Confirmation of anecdotes or gut feelings is still science. At some point you need data rather than experience to help people and organizations change their perception (see: most big tech companies lighting billions of dollars on fire on generative AI).
You also need that stuff to shut up pseudo-sceptics. Like, random example, posture having an influence on mood, there were actually psychologists denying that, reason for that kind of attitude is usually either a) If there’s no study on some effect then it doesn’t exist, “literature realism” or b) some now-debunked theory of the past implied it, “incorrectness by association”. Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean that you should discount catholic opinions on beer brewing, they produce some good shit. And just because the alchemists talked about transmutation and the chemists made fun of it to distance themselves from their own history doesn’t mean that some nuclear physicist wasn’t about to rain on their parade, yes, you can turn lead into gold.
Not to mention based on the numbers in the article I imagine the AI might actually do better than an average human would do. It wasn’t as much of a “duh” as I thought it would be.
For many hundreds of years, blood-letting was an obvious thing to do. As was just giving people leeches for medical ailments. And ingesting mercury. We thought having sex with virgins would cure STDs. We thought doses of radiation was good for us. And tobacco. We thought it was obvious that the sun revolved around Earth.
It is enormously important to scientifically confirm things, even if they do seem obvious.
Uhh, we didn’t “think” a lot of those things- you’re describing marketing that some Company disseminated in order to shill their products. And many, many people paid the price in misery, or worse.
I love that someone even bothered with a study.
(Edit: To be clear, I am both amused, and also genuinely appreciate that the science is being done.)
Confirmation of anecdotes or gut feelings is still science. At some point you need data rather than experience to help people and organizations change their perception (see: most big tech companies lighting billions of dollars on fire on generative AI).
You also need that stuff to shut up pseudo-sceptics. Like, random example, posture having an influence on mood, there were actually psychologists denying that, reason for that kind of attitude is usually either a) If there’s no study on some effect then it doesn’t exist, “literature realism” or b) some now-debunked theory of the past implied it, “incorrectness by association”. Just because you’re an atheist doesn’t mean that you should discount catholic opinions on beer brewing, they produce some good shit. And just because the alchemists talked about transmutation and the chemists made fun of it to distance themselves from their own history doesn’t mean that some nuclear physicist wasn’t about to rain on their parade, yes, you can turn lead into gold.
Not to mention based on the numbers in the article I imagine the AI might actually do better than an average human would do. It wasn’t as much of a “duh” as I thought it would be.
Agreed!
I don’t mean sarcasticly, honestly. As you said, it’s still valuable science.
That’s true. But still. Duh.
For many hundreds of years, blood-letting was an obvious thing to do. As was just giving people leeches for medical ailments. And ingesting mercury. We thought having sex with virgins would cure STDs. We thought doses of radiation was good for us. And tobacco. We thought it was obvious that the sun revolved around Earth.
It is enormously important to scientifically confirm things, even if they do seem obvious.
Uhh, we didn’t “think” a lot of those things- you’re describing marketing that some Company disseminated in order to shill their products. And many, many people paid the price in misery, or worse.
We absolutely did think those things.