Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

2025: The Year in LLMs

simonwillison.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 643 posts

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#81

Post by snigsnog »

didip wrote: post #67

Indeed. I don't understand why Hacker News is so dismissive about the coming of LLMs, maybe HN readers are going through 5 stages of grief? But LLM is certainly a game changer, I can see it delivering impact bigger than the internet itself. Both require a lot of investments.

The internet and smartphones were immediately useful in a million different ways for almost every person. AI is not even close to that level. Very to somewhat useful in some fields (like programming) but the average person will easily be able to go through their day without using AI.

The most wide-appeal possibility is people loving 100%-AI-slop entertainment like that AI Instagram Reels product. Maybe I'm just too disconnected with normies but I don't see this taking off. Fun as a novelty like those Ring cam vids but I would never spend all day watching AI generated media.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#82

Post by DANmode »

simonw wrote: post #10
npalli wrote: post #8

Great summary of the year in LLMs. Is there a predictions (for 2026) blogpost as well?

Given how badly my 2025 predictions aged I'm probably going to sit that one out! https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/10/ai-predictions/

Don’t be a bad sport, now!!

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#84

Post by sothatsit »

skydhash wrote: post #21
MattRix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Why do people assume negative critique is ignorance?

You did not make a negative critique. You completely dismissed the value of coding agents on the basis that the results are not predictable, which is both obvious and doesn’t matter in practice. Anyone who has given these tools a chance will quickly realise that 1) they are actually quite predictable in doing what you ask them to, and 2) them being non-deterministic does not at all negate their value. This is why people can immediately tell you haven’t used these tools, because your argument as to why they’re useless is so elementary.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#85

Post by zahlman »

syndacks wrote: post #89

I can’t get over the range of sentiment on LLMs. HN leans snake oil, X leans “we’re all cooked” —- can it possibly be both? How do other folks make sense of this? I’m not asking for a side, rather understanding the range. Does the range lead you to believe X over Y?

I'm not really convinced that anywhere leans heavily towards anything; it depends which thread you're in etc.

It's polarizing because it represents a more radical shift in expected workflows. Seeing that range of opinions doesn't really give me a reason to update, no. I'm evaluating based on what makes sense when I hear it.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#86

Post by zahlman »

simonw wrote: post #10
npalli wrote: post #8

Great summary of the year in LLMs. Is there a predictions (for 2026) blogpost as well?

Given how badly my 2025 predictions aged I'm probably going to sit that one out! https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/10/ai-predictions/

Making predictions is useful even when they turn out very wrong. Consider also giving confidence levels, so that you can calibrate going forward.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#87

Post by simonw »

justatdotin wrote: post #83
simonw wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got a good news story about that one? I'm always interested in learning more about this issue, especially if it credibly counters the narrative that the issue is overblown.

[flagged]

What's not credible about Andy Masley's work on this?

(For anyone else reading this thread: my comment originally just read "Got a good news story about that one?" - justatdotin posted this reply while I was editing the comment to add the extra text.)

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#88

Post by [deleted] »

beardedwizard wrote: post #52
ori_b wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction: If we can successfully get rid of most software engineers, we can get rid of most knowledge work. Given the state of robotics, manual labor is likely to outlive intellectual labor.

"Given the state of robotics" reminds me a lot of what was said about llms and image/video models over the past 3 years. Considering how much llms improved, how long can robotics be in this state? I have to think 3 years from now we will be having the same conversation about robots doing real physical labor. "This is the worst they will ever be" feels more apt.

[deleted]

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#89

Post by syndacks »

I can’t get over the range of sentiment on LLMs. HN leans snake oil, X leans “we’re all cooked” —- can it possibly be both? How do other folks make sense of this? I’m not asking for a side, rather understanding the range. Does the range lead you to believe X over Y?
Post reply on HN