Let's assume Google, Siri, Alexa, etc. start using large language models in 2023; What impact do you think this will have on the general public/everyday life? Will it be revolutionary?

Submitted by AdditionalPizza t3_yrno50 in singularity

The application seems obvious, though there are a few minor hurdles to overcome (like truthfulness, etc). But how much of an impact do you think mainstream virtual assistants adopting a Large Language Model will have?

Currently they're mostly only useful for handsfree internet searches that return easy to digest information, basic home automation tasks, and some minor entertainment value. If they deploy a state of the art LLM, suddenly we have a virtual friend to help us with currently almost unimaginable tasks. What do you envision their capabilities will consist of and be limited to? Do you think it will simply be a novelty at first and settle into society as just another tech thing that doesn't really have a huge effect on the average person's life - similar to the initial release of these assistance a decade ago?

Additionally, I predict this will be within the next year which may catch a lot of people off guard. Will this reach further than text-to-image with regards of captivating the general public? Will it be the first of many very real wake up calls for a lot of people that aren't interested in following AI?

We might have an actual assistant in our pockets, on our kitchen counters, and built into our televisions. An assistant that actually deserves the namesake. Help kids with homework as a personal tutor, give unique recipe ideas tailored to your palette and dietary needs, motivate you and help ease stress in your life, be an always present friend just a call away. We could potentially see applications that can analyze a photo or real time video to help you tackle a DIY project at home, pick an outfit at the mall, train you on proper form when exercising. Upcoming AI will finally bring life to the Internet of Things.

Side note - Imagine Samsung does it first and Bixby takes the lead. Nobody would see that coming.

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blueSGL t1_ivusj22 wrote

>Do you think it will simply be a novelty at first and settle into society as just another tech thing that doesn't really have a huge effect on the average person's life

most tech is this, look at all the stuff people use now, generally it's just slid into our lives and it's just there. No real fanfair and people would only take active notice if it gets removed.

People already talk to their phones and 'smart home' devices it'd just be bumping up the abilities a notch.

I suspect big noticeable change will come from the business space where [job]+LLM out competes people just doing [job] and then everywhere will want to have it and train people to use it just to stay competitive. There will be think pieces written about this and people complaining and a spate of articles where people find that AI told them to do something and they did it without thinking (like sat nav and dirt roads with unthinking drivers)

I mean the one that really gets me about image (and now video) generation is not that it's happened, it's the amount of critique leveled against it, here is this magic black box calling forth image (and video) from the void and all people do is say 'well it can't do fingers' 'well the composition is not that great' 'well the temporal consistency is not there yet' when the tech itself is close to magic and is only going to get better. The amount of people thinking (and complaining) about 'now' rather than seeing where this is going to be in a few years.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_ivuzq1w wrote

>People already talk to their phones and 'smart home' devices it'd just be bumping up the abilities a notch.

So you think it will be just "a notch" rather than substantially useful? I believe they will become more useful than googling things yourself. When I talk about voice assistants or virtual or whatever you want to call them, I mean the ability to type queries as well. So in that case, it could be for most people the "middle man" between user and internet.

On top of that, they could blast productivity and general knowledge off from those that don't use it. Compare say an elderly person that hasn't touched a smart phone to a 20 something year old college student in terms of technology know-how. I think the difference between someone that accesses their future-assistant and that college student today is a greater gap than that college student and the elderly person. I also think it will likely make the internet much more accessible to people that currently don't use it extensively, and it will have a greater affect on the average person's life than the internet itself did over the past ~20 years. It will hopefully be like conversing directly with the entirety of the internet.

I agree with your last 2 paragraphs. But the business side of things won't really show everday average people AI capabilities.

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visarga t1_ivv8pk4 wrote

> So in that case, it could be for most people the "middle man" between user and internet.

A big danger to advertising companies, hence the glacial release pace of these language models in assistants.

