Artificial what....?.....

[X-37B]

This is interesting. I think many of the people in this thread who are against AI are younger than you. Speaking to my parents and others in your age range its pretty clear to me that this "wisdom" plays a huge part in how you view emergent tech.

Respectfully, I'm a DevOps engineer. I'm not an expert, but I have no issue understanding AI. Elon is facing the same problems as everyone in the industry. If he had "solved AI," he wouldn't be having (very public) alignment issues with Grok. Happy to discuss more in DM if you're interested, just don't want to derail the thread.

That being said, I'm interested in seeing how those who are against AI in the hobby view other "black box" tools and products. ICP tests, and magic coral foods come to mind.

People forget that Tesla is one of the most advanced and successful ai companies around. With billions of miles of data collected.
Manifested ai is comming.
Once its here it will be like the cell phone. When people use it they will wonder how they ever did without it.
It's already being done in warehouse environments and will change the way everything is done, imo.
Many of the first bots will go to manufacturing.
Anyway look at ON semiconductors as it's leading the way. This has the potential to be similar to nvidia,s stock growth, imo.
And yes reefing has never been easier with all the tech advancements compared to the 90's for sure.

 

[bikerbutter]

"Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago." - C.S. Lewis.

I love this quote. Thanks for it.

To parents of young children I would say buy books, now, lots of them, and read them to your children and when they are old enough have them read to you (not ereaders or tablets). Try and foster an appreciation of words on paper, composed by human brains.

I take this advice myself. I have an e reader for travel, but I buy books, real books, maybe more than I have life expectancy left to read. But one of my sons shares my love of books, so he gets my collection when I'm gone.

I love reading. I'm a Stephen King / Dean Koontz person. But... The AI helps me with research and finding things.

 

[GoAskAlice]

I love reading. I'm a Stephen King / Dean Koontz person. But... The AI helps me with research and finding things.

Yep. I see both sides. Actually my son that loves hardbound books (and has a collection of his own) has a doctorate and works in chip manufacturing r&d, so he sees firsthand the benefits of AI. He and his brother roll their eyes at me when I get started on what I see as the downsides of AI.

 

[bikerbutter]

People forget that Tesla is one of the most advanced and successful ai companies around. With billions of miles of data collected.
Manifested ai is comming.
Once its here it will be like the cell phone. When people use it they will wonder how they ever did without it.
It's already being done in warehouse environments and will change the way everything is done, imo.
Many of the first bots will go to manufacturing.
Anyway look at ON semiconductors as it's leading the way. This has the potential to be similar to nvidia,s stock growth, imo.
And yes reefing has never been easier with all the tech advancements compared to the 90's for sure.

Tesla is a good car. That said I am a Dodge man, same as my dad. Tho i can't afford it now, I would love to have a robot. It would be awesome to have a second pair of hands with many projects. Other people generally have their own things going on and can't always stop to help when I need it. I can think of a thousand reasons it would be good to have one. If all else failed, at least I would have a domino's opponent who never got tired of playing!!

 

[GoAskAlice]

Tesla is a good car. That said I am a Dodge man, same as my dad. Tho i can't afford it now, I would love to have a robot. It would be awesome to have a second pair of hands with many projects. Other people generally have their own things going on and can't always stop to help when I need it. I can think of a thousand reasons it would be good to have one. If all else failed, at least I would have a domino's opponent who never got tired of playing!!

I'd go for a housekeeping robot. One like the Jetson's had.

 

[bikerbutter]

Yep. I see both sides. Actually my son that loves hardbound books (and has a collection of his own) has a doctorate and works in chip manufacturing r&d, so he sees firsthand the benefits of AI. He and his brother roll their eyes at me when I get started on what I see as the downsides of AI.

Lol.

 

[bikerbutter]

I'd go for a housekeeping robot. One like the Jetson's had.

