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points by edg5000 2 days ago | 0 comments

I used to care about this initially, but now I don't. How can them having my data, mostly engineering work on niche (small market) products hurt me? An they need to know what's going on, how else would they ever improve the product? Benchmarks?

[–] mapontosevenths 2 days ago

> How can them having my data, mostly engineering work on niche (small market) products hurt me?

They will train on it, and now competitors or future competitors will know about your niche, the specific problems you face within it, and how to solve them without doing the work that you did to get there.

[–] edg5000 2 days ago

That's true. It's a two way street. I feel I gain more from what the model offers me, than what I provide back. Of course, local would be a thousand times better. One day I'll have 20k to spare and get the hardware.

[–] mapontosevenths 1 day ago

For sure, but do the math first and know where you land. Everyone has a different risk tolerance, as long as you know yours there is no wrong answer.

For example a startup with no secrets to spill is in a very different spot than an incumbent fueled largely by secret sauce.

[–] CamperBob2 2 days ago

And I'll know about theirs. Fine by me.

[–] j45 2 days ago

Just because you can't imagine a scenario doesn't mean one doesn't exist, or couldn't exist.

That's a pretty risky way to build blind spots and it's worth learning more about this.

When you make the product work with your words, you're doing the training and improvements to get it to that line as a pattern which then lets models "improve" from your corrections.

[–] krupan 2 days ago

You realize they are aiming to replace you, don't you? You are paying them to do so, and giving them information they need do do it. For free.

[–] CamperBob2 2 days ago

Yes, I certainly hope so.

[–] thoughtpeddler 1 day ago

Fascinated by the psychology here. Is it because you view frontier AI labs as beneficial entities that truly care about everyone's well-being, and will do what it takes to ensure, post-replacement, that we are 'taken care of', broadly speaking? Or are you more like "I'm ready to be replaced, and if that results in my death, I was over this reality in the first place, so it just speeds up what I've been hankering for anyway."

[–] CamperBob2 1 day ago

If I'm replaced, it will mean that humanity as a whole has taken a step forward that's normally associated with digging up monoliths. If nothing else, it'll mean that I'll get to do something more interesting.

I'm one of those "code to live" types, as opposed to someone who "lives to code." More specifically, I usually write code in the course of building something that uses it. That's true 99% of the time, anyway. Why would I complain about a technology that helps me (and my customers and employers) move closer to the actual goal?

As for resulting in my death, AI is not going to be what kills me. Not unless humans misuse it. Which, of course, we will, because that's what we do... but (shrug) if it's misused in a way that kills me, at least it'll be a more interesting death. More likely, it will extend my life by accelerating medical progress the way it's starting to accelerate progress in math.

In any case, I don't see the current crop of frontier labs being especially important in the grand scheme of things. Unless they have something up their sleeves besides serving LLM tokens, they are most likely the pets.com and Webvan of our day, not the Amazon and Apple. They are valuable partners, certainly, but I can get by without them.

[–] AlexeyBelov 1 day ago

> I'll get to do something more interesting

Some would say living under a bridge with other former developers is interesting, in a way.