2026 will be the year that defines AI, and whether it lives up to the hype
LLM Inevitabilism
21–30 of 1001 posts
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#22There's plenty of examples where important people framed an inevitable future and then it didn't pan out.
Somewhat objective proof of "progress" will inevitably win out, yes inevitable framing might help sell the vision a bit, for now, but it won't be the inevitabism that causes it to succeed but its inherit value towards "progress".
The definition of "progress" being endlessly more productive humans at the cost of everything else.
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#23I hate AI. I'm so sick of it. I read a story about 14 year olds that are adopting AI boyfriends. They spend 18 hours a day in conversation with chatbots. Their parents are worried because they are withdrawing from school and losing their friends. I hate second guessing emails that I've read, wondering if my colleagues are even talking to me or if they are using AI. I hate the idea that AI will replace my job. Even if…
Just remember that machines already do most of the work. Nobody ploughs fields anymore.
Those machines unlocked more work, different work, that led to better paying jobs!
I am all up for AI if it leads to "better" work and jobs but cutting jobs to cut cost sound like a race to bottom!!
Are AI time /cost savings going to help me pursue creative hobbies, open source, help my community without worrying about livelihood then great. If it is a means to make rich people richer by making most of us worse off, maybe we should stop and think for a while?
There may be a risk here that a zero/negative-sum game is advertised as a positive-sum game (e.g war).
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#24If in 2009 you claimed that the dominance of the smartphone was inevitable, it would have been because you were using one and understood its power, not because you were reframing away our free choice for some agenda. In 2025 I don't think you can really be taking advantage of AI to do real work and still see its mass adaptation as evitable. It's coming faster and harder than any tech in history. As scary as that is w…
If you claimed that AI was inevitable in the 80s and invested, or claimed people would be inevitably moving to VR 10 years ago - you would be shit out of luck. Zuck is still burning billions on it with nothing to show for it and a bad outlook. Even Apple tried it and hilariously missed the demand estimate. The only potential bailout for this tech is AR, but thats still years away from consumer market and widespread adoption, and probably will have very little to do with shit that is getting built for VR, because its a completely different experience. But I am sure some of the tech/UX will carry over.
Tesla stock has been riding on the self driving robo-taxies meme for a decade now ? How many Teslas are earning passive income while the owner is at work ?
Cherrypicking the stuff that worked in retrospect is stupid, plenty of people swore in the inevitability of some tech with billions in investment, and industry bubbles that look mistimed in hindsight.
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#25If in 2009 you claimed that the dominance of the smartphone was inevitable, it would have been because you were using one and understood its power, not because you were reframing away our free choice for some agenda. In 2025 I don't think you can really be taking advantage of AI to do real work and still see its mass adaptation as evitable. It's coming faster and harder than any tech in history. As scary as that is w…
Back in 1950s nuclear tech was seen as inevitable. Many people had even bought plates made from uranium glass. They still glow somewhere in my parents' cabinet or maybe I broke them
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#26The majority of the comments here reflect an acceptance of or even an enthusiasm for an LLM-using future. An embracing of the technology regardless of its downsides. A disregard of those who question whether it’s all a desirable future.
I’d have thought perhaps we’d learn the lessons of eg. smart phones, social media, cloud, VR, crypto, NFTs, etc, and think a little more deeply about where and how we want to go as a society and species beyond just adopting the latest hype.
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#27If in 2009 you claimed that the dominance of the smartphone was inevitable, it would have been because you were using one and understood its power, not because you were reframing away our free choice for some agenda. In 2025 I don't think you can really be taking advantage of AI to do real work and still see its mass adaptation as evitable. It's coming faster and harder than any tech in history. As scary as that is w…
If you told someone in 1950 that smartphones would dominate they wouldn't have a hard time believing you. Hell, they'd add it to sci-fi books and movies. That's because the utility of it is so clear. But if you told them about social media, I think the story would be different. Some would think it would be great, some would see it as dystopian, but neither would be right. We don't have to imagine, though. All three o…
> But if you told them about social media, I think the story would be different.
It would be utopian, like how people thought of social media in the oughts. It's a common pattern through human history. People lack the imagination to think of unintended side effects. Nuclear physics leading to nuclear weapons. Trains leading to more efficient genocide. Media distribution and printing press leading to new types of propaganda and autocracies. Oil leading to global warming. IT leading to easy surveillance. Communism leading to famine.
Some of that utopianism is wilful, created by the people with a self-interested motive in seeing that narrative become dominant. But most of it is just a lack of imagination. Policymakers taking the path of local least resistance, seeking to locally (in a temporal sense) appease, avoiding high-risk high-reward policy gambits that do not advance their local political ambitions. People being satisfied with easy just-so stories rather than humility and a recognition of the complexity and inherent uncertainty of reality.
AI, and especially ASI, will probably be the same. The material upsides are obvious. The downsides harder to imagine and more speculative. Most likely, society will be presented with a fait accompli at a future date, where once the downsides are crystallized and real, it's already too late.
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#28If in 2009 you claimed that the dominance of the smartphone was inevitable, it would have been because you were using one and understood its power, not because you were reframing away our free choice for some agenda. In 2025 I don't think you can really be taking advantage of AI to do real work and still see its mass adaptation as evitable. It's coming faster and harder than any tech in history. As scary as that is w…
Literally from the article --- start quote --- Anyone who sees the future differently to you can be brushed aside as “ignoring reality”, and the only conversations worth engaging are those that already accept your premise. --- end quote --- Mass adoption is not inevitable. Everyone will drop this "faster harder" tech like a hot potato when (not if) it fails to result in meaningful profits. Oh, there will be forced ma…
Or Copilot.
It's actions like this that are making me think seriously about converting my gaming PC to Linux - where I don't have to eat the corporate overlord shit.
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#29If in 2009 you claimed that the dominance of the smartphone was inevitable, it would have been because you were using one and understood its power, not because you were reframing away our free choice for some agenda. In 2025 I don't think you can really be taking advantage of AI to do real work and still see its mass adaptation as evitable. It's coming faster and harder than any tech in history. As scary as that is w…
Feels somewhat like a self fulfilling prophecy though. Big tech companies jam “AI” in every product crevice they can find… “see how widely it’s used? It’s inevitable!”
I agree that AI is inevitable. But there’s such a level of groupthink about it at the moment that everything is manifested as an agentic text box. I’m looking forward to discovering what comes after everyone moves on from that.
Re: LLM Inevitabilism
#30I hate AI. I'm so sick of it. I read a story about 14 year olds that are adopting AI boyfriends. They spend 18 hours a day in conversation with chatbots. Their parents are worried because they are withdrawing from school and losing their friends. I hate second guessing emails that I've read, wondering if my colleagues are even talking to me or if they are using AI. I hate the idea that AI will replace my job. Even if…
The issue, unfortunately, is that society has failed to recognize the real dangers of social technologies (social media, social AI, perhaps AI in general). 30 years from now if we're lucky, we'll be watching senate hearings with AI billionaires being asked how they didn't realize their products were so harmful.