Absolutely!! And just think that would be a lot of help with the heavy part of water changes!! Though to be honest I don't think I would let a computer go sand shifting and sucking stuff out of my tank. While I would love to have the ease and benefits of a robot, I'm still wouldn't be trustful when it comes to my aquatic life. At least not at first, I would have to see it perform quite a bit first.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I just now supplied a random selection of questions I posted to google to see if any sent it off the rails (as it has in the past). It got a few mostly correct (at least by general consensus of reefers even if I disagree, such as the merits of strontium), but then I asked it this:

does adding soda water reduce alkalinity in a reef aquarium?

I asked it that because Albert Thiel made that claim years ago and it got into all sorts of parts of the internet despite being wrong. I wanted to see if it is still there guiding AIs

But the google AI had an entirely different type of wrong answer:

No, adding soda water (also known as club soda or sparkling water) to a reef aquarium will not reduce alkalinity. In fact, it may slightly increase it, according to forum discussions.

...

Soda water can temporarily increase alkalinity:

When CO2 from the soda water reacts with carbonates and bicarbonates in the aquarium water, it can temporarily increase the concentration of these buffering compounds. However, this effect is usually minimal and may not be sustained.

That answer is utterly ridiculous. If you follow the highlighted link it gives to justify that answer, it sends folks to a reefcentral thread that literally DOES NOT MENTION soda water at all.

 

[stE26wy14]

I love reading. I'm a Stephen King / Dean Koontz person. But... The AI helps me with research and finding things.

aaahhh stephen king
the goat
the legend

 

[bikerbutter]

aaahhh stephen king
the goat
the legend

YESSS!!

 

[Nasty_Goblin]

I just now supplied a random selection of questions I posted to google to see if any sent it off the rails (as it has in the past). It got a few mostly correct (at least by general consensus of reefers even if I disagree, such as the merits of strontium), but then I asked it this:

does adding soda water reduce alkalinity in a reef aquarium?

I asked it that because Albert Thiel made that claim years ago and it got into all sorts of parts of the internet despite being wrong. I wanted to see if it is still there guiding AIs

But the google AI had an entirely different type of wrong answer:

No, adding soda water (also known as club soda or sparkling water) to a reef aquarium will not reduce alkalinity. In fact, it may slightly increase it, according to forum discussions.

...

Soda water can temporarily increase alkalinity:

When CO2 from the soda water reacts with carbonates and bicarbonates in the aquarium water, it can temporarily increase the concentration of these buffering compounds. However, this effect is usually minimal and may not be sustained.

That answer is utterly ridiculous. If you follow the highlighted link it gives to justify that answer, it sends folks to a reefcentral thread that literally DOES NOT MENTION soda water at all.

This is interesting. I get two very different answers depending on how I ask the questions.

First I simply copied your initial question. And received this:

Then I appended some guidelines and received this.

I don't know the answer to this question. And I chuckled at the use of "expert" but are either of these answers accurate in your opinion?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This is interesting. I get two very different answers depending on how I ask the questions.

First I simply copied your initial question. And received this:

Then I appended some guidelines and received this.

I don't know the answer to this question. And I chuckled at the use of "expert" but are either of these answers accurate in your opinion?

The first Q&A is absolutely wrong. The second is correct.

There is literally a named principle that it does not lower alkalinity:

Chemistry and the Aquarium: What is Alkalinity?

Randy provides an overview of alkalinity as to why it's important, how it's measured, and how can it be tested.

reefs.com

Alkalinity Facts​

There are several facts about total alkalinity that follow directly from the definition. Unfortunately, some of these have been misunderstood by some hobby authors.

One of these facts is termed The Principle of Conservation of Alkalinity by Pankow (“Aquatic Chemistry Concepts”, 1991). He shows mathematically that the total alkalinity of a sample CANNOT be changed by adding or subtracting CO2. Unfortunately, there is an article available on line, which claims otherwise, and encourages people to “lower alkalinity” by adding CO2 in the form of seltzer water. This is simply incorrect.

Forgetting the math for the moment, it is easy to see how this must be the case. If carbonic acid is added to any aqueous sample with a measurable alkalinity, what can happen?

