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Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

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Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#181

Post by IAmGraydon »

WalterBright wrote: post #95
IAmGraydon wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote literally from Levie is "CEOs are uniquely prone to AI psychosis because they’re sufficiently distant from the last mile of work that still has to happen to generate most value with AI".

The author calling it "psychosis" discredits the author.

Psychosis is a medical term for a collection of symptoms that indicate a loss of contact with reality. He posits that reality is that AI cannot automate nearly as many things as people believe it can, while C-suites ignore that reality and dive head first into belief without evidence. Tell me how using that term discredits the author.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#182

Post by gretch »

pocksuppet wrote: post #161
ssl-3 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There probably are a non-zero number of people in the world who are afflicted with real-live AI psychosis. For everyone else, that term is being applied with disingenuous levels of incompetence.

There are lots of people who have chatbox psychosis, like the one who ChatGPT convinced to shoot up a school.

Or maybe this guy was always going to reach the endpoint of shooting up a school, and he happened to talk to ChatGPT along the way.

These people have existed long before llm chats and they had no problem committing horrific offence in the absence

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#183

Post by bobro »

Brendinooo wrote: post #36

It's hardly a tech CEO thing, and I dunno if "psychosis" is a fair or accurate way to talk about it. I worked with someone who was kind of a Shopify power user, managed the store, could do a lot of things, but wasn't a programmer. She showed me how Shopify does that AI block generator now to deliver something that was like 65% done in a minute. I also have a friend who knows enough code to be dangerous in WordPress:…

Those feelings fall apart very quickly though. A project from a non-technical person may seem to roll out well, but they aren't seeing the parts that are misguided, not generalizable, or plainly wrong. MVPs are most useful because it means someone with domain knowledge was able to not just put together a product, but they understand the difficult parts, what will work and what won't, whether the pursuit is viable. Vibecoding doesn't do that exactly. It produces something that looks like an MVP, but who knows.

To me, intoxicating is a better word for that feeling than empowering.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#184

Post by BLanen »

I mean, look at ycombinator's latest "call for startups". Its honestly mind-boggling. Couple years ago I used to look at like every 6 months to see where venture interests lie. But now, on every "industry", its just "use ai to make more money in [industry]". The most egregious of them is the call for the "1 person unicorn" company that they believe can exist and somehow that's a call for a startup. Like, "We want to invest in companies that make a bunch of money for us". Yea, very insightful.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#185

Post by Lerc »

causal wrote: post #130
fullmoon wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s absolutely lazy, because it’s not psychosis.

It might be psychosis. > Psychosis is the term for a collection of symptoms that happen when a person has trouble telling the difference between what’s real and what’s not[0] For many seemingly intelligent, rational, competent humans AI has become a layer between them and reality that has absolutely sabotaged their ability to know what is real. [0] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23012-psychos...

There is a difference between being unable to tell if something is true or false and bring unable to tell if something is real or not.

Eveyone has things that they don't know the answer to. There are also plenty of things that an individual is wrong about. There is a fundimental differsnce between being wrong about something and being delusional.

>AI has become a layer between them and reality that has absolutely sabotaged their ability to know what is real.

You could say much the same about adgenda driven media coverage on any given topic. That can lead a rational person to believe untrue things. The distinction is that, given that perspective, it is reasonable to believe those untrue things.

If you decade everyone who firmly believes untrue things to be psychotic you would have to apply that to everyone who doesn't share your religious views.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#186

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

fsckboy wrote: post #102

I wish HN would split into two "subreddits", /r/HN and /r/AI > There is a certain wildness in the tech industry these days that both mimics previous eras of large changes, like cloud computing (runaway costs in the early days), and is like nothing we’ve ever seen before (record revenues accompanied by mass layoffs) if it is perceived that there is a big "winner takes all" pot of gold for the "winner" of a new market,…

> When agriculture was invented, there were mass layoffs of hunters and gatherers.

Uh, no. Not at all.

Agriculture absorbed the extra population that used to be unsustainable. There were no losers.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#187

Post by e40 »

john_strinlai wrote: post #12

whats being described is in no way unique to ai. " In other words, Levie’s theory posits, CEOs don’t really understand processes well enough to know what really can and can’t be automated. But that lack of knowledge doesn’t stop them from acting on their beliefs. " i have been in the workforce for a long time. this "theory" has been theorized since as far back as i can remember. its the premise of undercover boss. it…

> whats being described is in no way unique to ai.

Exactly. For decades we've talked about "reality distortion fields" of various CEOs. I'm worked with CEOs that had them.

AI just supercharges the reality distortion field.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#188

Post by themanmaran »

prerok wrote: post #84
gopalv wrote: post #53

If you manage 500+ people organization, most of the headaches with agents already exists with you - you set directions, ask people to go run fast in those directions, check in frequently and course correct on results without actually understanding those people do. Those aren't the deal breakers. They entirely rely on the competence of the folks they hired and cross-match enforcers with the drivers they have - they de…

Well, there is also a big difference that it will not learn over time. If a junior makes a mistake and it will not be caught in time they will automatically learn. With LLMs we have to teach them about their mistakes with adapting the harness and then hoping it will stick. What I also find particularly hilarious about this whole thing is that we were always complaining about how difficult it is to put our tacit knowl…

> If a junior makes a mistake and it will not be caught in time they will automatically learn.

I think this sentiment applies well to junior software engineers (with mentorship). But imagine the much larger swaths of entry level employees in operations, support, or sales functions. When you have a 400 person team with 20% annual turnover (since people move in / out of entry level jobs frequently), the management + training + monitoring becomes a huge challenge.

I think the typical HN sentiment of "llms aren't deterministic" fails to take into account how non-deterministic giant groups of people are. Every group of 10 people typically needs a manager. And every 10 managers needs another manager. By comparison the engineering work on dialing in your LLM guardrails feels pretty worthwhile.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#189

Post by shinycode »

joshstrange wrote: post #89

> Still, some of these stories are surprising. Zeb Evans, the CEO of project management and productivity software startup ClickUp, proudly declared on X that he had laid off almost a quarter of his employees — 22% — after rolling out about 3,000 AI agents to do internal work. As someone who is forced to use ClickUp I can tell you that it's not good software. It wasn't good before this layoff and it hasn't improved si…

I agree, search in ClickUp is awful and it’s impossible to find back old cards from previous years. A nightmare. Plus, if consumes gb of memory in the browser.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#190

Post by 1attice »

SoftTalker wrote: post #83
lisplist wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know lots of people struggling to get by and I can assure you their situation doesn't improve their mental health.

Agreed, struggling and not ever winning is bad, I should have clarified that.

You realize that's literally what we're talking about -- a permanent underclass that is never permitted to win?

This stance is just 'acceptable losses' with more typing

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