I work in house and had a similar AI agency day over the last few months.

I came to the same observations; lots of experts not much expertise.

I think my wider team are on par with their ability and understanding so we now can sift through the BS a bit easier.

Nod, smile, accept that no one has a clear understanding.

>We had an internal-workshop led by our internal AI-team (mostly just LLMs), and had the horrible realisation that no one in that team actually knows what the term "AI" even means, or how a language model works.

I'm the AI expert for my org. Everyone else is more or less opposed to AI.

>One senior-dev (team-lead also) tried to explain to me that AI is a subfield of machine-learning, and always stochastic in nature (since ChatGPT responds differently to the same prompt).

machine learning is the sub field of AI.

Not really stochastic as far as I know. The whole random seed and temperature thing is a bit of a grey area for my full understanding. Let alone the topk, top p, etc. I often just accept what's recommended from the model folks.

>We/they are selling tailor-made "AI-products" to other businesses, but apparently we don't know how sampling works...?

Sales people dont tend to know jack. That doesnt mean they dont have an introvert in the back who does know what's going on.

>Am I just too junior/naive to get this or am I cooked?

AI for the most part has been out a couple years. With rapid improvement and changes that make 2023 knowledge obsolete. 100% of us are juniors in AI.

You're disillusioned because the "ai experts" basically dont exist.

> One senior-dev (team-lead also) tried to explain to me that AI is a subfield of machine-learning, and always stochastic in nature (since ChatGPT responds differently to the same prompt).

This "senior dev" has it all mixed up and is incorrect.

"AI" is all encompassing umbrella term that includes other fields of "AI" such as the very old GOFAI (good old fashioned AI) which is rule-based, machine learning (statistical, bayesian) methods, and neural networks which deep learning and more recently generative AI (which ChatGPT) uses.

More accurately, it is neural networks which are more "stochastic" with their predictions and decisions, not just transformer models which ChatGPT is based on.

> Am I just too junior/naive to get this or am I cooked?

Quite frankly, the entire team (except you) is cooked, as you have realized what you don't know.

Maybe this is a joke, there’s a lot of talent out there. But if you’re not kidding, start looking for a job somewhere else on the dl, this ship isn’t fit to steer.

I learned a huge amount from my team members, and they were usually smarter than I was. So, sure, I occasionally corrected them and impressed them, but all the bread crumbs they threw out, I gobbled up and learned a ton. But, they never said stupid stuff! (Ok, maybe about social events, but they were geeks). When team members spout off erroneous stuff and it is not "occasionally" you have to question what you are going to be learning from your co-workers. So, your whole team may be inferior and contribute little to your learning and growth. This extends to management and the decisions they make regarding AI.