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AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
11–20 of 83 posts
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#12This article, like so many AI hit pieces, fails to make any credible claim against AI. This one spent far too long propping up a tenuous analogy to smoke and mirrors.
Is current-gen AI valuable? Obviously. Look at how many people say as much and willingly pay for the services.
Is current-gen AI worth the hype? No, not really. Current models are impressive but highly limited, as any user can attest (and as any hater will focus on).
What the naysayers always miss is exponential growth. They don’t look towards the future. Nvidia’s stock is high because of hype, yes, but also because the market is anticipating huge advancements in model ability. Current models are limited, but future models are world-changing, and we have every reason to believe models will continue to scale in this way.
Just you wait for GPT-5.
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#13I think the AI itself is working extremely well. The state-of-the-art LLMs are exceptional at many real-world tasks and are deployed in many production code bases successfully. The more recent AI failures (like the humane pin) are at least partially a hardware problem. These LLMs require huge amounts of compute to do nontrivial tasks, and a wearable just can't run locally with the current architectures.
Exactly. Yes, there will be failures along the way, but the AI tools we have now are still pretty amazing and really would have been called magical 5 years ago. And yes, the AI tech already available now is already causing disruption and will continue to disrupt. Anybody saying this is just a 'blip' or 'fad' are really not trying them out.
I remember in the 90's someone telling me to not bother with Java (back with applets), because this 'Internet Thing' isn't going to pan out. That is how the anti-AI sentiment sounds to me. It's already amazing and continues to grow. There is not pulling it back now.
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#14No matter how much the chattering class wants to portray this as a "fad" and not an inevitability, those of us who can type and read can see the reality for ourselves.
There's a crazy theory that negative AI posts are foreign agents or even big tech trying to slow down progress of AI so they can catch up.
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#15No matter how much the chattering class wants to portray this as a "fad" and not an inevitability, those of us who can type and read can see the reality for ourselves.
Yeah, chatbots have completely changed the way I program, and I'm not a "self-mythologizing executive and founder in Silicon Valley", also it's not only very useful but also entertaining, quite a lot of fun creating stuff with my friends using Suno or text-to-image models.
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#16No matter how much the chattering class wants to portray this as a "fad" and not an inevitability, those of us who can type and read can see the reality for ourselves.
There's a crazy theory that negative AI posts are foreign agents or even big tech trying to slow down progress of AI so they can catch up.
Crazy theory that runs afoul of HN guidelines :)
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#17No matter how much the chattering class wants to portray this as a "fad" and not an inevitability, those of us who can type and read can see the reality for ourselves.
Exactly. When I read stuff like this, I'm always wondering "Have you actually used ChatGPT?" Both of the following can be true, and it's annoying when folks pretend it's either/or:
1. At present, AI can be massively overhyped, especially by salespeople who have an incentive to overhype it.
2. Current generative AI has made leaps and bounds improvements in the past few years, and it's present capabilities provide an enormous productivity tool for those who use it intelligently.
I mean, no, I don't think GPT 4 is AGI, nor do I really think it's that close. That said, every time I use it I'm amazed at how uncannily good it is, and it is able to save me a ton of time.
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#18"Please write the first couple sections for an article based exclusively on the content below. Be direct and concise, but dive into details. Use a personal tone with “you” language. Write in the style of blogger Brian Dean. Use short paragraphs for easy readability. Change the wording so we don’t plagiarize the source material. Make the headlines somewhat catchy and intriguing while still concisely communicating what each section is about.
- AI, also known as artificial intelligence, is overhyped - AI will never be able to replicate what a human can do - AI will never replace humans - AI is a trend that will die out - AI is not really artificial intelligence, just a trick"
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#19That's a lot of words from someone who doesn't seem to have tried using these tools yet? The Hype is smoke and mirrors, but there are tons of real use cases where things were MUCH easier than before. Things like text to speech or image recognition previously required a team of 10 ML engineers a couple of years to build now take a weekend. It's smoke and mirrors to the "business world" because none of these translate…
I'm just kinda sad at how cynical so many of us have become. I mean, I see tons of comments "But it hallucinates!!!!!" Yeah, no shit. At the same time, you're having a perfectly grammatically correct, natural, sensical conversation with a computer. Just a couple years ago that was purely the realm of Star Trek.
Re: AI Is Smoke and Mirrors
#20No matter how much the chattering class wants to portray this as a "fad" and not an inevitability, those of us who can type and read can see the reality for ourselves.
Yeah, chatbots have completely changed the way I program, and I'm not a "self-mythologizing executive and founder in Silicon Valley", also it's not only very useful but also entertaining, quite a lot of fun creating stuff with my friends using Suno or text-to-image models.
I’ve yet to find its programming help useful. ChatGPT and Copilot routinely offer bad or outright incorrect advice.