Well, the carbonic acid can release protons by reversing equations 1 and 2:

(5) H2CO3 ==> H+ + HCO3–

(6) HCO3– ==> H+ + CO3—

These protons can go on to reduce alkalinity by combining with something that is in the sample that provides alkalinity (carbonate, bicarbonate, borate, phosphate, etc). However, for every proton that leaves the carbonic acid and reduces alkalinity, a new bicarbonate or carbonate ion is formed that adds to alkalinity, and the net change in total alkalinity is exactly zero. The pH will change, and the speciation of the things contributing to alkalinity will change, but not the total alkalinity.

This is not true for strong acids, however. If you add hydrochloric, sulfuric or phosphoric acids (or any acid with a pKa lower than the carbonic acid endpoint), there will be a reduction in the alkalinity.


FWIW, I have done these ai questions many times, and one frustrating thing is that it learns from the process, so if I literally ask the same question twice, I can get different answers, especially if I have asked it questions in between that relate to the same topic.

 

[Nasty_Goblin]

The first Q&A is absolutely wrong. The second is correct.

There is literally a named principle that it does not lower alkalinity:

Chemistry and the Aquarium: What is Alkalinity?

Randy provides an overview of alkalinity as to why it's important, how it's measured, and how can it be tested.

reefs.com

Alkalinity Facts​

There are several facts about total alkalinity that follow directly from the definition. Unfortunately, some of these have been misunderstood by some hobby authors.

One of these facts is termed The Principle of Conservation of Alkalinity by Pankow (“Aquatic Chemistry Concepts”, 1991). He shows mathematically that the total alkalinity of a sample CANNOT be changed by adding or subtracting CO2. Unfortunately, there is an article available on line, which claims otherwise, and encourages people to “lower alkalinity” by adding CO2 in the form of seltzer water. This is simply incorrect.

Forgetting the math for the moment, it is easy to see how this must be the case. If carbonic acid is added to any aqueous sample with a measurable alkalinity, what can happen?

Well, the carbonic acid can release protons by reversing equations 1 and 2:

(5) H2CO3 ==> H+ + HCO3–

(6) HCO3– ==> H+ + CO3—

These protons can go on to reduce alkalinity by combining with something that is in the sample that provides alkalinity (carbonate, bicarbonate, borate, phosphate, etc). However, for every proton that leaves the carbonic acid and reduces alkalinity, a new bicarbonate or carbonate ion is formed that adds to alkalinity, and the net change in total alkalinity is exactly zero. The pH will change, and the speciation of the things contributing to alkalinity will change, but not the total alkalinity.

This is not true for strong acids, however. If you add hydrochloric, sulfuric or phosphoric acids (or any acid with a pKa lower than the carbonic acid endpoint), there will be a reduction in the alkalinity.


FWIW, I have done these ai questions many times, and one frustrating thing is that it learns from the process, so if I literally ask the same question twice, I can get different answers, especially if I have asked it questions in between that relate to the same topic.

This is what I suspected.

AI suffers from a few major problems, one of the largest ones I mentioned earlier is alignment. This is why results vary so greatly between ChatGPT, Grok, and Google. It's why Grok is suddenly spewing vitriol after being tweaked. Humans can interpret intent and meaning almost effortlessly once they reach a certain age. But that "debugging" on the fly is a learned skill. AI is still like a child in that regard.

Each AI is trained slightly differently, and it's very easy for generative AI to "go off into the weeds" (the hallucinations mentioned earlier). Alignment is still required from the user's end as well. It's common for people to ask simple questions and expect the AI to provide accurate answers. A big part of that is that's what AI is often sold as.

Nevertheless, AI must be told what "correctly" is. If you don't want the AI to use information you specifically provided, you must tell it not to, sometimes repeatedly.

I think for a lot of people, that process kind of defeats the purpose of using it.

 

[Popeye_ali]

I just now supplied a random selection of questions I posted to google to see if any sent it off the rails (as it has in the past). It got a few mostly correct (at least by general consensus of reefers even if I disagree, such as the merits of strontium), but then I asked it this:

does adding soda water reduce alkalinity in a reef aquarium?

