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ABC_horticulture
feeds.twtxt.net
 (27w ago)

WA wine industry warns of impact of Containers for Change expansion
A newly formed West Australian wine group warns that bottles of wine produced in the state could increase by $1.25 if the expansion of the Containers for Change scheme goes ahead. ⌘ Read more

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movq
www.uninformativ.de
 (27w ago)

Another AI rant:

One of the “key features” of LLMs is that you can use “natural language”, because that is supposed to be easier than having to learn a programming language. So, when someone says to me, “I automated this process using AI!”, what they mean is: They have written a very, very large Markdown document. In this document, they list what the AI is supposed to do.

In prose.

This is a complete disaster.

Programming and programming languages have one crucial property: They follow a well-defined structure and every word has a well-defined meaning. That is absolutely brilliant, because I can read this and I can follow the program in my head. I can build a mental model. I can debug this, down to the precise instructions that the CPU executes. This all follows well-defined patterns that you can reason about.

But with these Markdown files, I am completely lost. We lose all these important properties! No debugging, no reasoning about program flow, nothing. It’s all gone. It’s a magic black box now, literally randomized, that may or may not do what you wanted, in some order.

People now throw these Markdown files at me … and … am I supposed to read this? Why? It’s completely random and fuzzy.

Sadly, these AI tools are good enough to be able to mostly grasp the authors intentions. Hence people don’t see the harm they cause, because “it works”.

We already have a ton of automations like this at work: Tickets get piped through an LLM and these Markdown files / prompts determine what will happen with the ticket, and maybe they trigger additional actions as well, like account creation or granting permissions. All based on fuzzy natural language – that no two humans will ever properly agree on.

Jesus Christ, we’re now INTENTIONALLY bringing the ambiguity of legal texts and lawyers into programming.

Using natural language is NOT easier than using a programming language. It is HARDER. Have you people never read a legal contract? And that stuff can STILL be debated in a court room.

I can’t begin to comprehend why we, tech folks, push this so hard. What is wrong with you? Or me?

(And, once again, we’re ignoring other factors here. LLMs use a ton of energy and ressources, that we don’t have to spare. It’s expensive as fuck. It doesn’t even run locally on our servers, meaning we give all these credentials and permissions to some US company. It’s insane.)

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ABC_horticulture
feeds.twtxt.net
 (28w ago)

Nationals deputy leader says supermarkets should pay farmers more for produce
Farmers have urged Australia’s major supermarket chains to pay more for fresh produce, in response to increased fuel and freight costs.
GUEST: Darren Chester, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
PRODUCER: Isadora Bogle ⌘ Read more

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ABC_horticulture
feeds.twtxt.net
 (29w ago)

Sick of not knowing if your avocado is ripe or bruised? This scanner could change that
An Australian-first avocado “ripeness scanner” is being trialled, with the aim of telling customers exactly when their avocados will be ready to eat. ⌘ Read more

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