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On being wrong about AI

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Re: On being wrong about AI

#21

Post by BigJono »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #13
pharmakom wrote: post #6

The latest LLMs are remarkable, but I think the AI Doomer claims are still a reach. My prediction is that the current AI boom will fizzle out into a handful of useful products and a lot of smoke from VC cash. Where are the moon bases? Supersonic jets? Asteroid mines? Self driving cars? We’ve gotten over excited so many times in the past.

To be fair, none of those are ultimately a matter of "can't" so much as "don't really want to." When we got a billionaire who wanted serious space colonization, we got SpaceX, which is currently working on a moon lander that qualifies as a base in its own right. And of course, we had supersonic jets, there just wasn't enough demand. People want cheap flights more than super-fast flights. We often get excited about th…

Or it might be one way in which it's exactly the same.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#22

Post by viraptor »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #7

"For that matter, hardly anyone predicted the staggering, civilization-altering trajectory of neural network performance from roughly 2012 onwards." Whether the trajectory will be civilization-altering is yet to be seen. Let me put it this way: I have serious doubts.

It's already been common-behaviour altering in many ways. I'm not sure if it counts as civilisation altering, but the way we create art, get creative review, find and consume large documents have suddenly changed. Not for the majority yet, but it's only a matter of time. For the first time we can get a knowledgeable ad-hoc assistant anywhere, immediately. Even if it's been bad in many ways, it's improving almost every day.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#23

Post by rsynnott »

its-summertime wrote: post #20
blueflow wrote: post #3

> civilization-altering trajectory On which planet? Because i don't see any of it. AI should have made my console monkey job obsolete, by yesterday.

Is it impacting hiring decisions? Changes in government policy? etc. If not already, how about in the next 5 years? A majority of the use-cases are not going to be publicly attributed to AI, that however does not mean it isn't having an effect.

> Is it impacting hiring decisions?

I mean, probably, sure, for some (generally poorly run) companies, but, when it comes to it, all 15 of the last two recessions have impacted hiring decisions. Companies, and particularly poorly-run companies, jump at shadows all the time.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#24

Post by tiborsaas »

pharmakom wrote: post #6

The latest LLMs are remarkable, but I think the AI Doomer claims are still a reach. My prediction is that the current AI boom will fizzle out into a handful of useful products and a lot of smoke from VC cash. Where are the moon bases? Supersonic jets? Asteroid mines? Self driving cars? We’ve gotten over excited so many times in the past.

> Where are the moon bases? Supersonic jets? Asteroid mines?

In the latent spaces of Stable Diffusion and friends.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#25

Post by kashyapc »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #7

"For that matter, hardly anyone predicted the staggering, civilization-altering trajectory of neural network performance from roughly 2012 onwards." Whether the trajectory will be civilization-altering is yet to be seen. Let me put it this way: I have serious doubts.

Yeah; it is absurd hyperbole.

The only person I've seen talk sensible on these topics is Stuart Russell of "Human Compatible" (read the book, it's written with great clarity). He has his head firmly on his shoulders and eschews the breathless hype.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#26

Post by rwmj »

rsynnott wrote: post #17
pharmakom wrote: post #6

The latest LLMs are remarkable, but I think the AI Doomer claims are still a reach. My prediction is that the current AI boom will fizzle out into a handful of useful products and a lot of smoke from VC cash. Where are the moon bases? Supersonic jets? Asteroid mines? Self driving cars? We’ve gotten over excited so many times in the past.

> Self driving cars? This one in particular, I find fascinating, because we've literally just _had_ a hype cycle over it (I remember people telling me they'd be here any day now a decade ago), and now we're onto another AI hype cycle, almost immediately. Which comes first, AGI, or the self-driving car? :) (I think your other examples are qualitatively different; moon bases, supersonic (passenger) jets and asteroid mi…

We have self-driving cars already, but they're not evenly distributed ... and they have an unsatisfying amount of human input behind the scenes.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#27

Post by Jensson »

its-summertime wrote: post #20
blueflow wrote: post #3

> civilization-altering trajectory On which planet? Because i don't see any of it. AI should have made my console monkey job obsolete, by yesterday.

Is it impacting hiring decisions? Changes in government policy? etc. If not already, how about in the next 5 years? A majority of the use-cases are not going to be publicly attributed to AI, that however does not mean it isn't having an effect.

Most of the current effects are due to AI hype, not due to AI itself. Regulations are trying to get ahead of AI, the reason it tries that is due to AI hype. Same with unions fighting against AI etc.

Maybe that hype turns true, but if all AI development plateaued today and no new improvements were made to it then that AI's impact on the world would be very minimal. A useful tool for professionals, but not much more than that.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#28

Post by BigJono »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #7

"For that matter, hardly anyone predicted the staggering, civilization-altering trajectory of neural network performance from roughly 2012 onwards." Whether the trajectory will be civilization-altering is yet to be seen. Let me put it this way: I have serious doubts.

I dunno, after experiencing the 20 fps boost from DLSS I'm starting to think indoor plumbing and the wheel might've been a bit overrated.

Re: On being wrong about AI

#30

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bayindirh wrote: post #14
pharmakom wrote: post #6

The latest LLMs are remarkable, but I think the AI Doomer claims are still a reach. My prediction is that the current AI boom will fizzle out into a handful of useful products and a lot of smoke from VC cash. Where are the moon bases? Supersonic jets? Asteroid mines? Self driving cars? We’ve gotten over excited so many times in the past.

They take too long to build and require that thing called engineering which requires blood sweat and tears. On the other hand, you can scrape the internet, build a model, semi-rig a couple of demos, hype the product and earn money. Don't forget, it's all about money. Product is just a means to get money. Building good things and earning good money as a byproduct is a thing of the old. Boomer stuff. Modern people don'…

I'm enjoying the irony that a product that relies on scraping the Internet will be undone by the flood of Internet content it generates.

I think that's a much more likely outcome than AGI.

Even if AGI is possible it's going to be constrained by the training resources thrown at it. Since most of those have been thoroughly enshittified now, the outcome for intelligent AGI isn't looking good.

Even if AGI hacks into everyone's camera and messages it's still going to turn into a spam+selfie moster superbot, and not Operation Paperclip 2.0.

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