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AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

tomwphillips.co.uk

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Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#131

Post by pimeys »

HardCodedBias wrote: post #122
the__alchemist wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will go meta into what you posted here: That people are classifying themselves as "AI skeptics". Many people are treating this in terms of tribal conflict and identity politics. On HN, we can do better! IMO the move is drop the politics, and discuss things on their technical merits. If we do talk about it as a debate, we can do it when with open minds, and intellectual honesty. I think much of this may be a reactio…

It seems like there is a very strong correlation between identity politics and "AI skepticism." I have no idea why. I don't think that the correlation is 1, but it seems weirdly high.

Yep. Same for the other direction: there is a very strong correlation between identity politics and praising AI on Twitter.

Then there's us who are mildly disappointed on the agents and how they don't live their promise, and the tech CEOs destroying the economy and our savings. Still using the agents for things that work better, but being burned out for spending days of our time fixing the issues the they created to our code.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#132

Post by ajjahs »

mofeien wrote: post #28

> As a technologist I want to solve problems effectively (by bringing about the desired, correct result), efficiently (with minimal waste) and without harm (to people or the environment). > LLMs-as-AGI fail on all three fronts. The computational profligacy of LLMs-as-AGI is dissatisfying, and the exploitation of data workers and the environment unacceptable. It's a bit unsatisfying how the last paragraph only argues…

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Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#133

Post by [deleted] »

Aransentin wrote: post #50
lynndotpy wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farmland, AI data centers, and golf courses do not provide the same utility for water used. You are not making an argument against the water usage problem, you are only dismissing it.

Growing almonds uses 1.3 trillion gallons of water annually in California alone. This is more than 4 times more than all data centers in the US combined, counting both cooling and the water used for generating their electricity. What has more utility: Californian almonds, or all IT infrastructure in the US times 4?

[deleted]

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#134

Post by simonw »

belter wrote: post #115
simonw wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/11/03/inside-the-dat... > I asked the farmer if he had noticed any environmental effects from living next to the data centers. The impact on the water supply, he told me, was negligible. "Honestly, we probably use more water than they do," he said. (Training a state-of-the-art A.I. requires less water than is used on a square mile of farmland in a year.) Power is a differe…

> The water issue really is a distraction which harms the credibility of people who lean on it Is that really the case? - "Data Centers and Water Consumption" - https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-co... "...Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people..." "I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption…

Also from that article:

> U.S. data centers consume 449 million gallons of water per day and 163.7 billion gallons annually (as of 2021).

Sounds bad! Now let's compare that to agriculture.

USGS 2015 report: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2018/3035/fs20183035.pdf has irrigation at 118 billion gallons per day - that's 43,070 billion gallons per year.

163.7 billion / 43,070 billion * 100 = 0.38 - less than half a percentage point.

It's very easy to present water numbers in a way that looks bad until you start comparing them thoughtfully.

I think comparing data center water usage to domestic water usage by people living in towns is actually quite misleading. UPDATE: I may be wrong about this, see following comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45926469#45927945

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#135

Post by [deleted] »

csomar wrote: post #52

What is funny is that when asked, the current LLMs/AIs, do not believe in an AGI. Here are the some of readings you can do about the AGI fantasy: - Gödel-style incompleteness and the “stability paradox” - Wolfram's principle - Principle of Computational Equivalence (PCE) One of the red flags is human intelligence/brain itself. We have way more neurons than we are currently using. The limit to intelligence might very…

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Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#136

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

IgorPartola wrote: post #21

It is ultimately a hardware problem. To simplify it greatly, an LLM neuron is a single input single output function. A human brain neuron takes in thousands of inputs and produces thousands of outputs, to the point that some inputs start being processed before they even get inside the cell by structures on the outside of it. An LLM neuron is an approximation of this. We cannot manufacture a human level neuron to be s…

That's my non-expert belief as well. We are trying to brute force an approximation of one aspect of how neurons work at great cost.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#137

Post by danaris »

simonw wrote: post #113
buellerbueller wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the value of datacenters is dubious. the value of agriculture, less so.

Once again, the key thing here is to ask how MUCH value we get per liter of water used. If data centers and farms used the same amount of water we should absolutely be talking about their comparative value to society, and farms would win. Farms use thousands of times more water than data centers.

Yes, it is worthwhile to ask how much value we get.

And a whole bunch of us are saying we don't see the value in all these datacenters being built and run at full power to do training and inference 24/7, but you just keep ignoring or dismissing that.

It is absolutely possible that generative AI provides some value. That is not the same thing as saying that it provides enough value to justify all of the resources being expended on it.

The fact that the amount of water it uses is a fraction of what is used by agriculture—which is both one of the most important uses humans can put water to, as well as, AIUI, by far the single largest use of water in the world—is not a strong argument that its water usage should be ignored.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#138

Post by dwroberts »

I think there’s a jealousy angle to Musk’s need to characterise Hassabis as evil. The guy is actually legitimately smart, and clearly has an endgame (esp medicine and pharmaceuticals) and Musk is just role playing.

I would love to have witnessed them meeting in person, as I assume must have happened at some point when DM was opened to being purchased. I bet Musk made an absolute fool of himself

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#139

Post by infecto »

simonw wrote: post #80
fmbb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what the datacenters are used for. AI has no utility. Almonds make marzipan.

"AI has no utility" is a pretty wild claim to make in the tail end of 2025.

Still surprised to see so many take this as such a hot claim. Is there hype, absolutely, is there value being driven also absolutely.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#140

Post by wild_egg »

Etheryte wrote: post #2

Many big names in the industry have long advocated for the idea that LLM-s are a fundamental dead end. Many have also gone on and started companies to look for a new way forward. However, if you're hip deep in stock options, along with your reputation, you'll hardly want to break the mirage. So here we are.

They're a dead end for whatever their definition of "AGI" is, but still incredibly useful in many areas and not a "dead end" economically.
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