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Ask HN: Are You Preparing for the Singularity

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Re: Ask HN: Are You Preparing for the Singularity

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a question related to retirement planning and 401K allocations, Traditional vs Roth. I had a finical advisor tell me one thing, but I heard a contrary view from someone else that made some sense. The AI took the side of the finial advisor [...] This did not feel like a chat with an intelligent being It is a great natural language ETL-type tool for all sorts of things. Curate the words you use into directives; have…

This isn’t what’s being sold. The OP is also saying things like, “frontier AI models demonstrate intelligence at human levels or above.” If this is true, a user shouldn’t need to curate their words to maintain the illusion of intelligence from the system. If LLMs are just a tool, with limits, just like every tool, then what you say is easy to accept, learn, and adapt to. For the last several years we’ve been told to…

> I’m using it how the people selling it are saying to use it. And when I do that, it’s not very good. [...]

That is definitely one way to go about it. Going through life stubbornly insisting on using a thing only in the way it is marketed instead of in a way that optimizes its usefulness (or its cost/benefit) for you seems more burdensome than necessary. There is also a saying about the definition of insanity that may be relevant to the above

Also, my suggestion was for your use-case: a pragmatic data retrieval, parsing, and presentation task. For creative fiction uses giving directives would likely return a similarly bad experience

Re: Ask HN: Are You Preparing for the Singularity

#22
post #5

No, for the same reason I'm not preparing for the second coming of Christ. I'm quite sure that AI is going to change the world for better or worse - probably worse given that it's a hype-driven revolution being pushed by an accelerationist death cult of billionaire sociopaths with absolutely no serious regard for any of its many, many negative externalities - but "the singularity" is sci-fi religion. It isn't real.

Repent and believe for the kingdom of heaven is near.

https://tenor.com/view/bugs-bunny-no-no-bunny-bugs-gif-79095...
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