Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 755 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#681

Post by throwaway675309 »

anotherman554 wrote: post #659
hollandheese wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a bad 8th grader's essay, just pure bullcrap. These ideas would get an F in any English 101 course.

I'd say it would be good enough to pass an undergraduate class if it was expanded. Did you ever teach a class? I have not but as I understand it you'll have some students that aren't so good at writing, and some that are good. You don't want to discourage the weaker students from growing by giving them F's. This isn't a field like engineering where there are objective right and wrong answers and anyone dies if you pa…

You're missing the point. The writing is not what's being critiqued here. If we were grading this purely from a prosaic perspective, GPT would easily fly under the radar. The issue is the substance of the generated content - devoid of even the most minimal novelty.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#682

Post by xp84 »

ben_w wrote: post #535
runlaszlorun wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere?? That’s exactly the hype talk that’s going to burst this bubble. Here’s tech’s dirty little secret. Despite all the screams about automation and universal basic income… the exact numbers where job replacement would show are in the labor productivity numbers. If GDP stays flat or grows while the number of jobs is reduced… bingo… you’d see that number climb. Productivity has actually stayed flat or gone dow…

> GDP stays flat or grows while the number of jobs is reduced I lack the economics knowledge to do more than parrot the response I've heard to this, so take this with the appropriate level of "hmmm": As I understand it, the counter-claim is that the measure of GDP mostly excludes exactly the set of things that grows absurdly fast. For example, the measure of inflation may include the cost of a smartphone in the stand…

> …genome costs…

Source: This week’s Kurzgesagt, right?

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#683

Post by throwuwu »

codegeek wrote: post #362
sensanaty wrote: post #138

Definitely. The tech is impressive but anyone I've spoken to thinks of it as Cleverbot 2.0, and among the more technically minded I've found that people mostly are indifferent. Hell, IRL most people I know don't think much of it, though on HN and elsewhere online I see a lot of people praising it as the next coming of Christ (this thread included) which puts it in a similar tier as crypto and other Web3 hypetrains as…

My worry with AI is that even though it is very impressive and useful in many ways for real world applications, the Hype may end up making it another crypto. Crypto was a great promise when it was invented and one can make the argument that it could have so many real world uses but it failed to live upto that expectation and one of the reasons is that it was over hyped way too quickly and ultimately became a tool for…

I’m not even remotely concerned about an AI bubble, in fact the faster it can inflate and pop the better. An AI hype winter would be as comfortable as a tropical vacation with the current tech that’s available. We could build and research in peace without endless media FUD and hit pieces.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#684

Post by NikolaNovak »

stareatgoats wrote: post #666
NikolaNovak wrote: post #236

All you can get in a survey like this is anecdotes and opinions. This may be sufficient for your purposes - here's my story:-) My sister is not technically minded. She has used chatgpt to create a request for permit for a backyard deck to city Hall, a letter to her boss requesting attendance to a conference, and her performance reviews. Another non techie and I use chatgpt to help us learn French and music theory. My…

Exactly this. I've been scratching my head about the belittlement in tech circles of the phenomenal breakthrough that chatGPT and other LLMs represents. I think it boils down to a conflation of a few different factors: 1. Our jobs are obviously (soon) replaceable or at least massively impacted - just like all the jobs we ourselves have replaced previously. We don't like that and throw stones at it to make it go away.…

I agree with all of these; not necessarily in order of importance, but yet, these are factors.

I am at once astonished how useful LLM can be at its best, and how horrifyingly dangerous it can be if/when overused by those who don't understand its limitations.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#685

Post by NikolaNovak »

justsocrateasin wrote: post #477
educaysean wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would your question change if the tutor was a person? How do you know if anything anyone teaches you is correct?

Humans are likely to share when they don't know something or to express concern when they aren't positive what they're is correct. LLMs are confident 100% of the time and don't understand when they're wrong. I get what you're trying to say but I don't think this is an instructive example.

>>Humans are likely to share when they don't know something

I try hard to not be snarky or sarcastic on HN; it doesn't contribute to positive, friendly, productive conversation... but come ON :->

Average human is unlikely to admit to themselves or others when they don't know something. We are famous for it. We love our opinions, and we conflate them as facts. It doesn't even imply malice or anything - have you ever asked for directions from somebody who doesn't know the answer? They'll still TRY :->. Even the smartest people around me will frequently present their ad-hoc opinions as facts. Heck, on HN alone, people will opine on matters of law and science and many things which are reasonably factual.

