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A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

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Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#61

Post by handfuloflight »

cheevly wrote: post #44
cglace wrote: post #32

The thing I can't wrap my head around is that I work on extremely complex AI agents every day and I know how far they are from actually replacing anyone. But then I step away from my work and I'm constantly bombarded with “agents will replace us”. I wasted a few days trying to incorporate aider and other tools into my workflow. I had a simple screen I was working on for configuring an AI Agent. I gave screenshots of…

I promise the amount of time, experiments and novel approaches you’ve tested are .0001% of what others have running in stealth projects. Ive spent an average of 10 hours per day constantly since 2022 working on LLMs, and I know that even what I’ve built pales in comparison to other labs. (And im well beyond agents at this point). Agentic AI is what’s popular in the mainstream, but it’s going to be trounced by at leas…

Say more.

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#62

Post by id00 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #40

The impression I get from using all cutting edge AI tools: 1. Sonnet 3.7 is a mid-level web developer at least 2. DeepResearch is about as good an analyst as an MBA from a school ranked 50+ nationally. Not lower than that. EY, not McKinsey 3. Grok 3/GPT-4.5 are good enough as $0.05/word article writers Its not replacing the A-players but its good enough to replace B players and definitely better than C and D players

I'd expect mid-level developer to show more understanding and better reasoning. So far it looks like a junior dev who read a lot of books and good at copy pasting from stackoverflow.

(Based on my everyday experience with Sonet and Cursor)

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#63

Post by notTooFarGone »

roenxi wrote: post #51

This seems to be ignoring the major force driving AI right now - hardware improvements. We've barely seen a new hardware generation since ChatGPT was released to the market, we'd certainly expect it to plateau fairly quickly on fixed hardware. My personal experience of AI models is going to be a series of step changes every time the VRAM on my graphics card doubles. Big companies are probably going to see something s…

hardware improvements don't strike me as the horse to bet on.

LLM Progression seems to be linear and compute needed exponential. And I don't see exponential hardware improvements besides some new technology (that we should not bet on coming ayntime soon).

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#64

Post by roncesvalles »

roenxi wrote: post #60
roncesvalles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last line has been my experience as well. I only trust what I've verified firsthand now because the Internet is just so rife with people trying to influence your thoughts in a way that benefits them, over a good faith sharing of the truth. I just recently heard this quote from a clip of Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.", and I was like... wow. That quote is t…

> I knew Uber, Netflix, Spotify were revolutionary the first time I used them. Maybe re-tune your revolution sensor. None of those are revolutionary companies. Profitable and well executed, sure, but those turn up all the time. Uber's entire business model was running over the legal system so quickly that taxi licenses didn't have time to catch up. Other than that it was a pretty obvious idea. It is a taxi service. T…

They were revolutionary as product genres, not necessary individual companies. Ordering a cab without making a phone call was revolutionary. Netflix at least with its initial promise of having all the world's movies and TV was revolutionary, but it didn't live up to that. Spotify because of how cheap and easy it was to have access to all the music, this was the era when people were paying 99c per song on iTunes.

I've tried some AI code completion tools and none of them hit me that way. My first reaction was "nobody is actually going to use this stuff" and that opinion hasn't really changed.

And if you think those 3 companies weren't revolutionary then AI code completion is even less than that.

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#65

Post by arkh »

hattmall wrote: post #41
cglace wrote: post #32

The thing I can't wrap my head around is that I work on extremely complex AI agents every day and I know how far they are from actually replacing anyone. But then I step away from my work and I'm constantly bombarded with “agents will replace us”. I wasted a few days trying to incorporate aider and other tools into my workflow. I had a simple screen I was working on for configuring an AI Agent. I gave screenshots of…

There are some fields though where they can replace humans in significant capacity. Software development is probably one of the least likely for anything more than entry level, but A LOT of engineering has a very very real existential threat. Think about designing buildings. You basically just need to know a lot of rules / tables and how things interact to know what's possible and the best practices. A purpose built…

> just

In my experience this word means you don't know whatever you're speaking about. "Just" almost always hide a ton of unknown unknowns. After being burned enough times nowadays when I'm going to use it I try to stop and start asking more questions.

