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LLM Inevitabilism

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Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#271

Post by Qwertious »

rafaelmn wrote: post #24
delichon wrote: post #2

If 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 a…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhr6fHmCJ6k (1min video, 'Elon Musk's broken promises')

Musk's 2014/2015 promises are arguably delivered, here in 2025 (took a little more than '1 month' tho), but the promises starting in 2016 are somewhere between 'undelivered' and 'blatant bullshit'.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#272

Post by ghostofbordiga »

paradite wrote: post #11

I think you are confusing "I don't like it" with "It's not going to happen". Just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen. Observe the world without prejudice. Think rationally without prejudice.

But the claim is not "it's going to happen", the claim is "it is inevitable that it will happen", which is a much more stronger claim.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#273

Post by duskdozer »

mlsu wrote: post #6

I 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…

Well, some people will have a ton of money

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#274

Post by QRY »

godelski wrote: post #201
mdavid626 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ll have to split up software development between such AI coders and proper developers. Let AI coders suffer in their own mess.

The problem is Lemon Markets[0] Lemon Markets do not happen because people do not want "peaches". Lemon markets happen because consumers cannot differentiate a lemon from a peach, at least at time of purchase. There can be high demand for peaches, and even producers of peaches. But if customers can't find out if they bought a lemon or peach until they get home and can take a bite, then peaches disappear. We do not ne…

The culpability we share for "churning out shitty code" is spot-on imo. There's been so much incentive to shipping "good enough", that even the definition of "good enough" has been backsliding. Sometimes even to the point of "whatever we can get away with", in the name of speed of delivery.

That friction has always been there, in my experience. But this is the first time I'm seeing it happening around me. LLM's are so divisive, and yet the more extreme positions on either side seem to be digging their heels in, as if the tech is not in flux.

Maybe we need a little Cave Johnson energy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt6iTwVIiMM

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#275

Post by xmodem »

cdrini wrote: post #236

How do you differentiate between an effective debater using inevitabilism as a technique to win a debate, and an effective thinker making a convincing argument that something is likely to be inevitable? How do you differentiate between an effective debater "controlling the framing of a conversation" and an effective thinker providing a new perspective on a shared experience? How do you differentiate between a good ar…

A thinker might say "LLMs are inevitable, here's why" and then make specific arguments that either convince me to change my mind, or that I can refute.

A tech executive making an inevitablist argument won't back it up with any justification, or if they do it will be so vague as to be unfalsifiable.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#276

Post by Komte »

I absolutely don't agree with a conclusion of the article. As an individuals we can make conscious choices, as a society we basically can not (with a occasional exceptions across the history). We're guided by the path of least resistance even if it leads to our own demise. See climate crisis, nuclear proliferation, etc.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#277

Post by ygritte »

imiric wrote: post #112
Animats wrote: post #46

There may be an "LLM Winter" as people discover that LLMs can't be trusted to do anything. Look for frantic efforts by companies to offload responsibility for LLM mistakes onto consumers. We've got to have something that has solid "I don't know" and "I don't know how to do this" outputs. We're starting to see reports of LLM usage having negative value for programmers, even though they think it's helping. Too much eff…

> Look for frantic efforts by companies to offload responsibility for LLM mistakes onto consumers. Not just by companies. We see this from enthusiastic consumers as well, on this very forum. Or it might just be astroturfing, it's hard to tell. The mantra is that in order to extract value from LLMs, the user must have a certain level of knowledge and skill of how to use them. "Prompt engineering", now reframed as "con…

The sad thing is that it seems to work. Lots of people are falling for the "you're holding it wrong" narrative.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#278

Post by BenGosub »

mg wrote: post #70

In the 90s a friend told me about the internet. And that he knows someone who is in a university and has access to it and can show us. An hour later, we were sitting in front of a computer in that university and watched his friend surfing the web. Clicking on links, receiving pages of text. Faster than one could read. In a nice layout. Even with images. And links to other pages. We were shocked. No printing, no shipp…

As much as they improve coding and will surely multiply the software output in the world, they make other areas worse. One example that is being enshitificated by LLMs is writing. LLMs write bland, unemotional text and it is going to be everywhere. Most things will feel like how LinkedIn feels right now, completely fake.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#279

Post by ygritte »

rgoulter wrote: post #216
imiric wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look for frantic efforts by companies to offload responsibility for LLM mistakes onto consumers. Not just by companies. We see this from enthusiastic consumers as well, on this very forum. Or it might just be astroturfing, it's hard to tell. The mantra is that in order to extract value from LLMs, the user must have a certain level of knowledge and skill of how to use them. "Prompt engineering", now reframed as "con…

A couple of typical comments about LLMs would be: "This LLM is able to capably output useful snippets of code for Python. That's useful." and "I tried to get an LLM to perform a niche task with a niche language, it performed terribly." I think the right synthesis is that there are some tasks the LLMs are useful at, some which they're not useful at; practically, it's useful to be able to know what they're useful for.…

Even if that's true, they are still not reliable. The same question can produce different answers each time.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#280

Post by eru »

bambax wrote: post #256
mg wrote: post #70

In the 90s a friend told me about the internet. And that he knows someone who is in a university and has access to it and can show us. An hour later, we were sitting in front of a computer in that university and watched his friend surfing the web. Clicking on links, receiving pages of text. Faster than one could read. In a nice layout. Even with images. And links to other pages. We were shocked. No printing, no shipp…

The problem with LLM is when they're used for creativity or for thinking. Just because LLMs are indeed useful in some (even many!) context, including coding, esp. to either get something started, or, like in your example, to transcode an existing code base to another platform, doesn't mean they will change everything . It doesn't mean “AI is the new electricity.” (actual quote from Andrew Ng in the post). More like A…

I don't know about VBA, but spreadsheets actually delivered (to a large extent) on the promise that 'everyone can write simple programs'. So much so that people don't see creating a spreadsheet as coding.

Before spreadsheets you had to beg for months for the IT department to pick your request, and then you'd have to wait a quarter or two for them to implement a buggy version of your idea. After spreadsheets, you can hack together a buggy version of your idea yourself over a weekend.

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