Slashdot Reader Mocks Databricks 'Context-Aware AI Assistant' for Odd Bar Chart 17
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp took a good look at the images on a promotional web page for Databricks' "context-aware AI assistant":
If there was an AI Demo Hall of Shame, the first inductee would have to be Amazon. Their demo tried to support its CEO's claims that Amazon Q Code Transformation AI saved it 4,500 developer-years and an additional $260 million in "annualized efficiency gains" by automatically and accurately upgrading code to a more current version of Java. But it showcased a program that didn't even spell "Java" correctly. (It was instead called 'Jave')...
Today's nominee for the AI Demo Hall of Shame inductee is analytics platform Databricks for the NYC Taxi Trips Analysis it's been showcasing on its Data Science page since last November. Not only for its choice of a completely trivial case study that requires no 'Data Science' skills — find and display the ten most expensive and longest taxi rides — but also for the horrible AI-generated bar chart used to present the results of the simple ranking that deserves its own spot in the Graph Hall of Shame. In response to a prompt of "Now create a new bar chart with matplotlib for the most expensive trips," the Databricks AI Assistant dutifully complies with the ill-advised request, spewing out Python code to display the ten rides on a nonsensical bar chart whose continuous x-axis hides points sharing the same distance. (One might also question why no annotation is provided to call out or explain the 3 trips with a distance of 0 miles that are among the ten most expensive rides, with fares of $260, $188, and $105).
Looked at with a critical eye, these examples used to sell data scientists, educators, management, investors, and Wall Street on AI would likely raise eyebrows rather than impress their intended audiences.
Today's nominee for the AI Demo Hall of Shame inductee is analytics platform Databricks for the NYC Taxi Trips Analysis it's been showcasing on its Data Science page since last November. Not only for its choice of a completely trivial case study that requires no 'Data Science' skills — find and display the ten most expensive and longest taxi rides — but also for the horrible AI-generated bar chart used to present the results of the simple ranking that deserves its own spot in the Graph Hall of Shame. In response to a prompt of "Now create a new bar chart with matplotlib for the most expensive trips," the Databricks AI Assistant dutifully complies with the ill-advised request, spewing out Python code to display the ten rides on a nonsensical bar chart whose continuous x-axis hides points sharing the same distance. (One might also question why no annotation is provided to call out or explain the 3 trips with a distance of 0 miles that are among the ten most expensive rides, with fares of $260, $188, and $105).
Looked at with a critical eye, these examples used to sell data scientists, educators, management, investors, and Wall Street on AI would likely raise eyebrows rather than impress their intended audiences.
Data Scientist (Score:5, Funny)
A shepherd was tending his flock when a stranger wandered by.
The stranger said, "I bet I can guess how many sheep you have in your flock. One hundred dollars if I lose, one sheep if I win."
"You're on," said the shepherd.
"One hundred and twenty three," said the stranger.
"You're right! Go ahead and claim your prize."
Then the shepherd offered, "I can guess what you do for a living. Double or nothing."
The stranger agreed.
"You are a data scientist," said the shepherd.
"You're right. How did you know?"
"Put down my dog and I'll tell you."
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, that sounds pretty accurate. Numbers over understanding is never a good idea.
I had the port a python 2 app to 3 recently (Score:2)
This absolutely reeks of boilerplate tools being called ai. It's even possible that used an llm to do what you would normally do with just boilerplate code tools.
Don't get me wrong llms are already taking a lot of customer service jobs but I think that's mostly because there's so little competition left in our economy that companies can replace people with shitty chatbots and you don't have a
Slashdot Reader (Score:1)
I had no idea "Slashdot Reader" was a bona-fide pundit credential up there with Nobel laureate. I should definitely put it in my resume.
Re: (Score:2)
I had no idea "Slashdot Reader" was a bona-fide pundit credential up there with Nobel laureate.
How did you make the leap from "amateur reporter with some relevant programming experience" to "Nobel laureate"?
I should definitely put it in my resume.
Being a Slashdot contributor helps one land a job interview? Cool! ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
That's because you don't RTFA. Putting it on your resume after proving you don't do it is really on the nose, though.
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People with a critical view already see it. (Score:3)
And have seen how crappy and limited LLM-type "AI" is for quite a while. The others you cannot help. They see the hype and then believe. Mindless victims.
AI prompts left in published fiction books (Score:3)
The AI everything will diminish returns in documentation, fiction and other text areas.
AI prompts left in fiction books by well-known authors.
https://bookriot.com/whoops-ai... [bookriot.com]
Whoops! AI Prompt Published in Novel - May 28, 2025
"Between that Chicago-Sun Times story and this one about an author who left an AI prompt in her romantasy novel, AI use is getting as messy as we thought it would. Readers of Lena McDonald’s Darkhollow Academy: Year 2 took to social to point out the prompt, which, Futurism report
Did ok (Score:1)
Seems like AI did decent, its hard to even read the numbers on that page. Some pages don't scan well, see the previous and next. That XP37 must've been sweet, it sold for $7878.
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This was my thought too, it seemed immediately obvious to me that the criticism here was easily as poorly developed as the work it was criticizing, graphing bad data doesn't mean the graphing itself is bad. But hey, it's a long time /. reader so what do you expect?
Seems Obvious But.... (Score:1)
Q code ?!? (Score:2)