90% certainty with no intelligence at all. No AI meat there; just string matching in SQL and a stemming algorithm.
For tesla autopilot it works pretty well. Or facebook facial recognition. If someone does crappy job, it does not tell about industry in a whole.

If someone does a crappy job it vanishes without even a puff of smoke.

 

Offline ebastler

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #91 on: December 28, 2017, 08:58:38 pm »
Here you go if you don't trust microsoft:
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-ai-market


Ahh -- giving four significant digits on those guesstimates makes the data so much more credible!  :P
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #92 on: December 28, 2017, 09:02:30 pm »
Ahh -- giving four significant digits on those guesstimates makes the data so much more credible!  :P
It makes it 214,839% more credible and 161,893% more relevant.
 

Offline Zero999

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #93 on: December 28, 2017, 09:15:39 pm »
Further comments - analysts are full of shit when it comes to things that don't exist yet.
It includes numbers which already happened. And those numbers show that AI market was basically non existent a few years ago and has grown twice in the last year only.
The market is historically poor at predicting this kind of thing. Look up the dot com bubble.
I'm not worried. I'll be either dead or retired, long before that happens.

People have made all sorts of optimistic predictions about general AI, since the invention of computers, yet so far they've failed to come true. AI has progressed a lot since then, but like anything else, it's different to what was predicted.
It's that classical tale of overestimating what'll happen in 20 years and underestimating what's possible in 50. Technology tends to develop exponentially, so even if developments have been disappointing so far, which I don't think they are, it's pretty much what's to be expected. That's not some bullshit selling analyst predictions either, technology in general does that consistently and AI is much too broad and already too profitable to fail at this point. I won't make the mistake of being overly optimistic, but it's hard to not see it change society as we know it within most of our lives and probably working lives.
I agree with you there. The predictions made 50 years ago underestimated lots of things, overestimated others and didn't even foresee most things we have today.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #94 on: December 30, 2017, 07:29:00 am »
Further comments - analysts are full of shit when it comes to things that don't exist yet.

I am working in a sector dominated by machine learning and usefulness is very hyper-inflated because it brings in revenue. It's another bubble which will burst.

I would have to agree. I think AI will find many uses, but I think much of it will be subtle. Currently AI is a fad that is being hyped to the stratosphere much like the internet was in the early 2000's. Obviously the internet is still around, but the bubble burst and a lot of the hype collapsed.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #95 on: December 30, 2017, 07:43:37 am »
Automation is only a threat to unskilled, lowtech jobs. Engineers and technicians are the ones who will be designing, optimising and maintaining automated processes. No degree is necessary to become a technician who will often get paid more to fix a machine, than the engineer who designed it!

I don't think that's the case in the US. Generally the "Technician" job title pays 50%-70% what the "Engineer" title pays, depends on the company of course.

I also wouldn't bet on automation only replacing unskilled low tech jobs. Automation is already widely used within the tech industry, and has directly and indirectly led to many thousands of lost engineering and QA jobs.
 

Offline james_s

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #96 on: December 30, 2017, 07:47:14 am »
In a company, what matters is that the team has an complementary set of skills and personalities, so that each person covers the other people's weaknesses.

If only companies like Google would learn this. For all their talk about diversity, they hire virtually one single type of person, same degree, same personality type, they are so focused on hiring the smartest of the smart people that they forget about common sense.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #97 on: December 30, 2017, 08:51:44 am »
On a positive note it keeps that type of person off the market so we don’t have to waste hours on interviewing them :)
 

Offline dzseki

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #98 on: December 30, 2017, 09:32:27 am »
I also struggled to finish college due to my "incompatibility" to the academic education system, but in the end I managed to finish it, and I am very proud of it now :) And as looking back I think it was profitable for me too.
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Offline tggzzz

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Re: I quit university and now I'm doing a job I love!
« Reply #99 on: December 30, 2017, 10:19:16 am »
I also struggled to finish college due to my "incompatibility" to the academic education system, but in the end I managed to finish it, and I am very proud of it now :) And as looking back I think it was profitable for me too.

Congratulations, not only on succeeding but also on the determination to succeed at something you found difficult. That determination can be valuable. (So can the academic education, as you seem to know :) )
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 


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