I asked it that because Albert Thiel made that claim years ago and it got into all sorts of parts of the internet despite being wrong. I wanted to see if it is still there guiding AIs

But the google AI had an entirely different type of wrong answer:

No, adding soda water (also known as club soda or sparkling water) to a reef aquarium will not reduce alkalinity. In fact, it may slightly increase it, according to forum discussions.

...

Soda water can temporarily increase alkalinity:

When CO2 from the soda water reacts with carbonates and bicarbonates in the aquarium water, it can temporarily increase the concentration of these buffering compounds. However, this effect is usually minimal and may not be sustained.

That answer is utterly ridiculous. If you follow the highlighted link it gives to justify that answer, it sends folks to a reefcentral thread that literally DOES NOT MENTION soda water at all.

This is my answer directly from ChatGPT

Yes, adding soda water (carbonated water) can temporarily reduce alkalinity in a reef aquarium, but only under specific conditions. Here’s the breakdown:

⸻

What is Soda Water?
• Soda water = water + dissolved CO₂ (carbon dioxide).
• When CO₂ dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid (H₂CO₃).
• Carbonic acid lowers pH and consumes carbonate/bicarbonate, reducing alkalinity.

⸻

How It Affects Alkalinity
• In reef tanks, alkalinity is primarily made up of bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) and carbonate (CO₃²⁻).
• Adding CO₂ (via soda water) shifts the equilibrium:
CO_2 + H_2O ⇌ H_2CO_3 ⇌ H^+ + HCO_3^- ⇌ 2H^+ + CO_3^{2-}
• Result:
• pH drops
• Some bicarbonate/carbonate gets converted to carbonic acid, lowering measured alkalinity (dKH/meq/L)

⸻

Important Caveats
• Effect is temporary: Once CO₂ off-gasses (e.g. via skimmer or surface agitation), pH rises again and alkalinity may partially rebound.
• It’s inefficient and unpredictable as a method of reducing alkalinity.
• It does not remove ions—just temporarily shifts chemical balance.

⸻

If You Want to Lower Alkalinity:

Use a dilution method (e.g. water change with lower-alkalinity saltwater) or acid dosing (e.g. muriatic acid or vinegar in controlled amounts)—not soda water.

⸻

Bottom Line:

Yes, soda water can temporarily reduce alkalinity by acidifying the water and shifting carbonate equilibrium—but it’s not a controlled or lasting method, and generally not recommended in reef-keeping.

 

[bikerbutter]

This is what I suspected.

AI suffers from a few major problems, one of the largest ones I mentioned earlier is alignment. This is why results vary so greatly between ChatGPT, Grok, and Google. It's why Grok is suddenly spewing vitriol after being tweaked. Humans can interpret intent and meaning almost effortlessly once they reach a certain age. But that "debugging" on the fly is a learned skill. AI is still like a child in that regard.

Each AI is trained slightly differently, and it's very easy for generative AI to "go off into the weeds" (the hallucinations mentioned earlier). Alignment is still required from the user's end as well. It's common for people to ask simple questions and expect the AI to provide accurate answers. A big part of that is that's what AI is often sold as.

Nevertheless, AI must be told what "correctly" is. If you don't want the AI to use information you specifically provided, you must tell it not to, sometimes repeatedly.

I think for a lot of people, that process kind of defeats the purpose of using it.

That's very understandable for a lot of people. Personally, I'm having great success with it.

 

[Nasty_Goblin]

This is my answer directly from ChatGPT

Yes, adding soda water (carbonated water) can temporarily reduce alkalinity in a reef aquarium, but only under specific conditions. Here’s the breakdown:

⸻

What is Soda Water?
• Soda water = water + dissolved CO₂ (carbon dioxide).
• When CO₂ dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid (H₂CO₃).
• Carbonic acid lowers pH and consumes carbonate/bicarbonate, reducing alkalinity.

