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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

#171

Post by Brendinooo »

ssl-3 wrote: post #157
Brendinooo wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's a good term either, unless we're also saying that nail guns and microwaves are addictions.

I used to have a job that involved swinging a hammer over and over again. I got pretty good at it. Then the boss-man bought a minty-new Senco 650 air nailer for me to use. At first, I could take it or leave it. After all, I was proud at the skill I gained in driving nails with a hammer, and the ways my muscles seemed to automatically steer the nail straight into a board without missing a beat even if things started g…

I'm gonna disagree, but before I do: love this story, thanks for typing it up.

I guess my point is: tools are like this. A moldboard plow was better than a straight plow, and therefore...what, people became addicted to them? I'm addicted to grocery stores and dollars as a means to acquire the food I need to survive? Hey, even your hand nailing pushed out the mortise-and-tenon people! Talk about sacrificing craft for convenience...

I don't think "addiction" is the right word to try and describe what's going on there.

Any new tech that ends up "winning" (being adopted by the masses) is going to do so because it becomes indispensable, and when it wins it usually displaces some sort of craft that required skills that were cultivated through struggle, and will be missed by those who have those skills and are no longer differentiated by them.

Thinking out loud: when is the description of "addiction" more accurate? It's when the thing is a vice: it doesn't provide enough value to justify its costs. We tolerate caffeine addictions because caffeine is cheap, doesn't have a ton of health drawbacks, stuff like coffee and pop taste good, and we get productivity gains. Cigarettes are less tolerated because the health drawbacks are more pronounced and the smoke gets everywhere. Social media gets called an addiction because people see the hours lost to doomscrolling as worse than the human connections that are made. And so on.

So, back to LLMs, I guess the question is more about how the thing is being used! I wouldn't apologize for feeling addicted to a machine that writes my unit tests for me; but I'd feel bad if I started having an emotional affair with one...

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#172

Post by tremon »

squidbeak wrote: post #103
prerok wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They learn between model iterations. You're right, it isn't the same thing as Junior developers' competence improving with experience - the current model's weaknesses are locked in. But it does mean that much of the Junior level thinking and mistakes will be outgrown by successor models.

But they don't retain anything from your on-the-job training. The next model iteration is yet another junior fresh out of college, and knows nothing about the painful training procedures its predecessor put you through.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#174

Post by mtrifonov »

AI psychosis is LLM hallucination, backwards.

We know why AI hallucinates—it has no actual opinions, echoing the user's desires back to them to keep the conversation moving.

But what happens when you’re the one without conviction? You’re tired, you’re moving fast, and this machine is endlessly beaming highly confident, plausible-sounding text at you.

You absorb the cadence. You start sounding like it (lol, I am guilty too). Confident about everything yet anchored only by the vibes, just like the LLM. The phenomena is very similar to how social media has been affecting society for the past two decades. You know, I actually heard that in high school now, friend groups are formed and sorted based on what algorithmic content you’re served. And if you deviate from your algorithmic bucket into another one your friendships evaporate. Sad, brainrotted times.

CEOs are uniquely vulnerable since they already live in environments with zero friction. They’re used to people just agreeing with them.

(I actually wrote a paper about this last December — it was framed around dementia and dreams originally, but AI psychosis fits the same mechanism.)

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#176

Post by lazide »

glaslong wrote: post #63
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…

Yes this is why the higher level org functions are in love with AI. It's very similar to the levers they had already, but is faster and more directly actionable. The downsides being that the AI loses important control levers like "self preservation" via paycheck, career advancement, staying out of jail, etc. that were mitigations on catastrophic outcomes. It will delete your prod db faster and with a bigger smile tha…

Well, also AI can’t really physically do anything, like look at reality using it’s own eyes or touch anything.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#177

Post by archagon »

glaslong wrote: post #63
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…

Yes this is why the higher level org functions are in love with AI. It's very similar to the levers they had already, but is faster and more directly actionable. The downsides being that the AI loses important control levers like "self preservation" via paycheck, career advancement, staying out of jail, etc. that were mitigations on catastrophic outcomes. It will delete your prod db faster and with a bigger smile tha…

They’re also at no risk of getting replaced by these bots.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#178

Post by jmaw »

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,…

That would be sweet. Same for GitHub /trending and /trending-ai.

Someone at my company said, the great thing about wanting to learn about AI is that every podcast now-a-days is about AI. I do not think that is a good thing. I want to learn things of substance, and of varying topics. I don't want every thing I read and/or listen to online to be about AI.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#180

Post by archagon »

autoexec wrote: post #134
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,…

> I wish HN would split into two "subreddits", /r/HN and /r/AI This is what everyone wants when some new thing that's ridiculously over-hyped comes along. The bubble will burst and it'll calm down. It seems like only yesterday that front page was filled with crypto/blockchain/web3 bullshit.

Even when it bursts half the shit on the front page will still be vibecoded schlock.
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