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Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

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Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#251

Post by Mrirazak1 »

I think OpenAI isn’t going anywhere anytime soon and it will be integrated into lots of different applications and platforms but it’s going to be custom made like canva did. It’s gonna need more work because of how inaccurate it is, but their is great things for consumers to use, in terms of simplicity, obv if everything can just be done by typing prompts into a chat then why would companies spend billions a year building whatever— that is an issue— so it really depends but we would have to see what happens over the coming years.

I think it’s a bit too early to be bullish on openAI yet because beyond their gpt and image creator there isn’t much they are doing yet— yet being the keyword— so let’s see.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#252

Post by latexr »

aprdm wrote: post #222
latexr wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to “carry a dictionary”. Digital versions exist and can give you definitions right in whichever app you are, with usage examples. Grammar and spell checkers do it with context. This is not new technology. And you’re conveniently ignoring the points of speed, energy usage, and required internet access.

I don't know how to tell how off the mark you're. Perhaps try studying a subject on a language you aren't fluent in and compare the experience using chatgtp vs traditional methods ? I don't know what else to tell you, it has been life changing to my wife on a way that dictionaries haven't been

> Perhaps try studying a subject on a language you aren't fluent in and compare the experience using chatgtp vs traditional methods

Perhaps you should consider I have done that, instead of assuming things without knowledge of my experience and only worrying about repeatedly telling other people they are wrong about a subjective experience.

As you keep ignoring important points, including reliability which is paramount for the subject at hand, unfortunately I can no longer assume the conversation is happening in good faith.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#253

Post by lucideer »

bmitc wrote: post #234
lucideer wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you able to give a specific example of a problem it helped you solve? Especially one that you were at a complete blocking point... I think it's worth stepping back here and re-examining the hurdles your setting for your own understanding. The essential question here is: is ChatGPT useful to people. What you seem to be implying with your question is: I will not use ChatGPT unless it can solve problems with X lev…

Well I have yet to have been provided a specific example that matches the hyperbolic descriptions people are throwing around. I simply tried to find my own examples, and as is my experience with ChatGPT, it is nearly completely worthless. And then I get told that I'm using it wrong, asking it too niche of questions, and to reset my expectations. I'm still waiting for the concrete examples that back up the above comme…

I have yet to have been provided a specific example that matches the hyperbolic descriptions people are throwing around.

> > I've essentially got 15-20 high-priced world-class consultants in every field that I chose to pull from, working at my beck and call

I'll give you that: many of the claims are hyperbolic & ridiculous, including that particular one by the gp. The only way I can think of that statement being remotely true is if "high-priced" has no bearing on the quality of work of those consultants (though tbh that is often the case in reality).

Personally I have not found ChatGPT particularly good at anything I need to do. I have however found it very passable at many things I don't enjoy doing. It's reporting boilerplate is far more tailored & novel than anything I could ever put into a reusable reporting template. I dread writing reports: it's not a technical challenge for me but I gain no stimulus from it, so reducing the task to one where I just have to heavily edit something ChatGPT prepared for me is frankly incredible. The same goes for formal cold-call emails to people I don't know: another menial, unpleasant but necessary task.

It's also great at spitballing, and - as others have mentioned - quick shallow topic summaries of things you'd normally rely on a quick google & scan to get a quick topic summary (timely as Google gets worse and worse).

These are microgains throughout your day, nothing truly revolutionary, but that's the case for many successful tech we take for granted.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#254

Post by edanm »

latexr wrote: post #150
aprdm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, my wife uses it daily for her classes which aren't tech related. She describes it as a very patient professor who meets her where she is at and doesn't judge. English isn't her first language too and sometimes she can ask what a term means in English.

> English isn't her first language too and sometimes she can ask what a term means in English. That’s a good example of a subpar use for an LLM. Dictionaries have existed since before computers. Digital dictionaries are faster, more reliable, and less power consuming than any LLM.

Perhaps it would be better not to tell other people that the way they use a technology is "subpar".

Parent's wife is presumably a smart person who found a way to use technology in a way that benefits her, without knowing a lot more context, I think it's a bit silly to leap to the conclusion that she is "doing it wrong".

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#255

Post by spokeonawheel »

a_square_peg wrote: post #21

ChatGPT has already saved me from hours of Googling when I'm trying to find out how to do certain things. It almost feels magical - I don't have to read through half-dozen slightly different variations of what I need to do. Before ChatGPT, to find the answer to things like "how do I set up Gunicorn to run as a daemon that restarts when it fails" I would have to endure hours of googling, snarky stack-overflow comments…

do you feel like you are missing out on a learning opportunity when you aren't doing hours of research? sometimes I come up with other good ideas or learn of new things amidst researching a problem

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#257

Post by EvgeniyZh »

I'm bearish on LLMs not because they're not helpful; they are. I'm doing theoretical physics, and gpt-4 is useful multiple times daily. It didn't replace Google or something, but it is a useful additional tool. It just does not feel like "90B valuation without profit" useful or "multiple unicorns doing more or less the same" useful.

Of course, gpt-5/6/7 can become more valuable to end-users, but that's the second reason I'm bearish. LLMs are powered by exponential growth, and no exponential growth is infinite. We are already using a significant part of all existing data, and going up more than 1-2 orders of magnitude in either data or compute feels unlikely unless there is some breakthrough. Breakthroughs are hard to predict, but they are generally rare, and likely there won't be one soon.

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#258

Post by [deleted] »

bmitc wrote: post #237
mliker wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With chatgpt I’ve been able to generate math 2d and 3d animations in just 1-2hr with no background nor prior knowledge. I was also able to use it to generate software to check the blockchain to gather data I needed, again with no experience using the blockchain client libraries

> With chatgpt I’ve been able to generate math 2d and 3d animations in just 1-2hr with no background nor prior knowledge. Can you give some example prompts that will reproduce such an experience?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#259

Post by [deleted] »

bmitc wrote: post #237
mliker wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With chatgpt I’ve been able to generate math 2d and 3d animations in just 1-2hr with no background nor prior knowledge. I was also able to use it to generate software to check the blockchain to gather data I needed, again with no experience using the blockchain client libraries

> With chatgpt I’ve been able to generate math 2d and 3d animations in just 1-2hr with no background nor prior knowledge. Can you give some example prompts that will reproduce such an experience?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Is anyone else bearish on OpenAI?

#260

Post by eugmill »

upupupandaway wrote: post #248
ghshephard wrote: post #9

OpenAI, at least in my day-day workflow for the last 9+ months has so superseded anything that google ever was to me that I'm having a difficult time comparing the two. I've got a monitor dedicated 100% of the time to ChatGPT, and I interact with it non stop during the flow of technical scenarios and troubleshooting situations that flow into me - working in areas that I have the slimmest of backgrounds in, and shutti…

I have a different view. I have been trying to use GPT for some tasks like NP reductions, Linear Programming formulations, Graph problems, etc. and the results are maddeningly bad. Seriously, I have raged in front of my computer like I hadn't raged since the days of the NES Ghostbusters game. The amount of mistakes is incredible and the model seems to constantly feed into vicious circles of "I am sorry, you are corre…

I feel like every chatgpt thread needs every comment to be prepended with 3.5 or 4. It's incredibly difficult to tell when someone is having a bad time with 3.5, which has many known limitations, or 4 which tends to be more better at problem solving (though still makes dumb mistakes).

I think the "GPT is amazing" vs "GPT is useless" debate is just going to get more confusing as more versions are released.

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