> They seem smart, but they are not; they are really just good at appearing to be smart. Can you give an example of the difference between these two things?
Wisdom vs knowledge, where the word "knowledge" is doing a lot of work. LLMs don't "know" anything, they predict the next token that has the aesthetics of a response the prompter wants.
It doesn't seem obvious to me that predicting a token that is the answer to a question someone asked would require anything less than coming up with that answer via another method.
Imagine an actor who is playing a character speaking a language that they actor does not speak. Due to a lack of time, the actor decides against actually learning the language and instead opts to just memorise and train how to speak their lines without actually understanding the content. Let's assume they are doing a pretty convincing job too. Now, the audience watching these scenes may think that the actor is actual…
> Imagine an actor who is playing a character speaking a language that they actor does not speak. Due to a lack of time, the actor decides against actually learning the language and instead opts to just memorise and train how to speak their lines without actually understanding the content. Now imagine that, during the interval, you approach the actor backstage and initiate a conversation in that language. His respons…
You've missed the point of the example, of course it's not the exact same thing. With regard to LLM, the biggest difference is that it's a regression against the world's knowledge, like an actor who memorized every question that happens to have an answer written down in history. If you give him a novel question, he'll look at similar questions and just hallucinate a mashup of the answers hoping it makes sense, even though he has no idea what he's telling you. That's why LLMs do things like make up nonsensical API calls when writing code that seem right but have no basis in reality. It has no idea what it's doing, it's just trying to regress code in its knowledge base to match your query.
When I read that the dude was asked to take $2b from reality labs and spend it on AI, I was shocked… that they were still spending $2b on virtual reality nonsense in 2025. That said, from what I understand, X is working on using grok to improve the algorithm. Why can’t fb do the same and coexist?
Meta prints money as an ad company but clearly resents being one. VR was a ~$100B+ attempt to buy pivot, and it’s generated ~single-digit billions in revenue. The tech worked maybe, but the vibe sucked, and the problem was that people don’t want to live or work there. Also, Meta leadership personalities are toxic to a lot of people. Now they’re doing the same thing with AI e.g., throw money at it, overpay new talent,…
I for one have been trying to use the term “ad tech” in lieu of “big tech/faang/etc.” for a couple of years now hoping it will catch.
The way it sounds, Zuckerberg believes that they can, or at the very least has people around him telling him that they can. But Zuckerberg also though that the Metaverse would be thing. LeCun obviously thinks otherwise and believes that LLMs are a dead-end, and he might be right. The trouble with LLMs is that most people don't really understand how they work. They seem smart, but they are not; they are really just go…
Humans aren't smart, they are really just good at appearing to be smart. Prove me wrong.
If you don’t think humans are smart, then what living creature qualifies as smart to you? Or do you think humans created the word but it describes nothing that actually exists in the real world?
With the exception of instagram fb marketplace, meta just looks and feels like a chaotic, sloppy mess of a company. Between the incoherent and buggy garbage that is ads manager (something I have used for my own business) and zuck saying he laid off poor performers (effectively screwing those people for no reason), it all looks like poor business operations. So its no surprise they can't figure out AI even with all th…
> zuck saying he laid off poor performers (effectively screwing those people for no reason) Were they not actually performing poorly, then? Maybe I'm missing some context, but laying off poor performers is a good thing last I checked. It's identifying them that's difficult the further removed you are from the action (or lack thereof).
Several of my colleagues were laid off. We all worked on the same project. I reviewed their code and was in meetings with them daily, so I know what their performance was like. They were absolutely not poor performers and it was ridiculous that they were laid off and labeled as poor performers. The project was a success too.
What's your definition of a novel idea? How do you measure that? I've had a 15 year+ successful career as a SWE so far. I don't think I've had a single idea so novel that today's LLM could not have come up with it.
I've had plenty. Independent discovery is a real thing, especially with juniors.
Wang is a networking machine and has connected with everyone in the industry. Likely was brought in as a recruiting leader. Mark being Mark, though, doesn’t understand the value of vision and figured getting big names in the same room was better than actually having a plan.
Your last sentence suggests that he willingly failed to take the choice to create a vision and a plan. If, for whatever reason, you don't have a vision and a plan, hiring big names to help kickstart that process seems like a way better next step than "do nothing".
Wang is not Zuck's first choice. Zuck couldn't get the top talents he wanted so he got Wang. Unfortunately Wang is not technical, he excels in managing the labeling company and be the top in providing such services.
That's why I also think the hiring angle makes sense. It would actually be astonishing if he could turn technical and compete with the leaders in OAI/Anthrpic
Meta prints money as an ad company but clearly resents being one. VR was a ~$100B+ attempt to buy pivot, and it’s generated ~single-digit billions in revenue. The tech worked maybe, but the vibe sucked, and the problem was that people don’t want to live or work there. Also, Meta leadership personalities are toxic to a lot of people. Now they’re doing the same thing with AI e.g., throw money at it, overpay new talent,…
I for one have been trying to use the term “ad tech” in lieu of “big tech/faang/etc.” for a couple of years now hoping it will catch.
Doesn't really make sense though because only two of "FAANG" actually get significant of their revenue from advertising?
As someone who's startup got bought out by facebook, many years ago, its not surprising to read. The politics surrounding zuck is wild. Cox left then came back, mainly because hes not actually that good, and has terrible judgement when it comes to features and how to shape effective teams (just throw people at it, features should be purely metric based, or a straight copy of competitors products. There is no cohesive…
A CEO with terrible judgement? Egomaniac executives? Products that a/b test and stick with what works? Chasing trends? Internal competition?