⸻

How It Affects Alkalinity
• In reef tanks, alkalinity is primarily made up of bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) and carbonate (CO₃²⁻).
• Adding CO₂ (via soda water) shifts the equilibrium:
CO_2 + H_2O ⇌ H_2CO_3 ⇌ H^+ + HCO_3^- ⇌ 2H^+ + CO_3^{2-}
• Result:
• pH drops
• Some bicarbonate/carbonate gets converted to carbonic acid, lowering measured alkalinity (dKH/meq/L)

⸻

Important Caveats
• Effect is temporary: Once CO₂ off-gasses (e.g. via skimmer or surface agitation), pH rises again and alkalinity may partially rebound.
• It’s inefficient and unpredictable as a method of reducing alkalinity.
• It does not remove ions—just temporarily shifts chemical balance.

⸻

If You Want to Lower Alkalinity:

Use a dilution method (e.g. water change with lower-alkalinity saltwater) or acid dosing (e.g. muriatic acid or vinegar in controlled amounts)—not soda water.

⸻

Bottom Line:

Yes, soda water can temporarily reduce alkalinity by acidifying the water and shifting carbonate equilibrium—but it’s not a controlled or lasting method, and generally not recommended in reef-keeping.

What did you ask ChatGPT exactly?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This is my answer directly from ChatGPT

Yes, adding soda water (carbonated water) can temporarily reduce alkalinity in a reef aquarium, but only under specific conditions. Here’s the breakdown:

⸻

What is Soda Water?
• Soda water = water + dissolved CO₂ (carbon dioxide).
• When CO₂ dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid (H₂CO₃).
• Carbonic acid lowers pH and consumes carbonate/bicarbonate, reducing alkalinity.

⸻

How It Affects Alkalinity
• In reef tanks, alkalinity is primarily made up of bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) and carbonate (CO₃²⁻).
• Adding CO₂ (via soda water) shifts the equilibrium:
CO_2 + H_2O ⇌ H_2CO_3 ⇌ H^+ + HCO_3^- ⇌ 2H^+ + CO_3^{2-}
• Result:
• pH drops
• Some bicarbonate/carbonate gets converted to carbonic acid, lowering measured alkalinity (dKH/meq/L)

⸻

Important Caveats
• Effect is temporary: Once CO₂ off-gasses (e.g. via skimmer or surface agitation), pH rises again and alkalinity may partially rebound.
• It’s inefficient and unpredictable as a method of reducing alkalinity.
• It does not remove ions—just temporarily shifts chemical balance.

⸻

If You Want to Lower Alkalinity:

Use a dilution method (e.g. water change with lower-alkalinity saltwater) or acid dosing (e.g. muriatic acid or vinegar in controlled amounts)—not soda water.

⸻

Bottom Line:

Yes, soda water can temporarily reduce alkalinity by acidifying the water and shifting carbonate equilibrium—but it’s not a controlled or lasting method, and generally not recommended in reef-keeping.

Sadly, it gets that wrong.

 

[Popeye_ali]

This is my answer directly from ChatGPT

Yes, adding soda water (carbonated water) can temporarily reduce alkalinity in a reef aquarium, but only under specific conditions. Here’s the breakdown:

⸻

What is Soda Water?
• Soda water = water + dissolved CO₂ (carbon dioxide).
• When CO₂ dissolves in water, it forms carbonic acid (H₂CO₃).
• Carbonic acid lowers pH and consumes carbonate/bicarbonate, reducing alkalinity.

⸻

How It Affects Alkalinity
• In reef tanks, alkalinity is primarily made up of bicarbonate (HCO₃⁻) and carbonate (CO₃²⁻).
• Adding CO₂ (via soda water) shifts the equilibrium:
CO_2 + H_2O ⇌ H_2CO_3 ⇌ H^+ + HCO_3^- ⇌ 2H^+ + CO_3^{2-}
• Result:
• pH drops
• Some bicarbonate/carbonate gets converted to carbonic acid, lowering measured alkalinity (dKH/meq/L)

⸻

Important Caveats
• Effect is temporary: Once CO₂ off-gasses (e.g. via skimmer or surface agitation), pH rises again and alkalinity may partially rebound.
• It’s inefficient and unpredictable as a method of reducing alkalinity.
• It does not remove ions—just temporarily shifts chemical balance.

