this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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The promise of AI, for corporations and investors, is that companies can increase profits and productivity by slashing their reliance upon a skilled human workforce. But as this story and many others show, AI is just today’s buzzword for “outsourcing,” and it comes with the same problems that have plagued outsourced companies and workforces for decades.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (13 children)

AI is actually real, though, and can actually accomplish many of the things it's being used for. I think this article is focusing overly much on a couple of weird outlier situations.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (7 children)

I’ve worked with AI companies where their “AI” is mostly just outsourced to some human in a low wage country. Some small part was actual AI algorithms, so they weren’t completely lying to investors.

Setting up actual AI is expensive and time consuming, especially for some new startup. Often it involves creating large amounts of labeled data and even that might not be enough. There are so many uncertainties involved. It might only be possible to achieve 90% or even lower accuracy for a given problem with actual AI algorithms, so the quick and easy solution is to outsource.

I believe this practice is more common than most think.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

The current AI bubble started around february of last year when every C-level of every major company entered into a mass hysteria about being left behind if they didn't integrate LLMs into their service. This is different from the zeitgeist that came before it.

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