• @model_tar_gz@lemmy.world
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    883 months ago

    I’m an AI Engineer, been doing this for a long time. I’ve seen plenty of projects that stagnate, wither and get abandoned. I agree with the top 5 in this article, but I might change the priority sequence.

    Five leading root causes of the failure of AI projects were identified

    • First, industry stakeholders often misunderstand — or miscommunicate — what problem needs to be solved using AI.
    • Second, many AI projects fail because the organization lacks the necessary data to adequately train an effective AI model.
    • Third, in some cases, AI projects fail because the organization focuses more on using the latest and greatest technology than on solving real problems for their intended users.
    • Fourth, organizations might not have adequate infrastructure to manage their data and deploy completed AI models, which increases the likelihood of project failure.
    • Finally, in some cases, AI projects fail because the technology is applied to problems that are too difficult for AI to solve.

    4 & 2 —>1. IF they even have enough data to train an effective model, most organizations have no clue how to handle the sheer variety, volume, velocity, and veracity of the big data that AI needs. It’s a specialized engineering discipline to handle that (data engineer). Let alone how to deploy and manage the infra that models need—also a specialized discipline has emerged to handle that aspect (ML engineer). Often they sit at the same desk.

    1 & 5 —> 2: stakeholders seem to want AI to be a boil-the-ocean solution. They want it to do everything and be awesome at it. What they often don’t realize is that AI can be a really awesome specialist tool, that really sucks on testing scenarios that it hasn’t been trained on. Transfer learning is a thing but that requires fine tuning and additional training. Huge models like LLMs are starting to bridge this somewhat, but at the expense of the really sharp specialization. So without a really clear understanding of what can be done with AI really well, and perhaps more importantly, what problems are a poor fit for AI solutions, of course they’ll be destined to fail.

    3 —> 3: This isn’t a problem with just AI. It’s all shiny new tech. Standard Gardner hype cycle stuff. Remember how they were saying we’d have crypto-refrigerators back in 2016?

    • @WanderingVentra@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Not to derail, but may I ask how did you become an AI Engineer? I’m a software dev by trade, but it feels like a hard field to get into even if I start training for the AI part of it, because I’d need the data to practice =(

      But it’s such a big buzz word I feel like I need to start looking that direction if i want to stay employed.

      • Bobby Turkalino
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        193 months ago

        if I want to stay employed

        I think this is a little paranoid. Somebody has to handle the production models - deploying them to servers, maintaining the servers, developing the APIs and front ends that provide access to the models… I don’t think software dev jobs are going anywhere

      • @technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 months ago

        For me it helps to have a project. I learned SciKit in order to analyze trading data to beat the “market”. I was focusing on crypto but there’s lots of trading data available in general. Unsurprisingly I didn’t make any money, but it was fun to learn more about data processing, statistics, and modeling with functions.

        (FWIW I’m crypto-neutral depending on the topic and anti-“AI” because it doesn’t exist.)

        • @ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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          33 months ago

          Ha ha I got into genetic algorithms for the same reason, market prediction. Ended up exactly at zero in terms of net gains and losses - if you don’t count commissions, anyway. :(

    • @rainynight65@feddit.org
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      53 months ago

      Re 1, 3 and 5, maybe it is upon the AI projects to stop providing shiny solutions looking for a problem they could solve, and properly engaging with potential customers and stakeholders to get a clear understanding of the problems that need solving.

      This was precisely the context of a conversation I had at work yesterday. Some of our product managers attended a conference that was rife with AI stuff, and a customer rep actually took to the stage and said ‘I have no need for any of that because none of it helps me solve the problems I need to solve.’

      • @model_tar_gz@lemmy.world
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        53 months ago

        I don’t disagree. Solutions finding problems is not the optimal path—but it is a path that pushes the envelope of tech forward, and a lot of these shiny techs do eventually find homes and good problems to solve and become part of a quiver.