> they could blast productivity and general knowledge

Already happening: you can't draw? StableDiffusion. You need help with coding? Copilot. They take skills learned from some of us and make them available to others. That makes many professionals jealous and angry.

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blueSGL t1_ivvarfl wrote

I think companies are going to be scared to be the first out of the gate with LLM tech for the public. Heavily neutered versions will going out first. Everyone is going to be scared of "personal assistant writes N word poem"* or similar ridiculous gawker type headlines. Some people are going to take access to such models as a challenge to create those headlines. This is why I say it will be an upgrade on what we have now but will still have massive limitations in the name of 'safety' even though unfettered models will do much much more.

This is why I think it will first 'go large' in business use cases where they can really put the blinkers on the thing and instruct employees that if it comes out with something incorrect, it's expected, it's 'beta' and to follow a procedure if it happens.

There will be a rise in very narrowly targeted walled garden services with an LLM back end but I doubt they will be used for anything 'general' because scale and scope of the 'safety' problem will prevent it.

Edit: * shortened the title, no news outlet would go with something as verbose as "the personal assistant that writes poems about the N words" that would be a sub heading at best.

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JoelMDM t1_ivyfpgb wrote

The stagnancy of digital assistants has been truly shocking to me. I remember when Siri was first released when I was in high school, I figured that in 10 or so years, it would surely be well advanced. Turns out, it barely does anything more than when it was released and hasn’t had a proper update in years.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_ivyk3u5 wrote

Totally agree. But I think the amount of work needed to get the current (past) technology to be much better was too much effort for too little gain. They're basically just search engines fueled mostly by top results which is generally a paid position to be in.

Automation is certainly slow too, not sure why. Just not enough customers maybe.

A new wave of digital assistant with language models is most likely the advancement you envisioned and it'll happen relatively quickly I bet.

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ImoJenny t1_ivwd99w wrote

UberEats will finally have a more efficient way to deprive me of my paycheck and Alexa will start bullying you into buying Tide Pods

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phriot t1_ivus4ap wrote

I don't think 2023 is going to be the year of "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer" from Diamond Age. If the vision is to use current models hooked into the more commonplace virtual assistants, wouldn't this exist already, just in a less popular form?

When it does happen, yes it will be revolutionary. It will probably be the year every school "flips the classroom,' to have a lot of learning take place at home, and have school be for socialization and assessment. It will be great to have queries beyond "What's the weather tomorrow?" or "Please turn off the lights." actually work, and be quicker than just picking up a device on your own. It will also be amazing to have capable first line help for basically any issue: mental health, physical health, home repair, etc. Even these kinds of assistants should reduce stress, and increase productivity for just about everyone.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_ivv0bqp wrote

>If the vision is to use current models hooked into the more commonplace virtual assistants, wouldn't this exist already, just in a less popular form?

Basically, or at least nearly. But in the grand scheme of things, most people don't know or care about it. Until our smartphones have them pre-installed, I don't think most people will take notice in a short enough timeframe to call it revolutionary toward society.

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footurist t1_ivvw097 wrote

It will take some more generations for them to mature for that. They're simply too inconsistent for now.

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HydrousIt t1_ivxacen wrote

I think that their personal assistants will start to be used more and more instead of neglected.

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ihateshadylandlords t1_ivveal4 wrote

People have already attached GPT3 to computer avatars and nothing has changed: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PqbB07n_uQ4

I don’t think much would change if it was coupled with Alexa, Siri etc.

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AdditionalPizza OP t1_ivvr5x4 wrote

I've seen that, I wouldn't exactly call it near what I'm talking about in terms of usability, mass adoption, convenience, or ability. I think people are under estimating how powerful it can/will be in the very near future and the possibility of it replacing most if not all current regular internet browsing.

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[deleted] t1_ivw1ood wrote

I don't think its a significant development it is really only going to look like a version update to voice UI's we have already.

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jloverich t1_ivysvng wrote

I think llm are likely still too expensive. I'd like to see what stabilityai can produce.

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