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

I wish GPT4 had never happened

chaudhry.notion.site

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 1001 posts

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#101

Post by scarface74 »

1123581321 wrote: post #16
kaibee wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) Show Priya how to use GPT4 to do her current job in 1/10th of the time. Why would I subsidize that as a business owner? I can fire 9/10ths of the people who do that job instead.

Historically, in these situations your business is either about to become obsolete or is about to have much more competition. You could hire people to do the new tasks required to thrive, but it’s easier to retrain people you already know and who want to work for you.

It actually much easier to hire people who already have the skillset and pay them 5-10% more than they are making because of salary compression and inversion.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#102

Post by Sirenos »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #29

The big oversight here is that Priya does not want a job , what Priya wants is an income . The point of life is not working, the point of life is to enjoy it. We should strive to eliminate as many jobs as we possibly can, the less we have to work the better it is. To make this possible we need to find a way to a new system that doesn't directly link labour with income .

I see this sentiment expressed in almost every venue of discussion, but I never see a concrete plan, or even steps we could take right now to progress towards that future. That's why I'll always remain skeptical about technological utopianism. It simply doesn't work that way in reality.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#103

Post by turnsout »

Robotbeat wrote: post #33
eropple wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? No really: why? Businesses are profit-seeking entities. Why not just fire nine people? You save money . (Yes, this could be a really stupid decision for the company in question. I agree with you. I'm not saying what should happen. I'm saying what will happen, and that that is really bad.)

All small businesses are not pure profit maximizers. Anyway even if they were, there’s MORE money to be made by empowering employees to use powerful tools which can increase revenues and profits much more than just firing. Doing so generates goodwill which improves employee effectiveness and drive.

This! If you can 10X an employee, the obvious play is to retain all ten employees and get 10X widget output. Yes, you could fire nine people to retain 1X output—but your competition also has access to LLMs, and may choose the former option. Can you compete?

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#104

Post by auggierose »

jzb wrote: post #60
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #29

The big oversight here is that Priya does not want a job , what Priya wants is an income . The point of life is not working, the point of life is to enjoy it. We should strive to eliminate as many jobs as we possibly can, the less we have to work the better it is. To make this possible we need to find a way to a new system that doesn't directly link labour with income .

That would be great. It’s also not going to happen without a massive uprising. The people profiting off automation have zero intent of sharing the wealth and every intent of hoarding it.

Yep. That's why there WILL be an uprising. When? I don't know. When the pressure becomes too high to bear, and risking your life seems like a good option compared to just hanging in there. But maybe by that time most humans have been genetically engineered to be happy to be serfs, and oligarchy is a genetic condition now.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#105

Post by primordialsoup »

theusus wrote: post #8

This is a really pessimistic and shallow article. Who will prompt the AI for code? Manager? Also, you mentioned it gave wrong result at first. How did you know? Because you know how to code. As mentioned in other comment she should learn more about programming so she can become indispensible.

Yeah it's a short article and not a long form analysis. So yes, by don't definition it's shallow.

It's expressing the author's discomfort and so it's pessimistic.

I think those are fine.

Who will prompt? Yes, the manager.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#106

Post by Etheryte »

topper-123 wrote: post #48
Etheryte wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, while there is some merit to the article's argument, I don't think it holds any water in this case. GPT4 will lie to you [0] and you need the human to figure out when that's the case. [0] https://simonwillison.net/2023/Apr/7/chatgpt-lies/

> you need the human to figure out when that's the case. Yes, but you will need fewer people. And thas is with the current level of GPT. If the GPTs proficiency increases, fewer and fewer people will be needed. That’s a problem.

Try and reframe the same argument except with computers to see that it doesn't add up. When computers started becoming widely spread you could've easily made the same argument. It isn't a problem, it's a boon to make our lives easier.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#107

Post by SideQuark »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #45
atemerev wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Because the only two options are capitalism and communism ? Communism doesn't work so just let's give up, not try anything else and let the rich exploit the majority of the human race.

Because wanting income as you put it, without producing value, has never worked very well. This is why capitalism has pulled billions out of poverty and communism (or all the other pie in the sky give me free stuff detached from what I trade back) hasn't.

Income is a proxy for you to trade value you create to another that is willing to trade back.

So yeah, go ahead and try whatever you think mankind has not invented despite thousands of years and billions of people wanting to have stuff without trading for it. Most such schemes end up hurting people far more than any help.

>the majority of the human race

... who has gotten incredibly richer than at any time in history and for more people than ever.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#109

Post by eropple »

jprete wrote: post #68
Robotbeat wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All small businesses are not pure profit maximizers. Anyway even if they were, there’s MORE money to be made by empowering employees to use powerful tools which can increase revenues and profits much more than just firing. Doing so generates goodwill which improves employee effectiveness and drive.

Goodwill doesn’t pay the bills, most businesses don’t care, and most CEOs etc cannot acquire more customers and contracts fast enough to multiply the available work by ten in the time frame required.

Yeah, the idea that there is somehow Unlimited Demand to tap is just woefully underexposed to business realities. Demand at most businesses is a river, not a municipal waterline with a spigot at one end. It ebbs and it flows, and building for a hypothetical high-demand future is what you do when you have venture capital expecting it of you--not when you're building a "small business" (or even a medium to large one, if you want to be resilient).

It is, however, a really convenient excuse for people who don't regularly think about how people who don't work "above the API" actually exist in the world.

Re: I wish GPT4 had never happened

#110

Post by theusus »

10xDev wrote: post #52
theusus wrote: post #8

This is a really pessimistic and shallow article. Who will prompt the AI for code? Manager? Also, you mentioned it gave wrong result at first. How did you know? Because you know how to code. As mentioned in other comment she should learn more about programming so she can become indispensible.

Sure you need at least one developer. The question is though, how many do you still need?

From what I have seen, ChatGPT is good for small code. But, as the code gets bigger, it falls apart. I mean, it's not an analysis tool. It's a human mimicker/simulator
Post reply on HN