        But I will always advocate to start with the customer and work backwards from there to arrive at the simplest engineered solution. Sometimes that’s a ML model. Sometimes a ln expert system. Sometimes a simpler heuristics/rules based system. That all falls under the ‘AI’ umbrella, by the way. :D

    • @Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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      23 months ago

      Also in the industry and I gotta say it’s not often I agree with every damn point. You nailed it. Thanks for posting!

  • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    763 months ago

    I think the whole system of venture capital might be garbage. We have bros spending millions of dollars like gif sharing while the oceans boil, our schools rot, and our infrastructure rusts or is sold off. Or, I guess I’m just indicting capitalism more generally. But having a few bros decide what to fund based on gutfeel and powerpoints seems like a particularly malignant form.

    • @Wogi@lemmy.world
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      353 months ago

      You think it might be??

      Bro say that shit with some confidence.

      Venture capital does not contribute beneficially to society.

    • @_stranger_@lemmy.world
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      63 months ago

      Venture Capital is probably the best way to drain the billionaires. Those billions in capital weren’t wasted, that money just went to pay people who do actual work for a living. What good is all that money doing just sitting in some hedge fund account?

      • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        153 months ago

        I don’t think it’s the best way out of all possible options. Even if it does “create jobs”, a lot of those jobs aren’t producing much of wider value, and most of the wealth stays in the hands of the ownership class. And a lot of the jobs are exploitive, like how “gig workers” are often treated.

        Changes to tax law and enforcing anti-trust stuff would probably be more effective. We probably shouldn’t have bogus high finance shenanigans either. We definitely shouldn’t have billionaires.

        • @_stranger_@lemmy.world
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          53 months ago

          Oh sure, I was mostly being flippant. My response to the article is basically that billionaires losing billions is a good thing. I don’t feel optimistic enough to say we’ll get around to taxing them but yes, that would be ideal.

      • @Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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        33 months ago

        I think you have a point here. Venture capitalists buy in the primary market. They are directly impacting innovation.

        Fund managers (both hedge and long only) merely help capital markets to be liquid. Their money doesn’t directly go to anyone actually creating something.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)
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      53 months ago

      The world is burning and the rich know this so they are desperate to multiply their money and secure their luxury survival bunkers, which is why they are gambling harder.

      • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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        43 months ago

        Oh yeah I think I read about Zucker building a bunker in hawaii. Hopefully he dies before he can enjoy it.

        • Angry_Autist (he/him)
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          43 months ago

          It’s not just fuckerberg, EVERY billionaire is doing it and desperately pumping their billionaire friends for tips and suggestions on things like ‘keeping guards loyal for multiple generations’, and ‘what commodities to hoard for trading after the collapse’.

          One of the sites I used to support was a high-end automation service, normally for factory equipment and biotech but pivoted to luxury home automation (no IoT devices, all site hosted with aerospace grade equipment), and they have been running at 100% for the last seven years deploying to ultra wealthy residential estates where the location is not disclosed.

          The wealthy are expecting us to rise up within the next decade and a half, and I think they’re probably right.

          • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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            43 months ago

            I remember seeing memes about this. I think it was the “boss throws guy out the window” template.

            • “How can we keep our guards loyal? Drug them? Bomb collars?”
            • “Maybe you could pay them and treat them with dignity and respect”

            Personally I think we should start a campaign of jury nullification and “if you’re an EMT, and they’re a billionaire, let them die”, but I’m just one guy.

            • Angry_Autist (he/him)
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              13 months ago

              The current ferment in the billionaire community is that ‘starting a religion based on the family and offering marriage partners from within the family as a promise of social mobility’ is the safest method of guaranteeing loyalty, so really they’re just making micromonarchies.

              Treating them ‘with dignity and respect’ isn’t going to last very long as eventually the family guards will have members that covet the family’s wealth, resources, members, and well since they are guards they have access to all the weapons. Also: almost zero billionaires have respect for anyone who is not also a billionaire.

              I agree with your campaign, though I would take it a step further and suggest we should just drag them all into the street and mulch them into fertile soil so the world can begin to heal.

              • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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                23 months ago

                Yeah I think it’s impossible to treat people with dignity and respect indefinitely while also hoarding wealth like a dragon.

