I recently spoke with a friend who is not in the tech space and he hadn’t even heard of ChatGPT. He’s a millennial & a white collar worker and smart. I have had conversations with non-tech people about ChatGPT/AI, but not very frequently, which led me to think, are we just in an echo chamber? Not that this would be a bad thing, as we’re all quite aware that AI will play an increasing role in our lives (in & out of the office), but maybe AI mainstream adoption will take longer than we anticipate. What do you think?
Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
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Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#2I have a friend who is a senior electronics engineer at a fairly large company. A few months ago, I mentioned ChatGPT in conversation and he had never heard of it. I was quite surprised since I've seen ChatGPT become a major topic of concern even outside tech among those in the humanities. I think the explanation is that since the concerns about LLM AI revolve around language use, the communities paying attention to it are not the same as what we normally categorize as tech.
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#3Very much so. But also a hype wave. It's the successor the the big data wave, the ML wave, and countless others
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#4> maybe AI mainstream adoption will take longer than we anticipate
I mean, I'm in "tech", and I don't anticipate it happening soon. People want something they can trust, and current solutions are nowhere near that.
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#5I saw other waves and this one is different. This is the first time we can unlock increasing cognitive capabilities by just basically letting capital grow its own ai. It's at the level of like invention of internet or currency or printing press or writing or maybe even human language.
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#6Very much so. But also a hype wave. It's the successor the the big data wave, the ML wave, and countless others
Seems like the successor the crypto craze after that crashed. I'm expecting a wave of grifters fairly soon.
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#7I've had plenty of non tech people talk about chat gpt.
Especially college students
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#8This isn't just a tech echo chamber, it's the YC/SV echo chamber. Nobody is seriously looking at AI for normal products, because it's not trustworthy. Never really will be. Why do you think subways still have human operators? The combined investment & risk of full automation aren't worth it. It'll be useful for customer support bots, and backend things like spam filtering and other statistical analysis. But otherwise it's a flash in the pan.
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#9I recently went to Cleveland to visit a friend who has nothing to do with technology. Him and his girlfriend had heard of ChatGPT and she uses it at work. They work in chemical engineering and health. I took that as a sign that it has gone mainstream.
Re: Ask HN: Are people in tech inside an AI echo chamber?
#10Yes. There's still a lot of people who aren't that aware of this stuff, and frankly, its because it still doesn't have much practical use.
Its making headlines left and right, and businesses are all trying to figure out what this stuff does, but if you're not watching much news and not in the tech side of business you probably don't know or care?