⸻

If You Want to Lower Alkalinity:

Use a dilution method (e.g. water change with lower-alkalinity saltwater) or acid dosing (e.g. muriatic acid or vinegar in controlled amounts)—not soda water.

⸻

Bottom Line:

Yes, soda water can temporarily reduce alkalinity by acidifying the water and shifting carbonate equilibrium—but it’s not a controlled or lasting method, and generally not recommended in reef-keeping.

Sadly, it gets that wrong.

Randy Holmes Farley says you are wrong……

This the answer now.

Good — let’s dig deeper.

You’re right to bring up Randy Holmes-Farley, one of the most respected reef chemistry experts. Here’s what he actually says about this, and where my earlier answer needs tightening:

⸻

Randy Holmes-Farley’s Position

Randy does not consider soda water to reduce alkalinity in the way reef keepers mean it — i.e., it doesn’t remove alkalinity (bicarbonate/carbonate ions). Instead:
• Soda water adds CO₂, which lowers pH, but:
• The measured alkalinity (dKH) remains unchanged by a standard test (Salifert, Hanna, API, etc.) unless there’s precipitation of calcium carbonate, which soda water doesn’t cause on its own.
• The actual alkalinity — defined as the water’s buffering capacity — remains chemically intact.

Example:

You could add soda water and see pH drop from 8.3 to 7.8, but alkalinity measured before and after would stay at, say, 9 dKH — no real alkalinity has been removed.

⸻

Corrected Summary
• Soda water does not reduce alkalinity.
• It reduces pH temporarily by adding CO₂.
• Any “change” in alkalinity is not real — your test kit will show the same number unless you’ve done something else like precipitate CaCO₃.

⸻

Thanks for the challenge — you were right to push. Randy’s explanation is the standard we go by here

 

[Nasty_Goblin]

That's very understandable for a lot of people. Personally, I'm having great success with it.

Agreed, I don't think of myself as some champion of AI.

If you want to get accurate answers from an AI, you must be intentional. Asking leading or vague questions will only set you up for failure.

This applies to calculators and computers as well. If you write clunky code or use the wrong equation, you're bound to get negative results.

Generative AI doesn't ask meaningful questions because it's only doing what you ask of it. It cannot clarify; it can only obey.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Randy Holmes Farley says you are wrong……

This the answer now.

Good — let’s dig deeper.

You’re right to bring up Randy Holmes-Farley, one of the most respected reef chemistry experts. Here’s what he actually says about this, and where my earlier answer needs tightening:

⸻

Randy Holmes-Farley’s Position

Randy does not consider soda water to reduce alkalinity in the way reef keepers mean it — i.e., it doesn’t remove alkalinity (bicarbonate/carbonate ions). Instead:
• Soda water adds CO₂, which lowers pH, but:
• The measured alkalinity (dKH) remains unchanged by a standard test (Salifert, Hanna, API, etc.) unless there’s precipitation of calcium carbonate, which soda water doesn’t cause on its own.
• The actual alkalinity — defined as the water’s buffering capacity — remains chemically intact.

Example:

You could add soda water and see pH drop from 8.3 to 7.8, but alkalinity measured before and after would stay at, say, 9 dKH — no real alkalinity has been removed.

⸻

Corrected Summary
• Soda water does not reduce alkalinity.
• It reduces pH temporarily by adding CO₂.
• Any “change” in alkalinity is not real — your test kit will show the same number unless you’ve done something else like precipitate CaCO₃.

⸻

Thanks for the challenge — you were right to push. Randy’s explanation is the standard we go by here

Needs tightening. Nice euphemism. lol

At least it likes me. I dont want to be the first to go when the terminators rise up. lol