Don't get me wrong, LLM's hallucinating and being utterly unable to signal when they do is BAD; it makes them very different from most other software we've ever built; and it needs to be addressed; but as to this line of conversation specifically, it makes them (without any philosophical or "conscience of machine" implications) extremely human-like :-)

(similarly, not to say there aren't any humans who are humble and/or explicit about their limitations; but it's far, far from average)

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#686

Post by throwuwu »

digitalsushi wrote: post #143
sensanaty wrote: post #138

Definitely. The tech is impressive but anyone I've spoken to thinks of it as Cleverbot 2.0, and among the more technically minded I've found that people mostly are indifferent. Hell, IRL most people I know don't think much of it, though on HN and elsewhere online I see a lot of people praising it as the next coming of Christ (this thread included) which puts it in a similar tier as crypto and other Web3 hypetrains as…

Many people lose their incredulity once more than a few sentences have been read. By the time someone has read a second paragraph, they have internalized what was at the beginning, and to be told that those two paragraphs were fiction is now to attack the reader instead of the text. As though reading were so laborious, there's a sunk cost fallacy.

wtf? Who is this true for?

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#687

Post by NikolaNovak »

parineum wrote: post #553
joshstrange wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Humans are likely to share when they don't know something or to express concern when they aren't positive what they're is correct. We must have met very different humans. Are there humans that do that this? Absolutely! Are they in the majority? Absolutely not. Now if you change that framing to "teachers" then I think on average you are going to get more people like that but I've heard many many people say things wi…

There are good teachers and bad teachers. LLMs are at best, bad teachers.

>>LLMs are at best, bad teachers.

I could not disagree more.

ChatGPT is patient. That's a rare quality in humans and teachers.

ChatGPT will willingly explore. That's also a rare quality in teachers.

ChatGPT is detailed and structured, and has instant access to enormous amount of data and background.

I will grant you that there are domains of knowledge and questions where it's great, and where it'll lie to you through your teeth. But as a patient, detailed, willing, knowledgeable tutor in basic/well-covered areas, it's virtually unparalleled. I'm a hungry learner and have had large number of teachers, tutors and mentors through several continents, countries, societies and educational paradigms; and only the very very top are as good - and I've actually been the lucky one. My wife and my sister, for example, based on their accounts, simply never had a teacher/tutor as good as ChatGPT :-<

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#688

Post by eric_cc »

codegeek wrote: post #643
eric_cc wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> crypto.. failed You realize it’s still here, adoption is increasing, utility is increasing, etc Just because it’s not a hype cycle does not mean it’s dead or even close to dead.

"adoption is increasing, utility is increasing" Genuinely curious. Where ? Remember it's been 15 years already. Few anecdotal examples are not good enough.

Bitcoin

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#689

Post by throwuwu »

square_usual wrote: post #531
byteware wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is programming "democratized"?

More people can now cobble barely functioning python scripts together and shoot themselves in the foot when it does something they don't understand :>

The point is they don’t need any code. They can copy paste a csv or something even messier and ask it to write a somewhat personalized email to each person in the list, if they’re smart about it they can include a few small details with each input entry that get included in the email. They also now have access to most NLP tools like sentiment analysis or feature extraction which allows them to process large amounts of text and extract valuable insights. They don’t need Python or a programmer as long as they’re smart enough to try out new things and learn the ins and outs of these models.

Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?

#690

Post by throwuwu »

barrysteve wrote: post #213
kmarc wrote: post #92

FWIW I have the exact opposite experience: people around me, who are _NOT_ in tech, keep talking about AI and lately especially ChatGPT, whereas serious (not only senior) IT professionals don't really. Besides the science behind it, currently it feels like the same hype as crypto a couple years before.

It's not even hype like we used to see in the build up to a big video game release. It's just cargo culting and wishful thinking. People staring into the magic mirror, hoping it will clone their desires. The phrase cargo culting or some meaningful equivalent should make a come back. Even after the 'great youtubening' of technical knowledge, it is easy to find people stuck in habituated imitation of tech skills and te…

Maybe you should ask chatGPT to explain what a cargo cult is
Post reply on HN