Right, that is why I mentioned the idea of sharing and downloading prompts that
people have tried and found to work properly. It will be useful to share good
prompts so everyone does not have to repeat the same mistakes.I worry is that
as AI learns more the prompts may have to change. I would hope that meanings of
words would just become more precise but because AI communicates using a
"natural language" the meanings might also drift over time as in the case of
human languages. That could be a real problem for computational applications!
The prompts may have to become more mathematical than they usually seem to be
now in order to minimize that problem. Jim__________________F. James Rohlf,
Distinguished Prof. Emeritus Dept. Anthropology and Ecology & Evolution
Stonybrook University
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-------- Original message --------From: Carmelo Fruciano
<[email protected]> Date: 3/24/26 8:02 PM (GMT-10:00) To:
[email protected] Cc: Morphmet2 <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MORPHMET2] Thoughts on morphometric software and AI
Dear Jim,
Thanks for starting this stimulating discussion and everyone else for
contributing.
In my experimentation with some models I have found - like yourself and other
people replying - that these tools may be helpful for certain "non-critical"
tasks to, indeed, increase the efficient use of human time (but, even then,
there might be arguments to
the contrary) but may also silently introduce problems which may be hard to
spot.
Like you, I do see the potential for these tools and I am very open to the idea
of them helping in my work.
Going to your more general initial points about the implications of AI and
whether we'll all soon just write prompts to perform analyses (which is the
most stimulating part of the conversation), I can think of at least three
factors that make that problematic
in the short run.
Most users who want to perform empirical analyses do not have the in-depth
knowledge required for spotting problems in code, let alone in what's happening
under the hood of a ready-made AI "app"
Often existing software relies both on peer-reviewed papers and on the domain
expertise of scientist coders who developed the tools. Essentially, most users
will trust software partly because of the academic accomplishments
of the people who wrote it. It is an interesting topic and we may discuss
about whether "it is right" but, to the point, at this stage it is unclear
whether one can say these "AI models" have "expertise" and who is "accountable"
(in a broad sense) for what
they produce
There is a non-deterministic component in the behaviour of these models as they
are today. For instance, providing a prompt worded differently may return
different outputs. This raises all sort of issues in terms
of reproducibility, trustworthiness and ability to actually describe what has
been done (which is critical for things like drafting manuscripts and going
through peer review as we know it today).
To my understanding of these tools - which is admittedly quite limited - some
of these issues stem from the nature itself of these models (e.g., the language
component, the fact that they do have a context window that gets filled at some
point, and so on).
So, while I think they are very useful tools, I don't think they will be - in
the very near future (say, one or two years) to replace existing software. On
the longer term, maybe, who knows!
Just my two cents,
Carmelo
Carmelo Fruciano
Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences
University of Catania
https://www.fruciano.org/
From: '[email protected]' via Morphmet <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, 25 March 2026 03:07
To: Joe Felsenstein <[email protected]>
Cc: Morphmet2 <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [MORPHMET2] Thoughts on morphometric software and AI
Right, but the trend seems to be towards decreasing the efficiency of
software/scripts/prompts execution and increasing the efficient use of human
time. Human time may be more valuable (or just have a rapidly decreasing
attention span).
Oh, I did not have the foresight to save any of those old IBM 650 manuals. Too
busy learning new stuff to think about the day when those might be fond
memories. Of course, they are now all online (IBM
650 Manuals) and available for the day I might be feeling nostalgic. Thanks
for the reminder!
Jim
F. James Rohlf
Distinguished Professor, Emeritus and Research Professor
Depts: Anthropology and Ecology & Evolution
Stony Brook University
On 3/24/2026 3:10:21 PM, Joe Felsenstein <[email protected]> wrote:
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Jim noted that AI was:
"Computationally less efficient (so much faster computers are required) but
easier for humans to
use with even less technical knowledge of how computers actually work."
It is computationally less efficient if one has to do the AI interaction for
each
data set. But if it is just making Python or R code and giving you that,
then not computationally much less efficient than just doing your own
R or Python.
(Reading Jim's list of successive stages, I was
reminded of much past pain. I didn't quite start
with the IBM 650 (instead iof CDC 1604 in 1961),
but I have saved, from Jim Crow's lab, the user
manuals for the 650.)
Joe
----
Joe Felsenstein, [email protected],
[email protected]
Department
of Genome Sciences and Department of Biology,
University
of Washington, Seattle
----
PS
Please do not use
[email protected]. It is an alias
and
mail systems often recognize that and think it is spam.
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