Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Simon Willison (simon@fedi.simonwillison.net)'s status on Wednesday, 12-Apr-2023 15:00:12 JST Simon Willison

   Super depressing read on the r/freelanceWriters subreddit:

   "I literally lost my biggest and best client to ChatGPT today. This client is my main source of income, he’s a marketer who outsources the majority of his copy and content writing to me. Today he emailed saying that although he knows AI’s work isn’t nearly as good as mine, he can’t ignore the profit margin. [...] Please do not think you are immune to this unless you are the top 1% of writers."

   https://www.reddit.com/r/freelanceWriters/comments/12ff5mw/it_happened_to_me_today/

   • Embed this notice
     mmby (mmby@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 12-Apr-2023 15:00:11 JST mmby

     in reply to

     @simon Glad to see some compassion here, there are many who will push this fate aside as "made some bad life decisions" (which is only a reflexive defense to make oneself feel different enough to not associate with the possibility of it happening to oneself) and "the price of progress".

     I don't think prompt engineering has much of a future either when you can just A/B test the prompts and mutate them automatically.

     Human roles may be in testing infrastructure, the fun things will be automated

     clacke likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Wednesday, 12-Apr-2023 15:02:44 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • 😷💉RoyalTea👑🫖
     > If AI services rely on already written work, will they eventually be relying on themselves?

     
     @theteapixie This crisis is already occurring.

     @simon

   • Embed this notice
     😷💉RoyalTea👑🫖 (theteapixie@mstdn.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 12-Apr-2023 15:02:45 JST 😷💉RoyalTea👑🫖

     in reply to

     @simon
     I tested an AI service by asking for a diagnosis.
     It parroted exactly what had been said by docs and the internet.
     Of course, it was wrong. DEAD wrong.

     I’m at a place that requires investigation and innovation.

     It could not do either.

     If AI services rely on already written work, will they eventually be relying on themselves? Will there be no new thought, solutions, or innovation?

     It suggests businesses that choose the AI path are doomed to mediocrity.

     Non?

   • Embed this notice
     clacke (clacke@libranet.de)'s status on Wednesday, 12-Apr-2023 15:05:26 JST clacke

     in reply to

     • 😷💉RoyalTea👑🫖
     > It suggests businesses that choose the AI path are doomed to mediocrity.

     > Non?

     
     Oui.

     The question is how much market there is for human excellence at a living wage when automated mediocrity can be had for pennies.

     @theteapixie @simon