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Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

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Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#61

Post by atleastoptimal »

mschuster91 wrote: post #57
atleastoptimal wrote: post #3

> in part because of the huckster-like triangulations of scumbags like Sam Altman and Dario Amodei I would happily read an AI-critical blogpost if it weren't clearly motivated by a strange, specific hatred of the prominent AI figureheads. At this point I automatically dismiss writing like this, the motivated reasoning is palpable. Their distaste for the character and general vibes of the AI industry trap them in blat…

> I would happily read an AI-critical blogpost if it weren't clearly motivated by a strange, specific hatred of the prominent AI figureheads. The thing is... many prominent figures, both individuals and companies, in the AI industry just lend themselves to being hateable. Sam Altman personally completely fucked up the RAM market with his double dealing. Every single one of us felt the consequences of that and we will…

> And it is why I will call for his arrest, speedy trial and imprisonment every time I have the misfortune of reading his name. I wish to see this person suffer from the bottom of my heart.

RAM prices were going to go up no matter what given the demand for AI. To so strongly want someone to suffer for fulfilling his fiduciary responsibility to the company he runs seems a bit disproportionate.

> It is undeniable that the entire AI sphere is a bubble, artificially propped up by circular investments and wash trades, and that is now poised to raid pension funds.

I honestly can't take your claims that AI is a huge artificial bubble seriously when you make it very clear how much you want it to be a bubble. The mark of a mature mind is being able to admit that people you personally dislike actually may be right about a few things.

That these people whom you hate so much are also cartoon villains who have taken the entire world economy for a ride is a very satisfying narrative because it implies a future point when all of their crimes will be revealed and they will be held accountable. It is however not a realistic thing to hope for. This is all because of one very real but hard to admit reality: AI is a very useful technology and is worth the billions of dollars that are being paid for it. To deny this reality at this point, when AI models have already proven unsolved Erdos problems and are driving such huge demand on both the consumer and enterprise side, is unreasonable, and consequentially smart people who would otherwise take your points seriously are going to see right through your claims as just being emotional self-soothing.

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#62

Post by mingus88 »

aniokono wrote: post #39

Here "Vibe-coded software is simply not good." is not also correct 100% why? If all you saw means that's all there is then that itself is incorrect, why? People are building better solutions and you just havent seen them yet. I know so because I am building one, you didn't know about it, if you are interested in seeing a sample of what it produces, the architecture etc, though not perfect but it should cause you to r…

Honest answer: all other things being equal, an app maintained by someone who knows what they built and cares enough to put the time into maintaining it will be better than the exact same app built by someone who has no idea what they built and has invested no time into learning what makes it good

Anyone can vibe code. I’m doing it right now as well. The difference then is who is doing it and why are they doing it. That is what will lead to different outcomes.

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#63

Post by archagon »

petesergeant wrote: post #44

We need a form people can fill out: > I don't like LLMs because: > > [ ] They steal from artists > [ ] They're destroying the planet > etc Instead of these articles, just tick the boxes. Only write the article if there aren't ten repeating the same points over and over again. Are there any HN readers who aren't intimately familiar with the problems associated with LLMs?

Consider this a form of consensus-building. What do we want as a community? What values do we want our colleagues and peers to have?

That’s what gets my upvote, anyway.

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#64

Post by CamperBob2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #30
bawolff wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure someone somewhere at some point has made some money on replit. There is always an outlier. Keep in mind the vast majority of gold miners found no gold.

> the vast majority of gold miners found no gold Source? We would do panhandling trips as Boy Scouts in the California hills. On each outing at least someone found gold. Which means every one of us would have eventually found some given a few days. Most panhandlers didn’t break even. But I’m challenging even that threshold for Replit. I’m guessing most of their vibe-coded businesses never make a penny of revenue.

I've always wondered what keeps people from wandering around the area with exotic ground-penetrating radar, XRF guns and other tech that didn't exist when the veins were originally judged to be tapped out. There might be some serious gold left after the visible stuff is gone.

