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

The End of an Era

hughhowey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 480 posts

Re: The End of an Era

#431

Post by chomp »

inigyou wrote: post #4

LLMs are writing as well as humans for people who think writing words is the goal. Printing presses also write words better than humans. LLMs are solving the problem one layer higher than printing presses, but still several layers down from the top. Note that LLMs aren't useless, since they have other strengths which can make them equal or better than humans in certain applications. For instance, they can tirelessly…

> Printing presses also write words better than humans.

False equivalence, printing presses do not write.

Re: The End of an Era

#432

Post by stavros »

mike_hearn wrote: post #262

Offtopic for the actual post, but if you don't know the author and like sci-fi mysteries his Silo story is great. I haven't read the books because I'm enjoying theorizing but the Apple TV series is being broadcast now on a weekly basis. It's one of these very dense mysteries that asks you to figure out the clues. It's about a city of about 10k people living underground in a giant cylindrical self-sufficient "silo" be…

I've read half of the first book but didn't enjoy it as much as the show. I wasn't really a fan of the writing and the show rearranged some storylines around that, in my opinion, gave the story better pacing.

Re: The End of an Era

#433

Post by WorldMaker »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #407
foobarian wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the term I've seen someone use for LLMs: a "thought partner." Truly it's the duck programming duck I've always wanted.

I say that LLM's are a pacifier. LLM output is to conscious output as a silicone nipple is to a breast. Sure, at some level, there are some people who at least some times, cannot pecieve a difference. That does not prove that there is no difference or that the difference doesn't matter.

I think that LLM's are a broken mirror or maybe disco ball. What you get back is almost always a reflection of what you put in, just garbled through and with the reflections of so many other people. The best parts that I often get back are mostly just the stuff that I already put in it.

I think that's also where LLMs get the most dangerous. That ELIZA effect of telling you exactly what you told it but in a slightly rephrased way makes you think that you think that your ideas are genius. You've got someone "actively listening" and telling you whatever idea you just gave it was the best idea it ever heard.

That's not what you want from a serious writing partner. You want a writing partner to challenge you, to point out your mistakes and flaws, to make you better, to offer a truly different perspective to your own. You don't want a dark reflection from a "yes man" to spiral into.

Re: The End of an Era

#435

Post by usef- »

bananaflag wrote: post #414
ticulatedspline wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I feel like I've already lived this when CGI began eating practical effects in movies. Lots of people hated CGI. then it got better, then it got worse again but by then it was the norm and people's complaints don't have much teeth. Of course the best CGI back in the day was the CGI you didn't even notice was there. same with AI. when it's bad (and these days it's often bad) you notice, but then you don't not…

> Lots of people hated CGI. then it got better, then it got worse again What do you mean by "it got worse again"? Why did CGI tech get worse?

Early directors often designed their shots around the strengths of cgi at the time (see, eg, Jurassic park) and had longer time to get it right, as is common when planning something you don't know can be done at all. Now it's a cost center of something they assume you can already do.

(I don't think it's true that it actually got worse, as most cgi isn't noticed. But blockbusters generally did get worse in their visual and production artlessness)

Re: The End of an Era

#436

Post by carlosjobim »

nicf wrote: post #402
miki123211 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I think narrative stories are a "brain hack", in the same way heavily processed food, drugs, clickbait, soap operas and TikTok are brain hacks, combined with some exclusivity status signaling games. They're just old enough to have gained a cultural cachet that more modern forms of entertainment don't yet have. Same for art, music, comedy and culture generally. There is nothing wrong with those "brain hacks", if t…

This sounds like a fully general argument against being alive and having experiences; you could equally well call love a "brain hack". I also care a lot about solving practical problems, but the reason it's important to solve them is because it leads to human flourishing, which includes participating in all these activities you're deriding. Otherwise why are we doing anything at all?

The purpose is paying taxes, interest, rent and various tributes to the full extent of your capabilities and to sacrifice your life for the benefit of your rulers if ordered to.

Re: The End of an Era

#437

Post by mattmaroon »

suddenlybananas wrote: post #426
mattmaroon wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a Hacker News comment, not a doctoral thesis. People like you are why this site so desperately needs a block feature.

I just don't like this kind of poorly thought out misanthropy.

Things aren’t poorly thought out just because they’re a short internet comment. I could easily have delved into the background belief that’s deeply-rooted in Buddhist philosophy. Thinking humans aren’t special isn’t necessarily nihilism, it can be because you believe you’re only a tiny part of the vast universe, and that what we experience as “self” is just an illusion caused by limited processing power, and that since we are all part of the universe, not a separate thing from it, the universe itself has a level of consciousness that we don’t understand and might, for instance, want to develop an intelligent species that could develop artificial life for it for some purpose we don’t understand.

It is neither nihilist nor misanthropic, it’s just an internet comment that has no reason to get that deep and therefore you assumed it had no depth.

Feel better?

Re: The End of an Era

#438

Post by ticulatedspline »

bananaflag wrote: post #414
ticulatedspline wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I feel like I've already lived this when CGI began eating practical effects in movies. Lots of people hated CGI. then it got better, then it got worse again but by then it was the norm and people's complaints don't have much teeth. Of course the best CGI back in the day was the CGI you didn't even notice was there. same with AI. when it's bad (and these days it's often bad) you notice, but then you don't not…

> Lots of people hated CGI. then it got better, then it got worse again What do you mean by "it got worse again"? Why did CGI tech get worse?

Have you watched a Marvel movie lately? even though the tech is better it looks worse,it's over used and shipped fast. I think they're just lazier about it even in blockbuster titles.

Re: The End of an Era

#439

Post by b112 »

bsenftner wrote: post #423
b112 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've read the book, the two movies (one modern one from the 60s?), and the sequel, very well done!, by Stephen Baxter. It's a good concept, but for some reason I thought of a military movie I watched recently, where someone was going on about how they were third generation military. And how their friends and family were military. Sort of the same kind of siloing there.

Stephen Baxter, I loved his "The Light of Other Days". I need to read more of him.

Ilium by Dan Simmons was an exceptionally good read, if you're looking for another review. Often people just haven't heard of him, even well and widely read people, though he has several great series.

I don't read info on books ahead of time, and sometimes don't even read the summaries. I've read a LOT of scifi, must be in the thousands of novels by now, but I was completely unsure what was happening for the first 4 chapters at least, and in a very, very good way.

Re: The End of an Era

#440

Post by unethical_ban »

bsenftner wrote: post #98
inigyou wrote: post #4

LLMs are writing as well as humans for people who think writing words is the goal. Printing presses also write words better than humans. LLMs are solving the problem one layer higher than printing presses, but still several layers down from the top. Note that LLMs aren't useless, since they have other strengths which can make them equal or better than humans in certain applications. For instance, they can tirelessly…

Finally, someone else understands that writing is not the goal, the entire point of all of this is our communications between one another and this market for narrative stories is a nice departure and it does convey important knowledge and moral lessons that larger society needs. But it is an indirection, an indirection to the mission of communicating solutions to how to live as a human and that is why we care, why th…

You're both missing the point, I think. You're missing that AI and the people who utilize it in secret will fool readers. Today, you cannot watch a video of something amazing, submitted by a stranger, and trust that it is real. People who don't doubt the source of a book will read AI-created content thinking it is the real thing.

Reputation will mean more than ever before in the age of AI. People doubt "mainstream" news, but their reputation for verifying sources and stories for truth will be the only way people can trust what they read and see. Novelists and creators will have to build trust with their audience, if the audience is caring enough to demand authenticity.

Post reply on HN