As a software developer we tend to be pretty confident that software or algorithms can solve all the problems in the world because we are using ‘technology’/AI/LLM/Blockchain or whatever the buzzword of the day is to solve a problem. This is an issue because when we look at a problem from an outsider’s perspective it looks fairly simple because we don’t know enough to realize the complexity. Or put another way we don’t know enough to know what we don’t know (the unknown unknowns). As always XKCD has a comic that talks about this:
Megan: Our field has been struggling with this problem for years.
Cueball: Struggle no more! I’m here to solve it with algorithms!
Six months later:
Cueball: Wow, this problem is really hard.
Megan: You don’t say.
To be fair, computers have solved a lot of problems in the world and have had a tremendous impact on it, but that doesn’t mean that they are the key solving for every problem. There is a saying that I love quoting “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” and as a developer/techie a lot of us tend to forget this. We look at a problem and think that its an easily solved problem and in most cases that is true during the testing in controlled situations. Once you try the same in the real world things turn out a lot more differently. For example, in a 2020 study, a deep learning model was shown to be more accurate in predicting whether bladder cancer has spread in a patient and other models also showed similar results. Unfortunately, when the model was implemented in the real world the results where a lot more ambiguous and not as rosy as we thought.
The major problem we have right now is that AI can give us information at sounds authoritative and accurate especially if it is about a topic you know nothing about because you don’t quite know well enough to identify the nonsense it sprouts. This is similar to how movies and TV shows portray technology or medical science, they will bombard us with buzz words and if you know nothing about the topic it sounds impressive otherwise you are either completely confused or rolling on the floor laughing.
We need to actually look at the problem, understand it and then start implementing a solution. Move fast and break things is not a feasible working model unless you just want to create a buzz so that your technology/company gets acquired and then it is not your problem to get it to work.
– Suramya