Reflections on AI at the End of 2025 • Hacker News Board

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#21

Post by danielfalbo » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:33 AM UTC

Aiisnotabubble wrote: post #18

What also happens and it's irrelevant of AGI: global RL Around the world people ask an LLM and get a response. Just grouping and analysing these questions and solving them once centrally and then making the solution available again is huge. Linearly solving the most asked questions and then the next one then the next will make, whatever system is behind it, smarter every day.

Exactly. The singularity is already here. It's just "programmers + AI" as a whole, rather than independent self-improvements of the AI.

I wonder how a "programmers + AI" self-improving loop is different from an "AI only" one.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#22

Post by seu » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:34 AM UTC

> And I've vibe coded entire ephemeral apps just to find a single bug because why not - code is suddenly free, ephemeral, malleable, discardable after single use. Vibe coding will terraform software and alter job descriptions.

I'm not super up-to-date on all that's happening in AI-land, but in this quote I can find something that most techno-enthusiast seem to have decided to ignore: no, code is not free. There are immense resources (energy, water, materials) that go into these data centers in order to produce this "free" code. And the material consequences are terribly damaging to thousands of people. With the further construction of data centers to feed this free video coding style, we're further destroying parts of the world. Well done, AGI loverboys.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#23

Post by cheschire » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:34 AM UTC

ctoth wrote: post #17

> The fundamental challenge in AI for the next 20 years is avoiding extinction. So nice to see people who think about this seriously converge on this. Yes. Creating something smarter than you was always going to be a sketchy prospect. All of the folks insisting it just couldn't happen or ... well, there have just been so many objections. The goalposts have walked from one side of the field to the other, and then left…

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#24

Post by VladimirGolovin » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:37 AM UTC

fleebee wrote: post #7

> The fundamental challenge in AI for the next 20 years is avoiding extinction. That's a weird thing to end on. Surely it's worth more than one sentence if you're serious about it? As it stands, it feels a bit like the fearmongering Big Tech CEOs use to drive up the AI stocks. If AI is really that powerful and I should care about it, I'd rather hear about it without the scare tactics.

This has been well discussed before, for example in this book: https://ifanyonebuildsit.com/

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#25

Post by dkdcio » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:37 AM UTC

grodriguez100 wrote: post #10

fleebee wrote: post #7

> The fundamental challenge in AI for the next 20 years is avoiding extinction. That's a weird thing to end on. Surely it's worth more than one sentence if you're serious about it? As it stands, it feels a bit like the fearmongering Big Tech CEOs use to drive up the AI stocks. If AI is really that powerful and I should care about it, I'd rather hear about it without the scare tactics.

I would say yes, everyone should care about it. There is plenty of material on the topic. See for example https://ai-2027.com/ or https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uMQ3cqWDPHhjtiesc/agi-ruin-a...

fear mongering science fiction, you may as well cite Dune or Terminator

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#26

Post by Fraterkes » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:38 AM UTC

It’s interesting that half the comments here are talking about the extinction line when, now that we’re nearly entering 2026, I feel the 2027 predictions have been shown to be pretty wrong so far.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#27

Post by bryanrasmussen » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:38 AM UTC

danielfalbo wrote: post #21

Aiisnotabubble wrote: post #18

What also happens and it's irrelevant of AGI: global RL Around the world people ask an LLM and get a response. Just grouping and analysing these questions and solving them once centrally and then making the solution available again is huge. Linearly solving the most asked questions and then the next one then the next will make, whatever system is behind it, smarter every day.

Exactly. The singularity is already here. It's just "programmers + AI" as a whole, rather than independent self-improvements of the AI. I wonder how a "programmers + AI" self-improving loop is different from an "AI only" one.

The AI only one presumably has a much faster response time. The singularity is thus not here because programmer time is still the bottleneck, whereas as I understand in the singularity time is no longer a bottleneck component.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#28

Post by megous » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:38 AM UTC

ajoseps wrote: post #15

torlok wrote: post #12

This is a bunch of "I believe" and "I think" with no sources by a random internet person.

he’s not a “random internet person”, he created Redis. Despite that, I don’t know how authoritative of a figure he is with respect to AI research. He’s definitely a prolific programmer though.

That still qualifies as a random internet person, wrt the topic. And I think the emphasis is on no sources and I beliefs and I thinks, in any case :)

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#29

Post by dkdcio » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:41 AM UTC

grodriguez100 wrote: post #11

danielfalbo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he's referring to AI safety. https://lesswrong.com/posts/uMQ3cqWDPHhjtiesc/agi-ruin-a-lis...

For a perhaps easier to read intro to the topic, see https://ai-2027.com/

or read your favorite sci-fi novel, or watch Terminator. this is pure bs by a charlatan

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#30

Post by XorNot » Sat, Dec 20, 2025, 10:42 AM UTC

ajoseps wrote: post #15

torlok wrote: post #12

This is a bunch of "I believe" and "I think" with no sources by a random internet person.

he’s not a “random internet person”, he created Redis. Despite that, I don’t know how authoritative of a figure he is with respect to AI research. He’s definitely a prolific programmer though.

There are plenty of Nobel laureates who well, do rest on their laurels and dive deep into pseudoscience after that.

Accomplishment in one field does not make one an expert, nor even particularly worth listening to, in any other. Certainly it doesn't remove the burden of proof or necessity to make an actual argument based on more then simply insisting something is true.