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#65

Post by zoogeny »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55
fc417fc802 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed but the converse is also true. Predicting that everything will be sunshine and rainbows merely because the sky hasn't fallen yet doesn't pass the sniff test. > we know what it’s looked like over the past 6 months. Oddly I seem to interpret that in the opposite manner that you do. The output became noticeably more cohesive sometime around the new year although it certainly still has plenty of shortcomings.

> Predicting that everything will be sunshine and rainbows merely because the sky hasn't fallen yet doesn't pass the sniff test I’m not predicting it will be fine. I’m saying we have enough evidence to cast the opposite prediction, made on specific timescales in the past, as BS.

I'm not following your logic here. Are you basing your predictions on the predictions of CEOs?

If I understand you correctly you are saying, CEOs predicted X and they were wrong. Now CEOs are predicting Y, and since they were wrong about X you predict they are also wrong about Y.

But Y's success seems independent of other people's ability to predict X?

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#66

Post by mschuster91 »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #61
mschuster91 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would happily read an AI-critical blogpost if it weren't clearly motivated by a strange, specific hatred of the prominent AI figureheads. The thing is... many prominent figures, both individuals and companies, in the AI industry just lend themselves to being hateable. Sam Altman personally completely fucked up the RAM market with his double dealing. Every single one of us felt the consequences of that and we will…

> And it is why I will call for his arrest, speedy trial and imprisonment every time I have the misfortune of reading his name. I wish to see this person suffer from the bottom of my heart. RAM prices were going to go up no matter what given the demand for AI. To so strongly want someone to suffer for fulfilling his fiduciary responsibility to the company he runs seems a bit disproportionate. > It is undeniable that…

> RAM prices were going to go up no matter what given the demand for AI. To so strongly want someone to suffer for fulfilling his fiduciary responsibility to the company he runs seems a bit disproportionate.

Companies are a part of society. Destroying its foundations in the name of "fiduciary responsibility" is everything but that - it prioritizes short term profits over long term survivability.

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#67

Post by satvikpendem »

keybored wrote: post #58
satvikpendem wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The false part is that the masses do not accept the lie, as most don't actually believe those companies.

People who talk about the masses are at the same time completely distanced from them but also completely tuned in to their mass psyche, or so they claim.

Maybe, not always, but doesn't make them incorrect.

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#68

Post by wayne-werwolf »

superfrank wrote: post #52
wayne-werwolf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point the author is trying to convey, is that they are similar to MLM schemes in that they profit off of peoples hopes and dreams. Altough there are MLMs that are pure pyramid schemes, there are some where it is also not impossible to earn some money with it. Their products do not even have to be downright bad or fake. Having read Daniel Kahneman, I suppose with (economic) desperation people become especi…

> they profit off of peoples hopes and dreams Not trying to be overly cynical, but isn't that just marketing? A lot of marketing just getting people to picture a better future version of their life and then making them think that your product will get them there. They're not actually buying the product for the product, they're buying it to try to get that imaginary future. I don't really see how Repilit ad telling pe…

This is a good point and I agree, this is just marketing. But I do think there is a moral continuum in that. I want to say on one end lies purely factual dry information: "On offer today are bananas, they cost x currency units, which is cheaper than Store ABC ...". On the other end is something amoral--maybe a good word is "scam"? Selling hopes and dreams, as I called it, is not immoral per se, I also agree. Where the threshold into amorality lies? idk ... But to take the Gym example, I've seen ads which are pretty okay, and some that are scam-ish. If they sell you a realistic, attainable goal of "getting fit" or whatever, that's okay. If they show you a pro athlete (10y+ training, substances and genetic luck) and tell you that "everyone" can achieve this ("you only need to sign up! just a few months!"), that is amoral to me, but not a scam. I would categorize the example in this post somewhere in that moral category.

Re: Generative AI Is Having Its Herbalife Moment

#69

Post by keybored »

satvikpendem wrote: post #67
keybored wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who talk about the masses are at the same time completely distanced from them but also completely tuned in to their mass psyche, or so they claim.

Maybe, not always, but doesn't make them incorrect.

Of course not. We have no proof that their hot takes are completely useless.
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