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#66

Post by danielbln »

colonCapitalDee wrote: post #26

Yeah, I'd buy it. I've been using Claude pretty intensively as a coding assistant for the last couple months, and the limitations are obvious. When the path of least resistance happens to be a good solution, Claude excels. When the best solution is off the beaten track, Claude struggles. When all the good solutions lay off the beaten track, Claude falls flat on its face. Talking with Claude about design feels like ta…

A tip: ask Claude to put a critical hat on. I find the output afterwards to be improved.

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#67

Post by csomar »

roenxi wrote: post #60
roncesvalles wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last line has been my experience as well. I only trust what I've verified firsthand now because the Internet is just so rife with people trying to influence your thoughts in a way that benefits them, over a good faith sharing of the truth. I just recently heard this quote from a clip of Jeff Bezos: "When the data and the anecdotes disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.", and I was like... wow. That quote is t…

> I knew Uber, Netflix, Spotify were revolutionary the first time I used them. Maybe re-tune your revolution sensor. None of those are revolutionary companies. Profitable and well executed, sure, but those turn up all the time. Uber's entire business model was running over the legal system so quickly that taxi licenses didn't have time to catch up. Other than that it was a pretty obvious idea. It is a taxi service. T…

> None of those are revolutionary companies.

Not only Uber/Grab (or delivery app) were revolutionary, they are still revolutionary. I could live without LLMs and my life will be slightly impacted when coding. If delivery apps are not available, my life is severely degraded. The other day I was sick. I got medicine and dinner with Grab. Delivered to the condo lobby which is as far as I can get. That is revolutionary.

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#68

Post by danielbln »

swazzy wrote: post #38

I see no reason to believe the extraordinary progress we've seen recently will stop or even slow down. Personally, I've benefited so much from AI that it feels almost alien to hear people downplaying it. Given the excitement in the field and the sheer number of talented individuals actively pushing it forward, I'm quite optimistic that progress will continue, if not accelerate.

I hear you, I feel constantly bewildered by comments like "LLMs haven't changed really since GPT3.5.", I mean really? It went from an exciting novelty to a core pillar of my daily work, it's allowed me and my entire (granted , quote senior) org to be incredibly more productive and creative with our solutions.

And the I stumble across a comment where some LLM hallucinated a library that means clearly AI is useless.

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#69

Post by danielbln »

tcoff91 wrote: post #46
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #40

The impression I get from using all cutting edge AI tools: 1. Sonnet 3.7 is a mid-level web developer at least 2. DeepResearch is about as good an analyst as an MBA from a school ranked 50+ nationally. Not lower than that. EY, not McKinsey 3. Grok 3/GPT-4.5 are good enough as $0.05/word article writers Its not replacing the A-players but its good enough to replace B players and definitely better than C and D players

A midlevel web developer should do a whole lot more than just respond to chat messages and do exactly what they are told to do and no more.

When I use LLMs that what it does. Spawns commands, edits files, runs tests, evaluates outputs, iterates and solutions under my guidance.

Re: A bear case: My predictions regarding AI progress

#70

Post by tobr »

drysine wrote: post #45
hattmall wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some fields though where they can replace humans in significant capacity. Software development is probably one of the least likely for anything more than entry level, but A LOT of engineering has a very very real existential threat. Think about designing buildings. You basically just need to know a lot of rules / tables and how things interact to know what's possible and the best practices. A purpose built…

>a main role of the engineer is to interface with the non-technical persons or other engineers The main role of the engineer is being responsible for the building not collapsing.

I keep coming back to this point. Lots of jobs are fundamentally about taking responsibility. Even if AI were to replace most of the work involved, only a human can meaningfully take responsibility for the outcome.
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