These experts on AI are here to help us understand important things about AI.
Who are these generous, helpful experts that the CBC found, you ask?
“Dr. Muhammad Mamdani, vice-president of data science and advanced analytics at Unity Health Toronto”, per LinkedIn a PharmD, who also serves in various AI-associated centres and institutes.
“(Jeff) Macpherson is a director and co-founder at Xagency.AI”, a tech startup which does, uh, lots of stuff with AI (see their wild services page) that appears to have been announced on LinkedIn two months ago. The founders section lists other details apart from J.M.'s “over 7 years in the tech sector” which are interesting to read in light of J.M.'s own LinkedIn page.
Other people making points in this article:
C. L. Polk, award-winning author (of Witchmark).
“Illustrator Martin Deschatelets” whose employment prospects are dimming this year (and who knows a bunch of people in this situation), who per LinkedIn has worked on some nifty things.
“Ottawa economist Armine Yalnizyan”, per LinkedIn a fellow at the Atkinson Foundation who used to work at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Could the CBC actually seriously not find anybody willing to discuss the actual technology and how it gets its results? This is archetypal hood-welded-shut sort of stuff.
Things I picked out, from article and round table (before the video stopped playing):
Does that Unity Health doctor go back later and check these emergency room intake predictions against actual cases appearing there?
Who is the “we” who have to adapt here?
AI is apparently “something that can tell you how many cows are in the world” (J.M.). Detecting a lack of results validation here again.
“At the end of the day that’s what it’s all for. The efficiency, the productivity, to put profit in all of our pockets”, from J.M.
“You now have the opportunity to become a Prompt Engineer”, from J.M. to the author and illustrator. (It’s worth watching the video to listen to this person.)
Me about the article:
I’m feeling that same underwhelming “is this it” bewilderment again.
Me about the video:
Critical thinking and ethics and “how software products work in practice” classes for everybody in this industry please.
I work with AI so it’s not a grift. The asshole part is right tho.
why would you working in a field make it not a grift? all of the reformed cryptocurrency devs I know maintain that they didn’t know it was a grift until it was far too late (even as we told them it was in no uncertain terms). both industries seem to have the same hostility towards skeptics and constant kayfabe, and the assholes at the top are very experienced at creating systems that punish dissent.
of course I’m wasting my time explaining this — your continued paycheck and health insurance rely on you rejecting the idea that your career field produces fraudulently marketed software and garbage research. the only way that ends is if you see something bad enough you can’t reason past it, or if the money starts to show signs of running out. it’s almost certainly gonna be the latter — the fucking genius part about targeting programmers for this kind of affinity fraud is most of them have flexible enough ethics that they’ll gladly pump out shitheaded broken software that’s guaranteed to fuck up the earth and/or get folks killed if there’s quick profit in it