    • @rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      -13 months ago

      The situation where it’s still profitable to invest this way means that there’s some cross-flow of value from real to this which shouldn’t exist.

      I dunno which. Maybe government handouts to corps, for example.

      Or ads revenue from any engaging activity, not only good, made huge because of oligopolies.

      Or closing holes with currency emission.

      It shouldn’t be possible otherwise.

    • @ours@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Your average tech hype cycle. New tech comes out, lots of marketing, people try to shove it everywhere, then things settle down and the tech either fills a certain chunk of the market or some niche or it dies.

    • @lobut@lemmy.ca
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      143 months ago

      Even within a company. Saw coworkers that were trying to establish themselves as the AI pioneers and were backstabbing others get promotions based on how they could best use the ChatGPT AI.

      • LiveLM
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        243 months ago

        Backstabbing your fellow coworkers over a chatbot has got to be one of the most pathetic things I’ve read recently

    • paw
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      153 months ago

      And I was always taught that capitalism allocates the resources ideally. /s

    • Aisteru
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      73 months ago

      It might be in the volume and price of projects

  • @ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    Isn’t it good that the money is being put back into circulation instead of being hoarded? I’m all in for the wealthy wasting their money.

    • @IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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      123 months ago

      I’m willing to bet the vast majority of that money is changing hands among tech companies like Intel, AMD, nVidia, AWS, etc. Only a small percentage would go to salaries, etc. and I doubt those rates have changed much…

      • lemmyvore
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        53 months ago

        They typically use internal personnel and being parcimonious about it so you’re right about that.

    • finley
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      3 months ago

      Kinda, but it’s like feeding a starving child nothing but candy until they die.

      ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    • @where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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      83 months ago

      Yeah, the brightest minds instead of building useful tech to fight climate change, spend their life building vanity AI projects. Computational resources instead of folding proteins or whatever are wasted on some gradient descent of some useless model.

      All while working class wages are stagnant. And so your best career advice is to go get a random tech degree so you could also work on vanity stuff and make money.

      This is cryptocurrency equivalent. It’s worse than CEOs buying yachts. The latter actually leads to some innovation.

      • @ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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        13 months ago

        Succesfully creating an actual AGI would be by far the biggest and most significant invention in the human history so I can’t blame them for trying.

        • @where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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          33 months ago

          A bunch of people fine-tuning an off-the-shelf model on a proprietary task only to fail horrendously will never lead to any progress, let alone AGI.

          So, nobody is trying AGI.

          If all those people would actually collectively work on a large-scale research project, we’d see humanity advance. But that’s exactly my point.

          • @ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            “Nobody is trying AGI” is simply just not true. If you think what they’re doing will never lead to AGI, then that’s an opinion you’re free to have, but it’s still just that; an opinion. Our current LLM’s are by far the closest resemblance of AGI that we’ve ever seen. That route may very well be a dead end but it may also not be. You can’t know that.

            • @where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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              13 months ago

              Oh gosh, look, an AI believer.

              No, LLM will not lead to AGI. But even if they did, applying existing tech to a new problem only to fail cuz you’re dumb at estimating the complexity does not, in fact, improve the underlying technology.

              To paraphrase in a historical context: no matter how many people run around with shovels digging the ground for something, it will never lead to an invention of the excavator.

              • @ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                Ad hominem and circular reasoning isn’t a valid counter-argument. You’re not even attempting to convince me otherwise, you’re just being a jerk.

    • @Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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      43 months ago

      The larger issue that people always fail to remember is the energy consumption. We are see massive amounts of electricity.

      One peer-reviewed study suggested A.I. could make up 0.5 percent of worldwide electricity use by 2027, or roughly what Argentina uses in a year. Analysts at Wells Fargo suggested that U.S. electricity demand could jump 20 percent by 2030, driven in part to A.I.

      The wealthy are under sailing like always. Just like we did with cigarettes or burning fossil fuels. We should have learned but it by the time we do, it might be to late.

      https://archive.ph/AqhHz