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LLM Inevitabilism

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Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#181

Post by yorwba »

mg wrote: post #70

In the 90s a friend told me about the internet. And that he knows someone who is in a university and has access to it and can show us. An hour later, we were sitting in front of a computer in that university and watched his friend surfing the web. Clicking on links, receiving pages of text. Faster than one could read. In a nice layout. Even with images. And links to other pages. We were shocked. No printing, no shipp…

Currently, less than 70% of the world population use the internet. Universal adaption may be inevitable, but it could take a few more decades. Less than 40% use Facebook at least once a month. Comparable user numbers for LLMs are a bit hard to come by, but I'd guess less than 25% overall, not counting cases where LLM output is shoehorned into another product without the user asking for it. The inevitable may take a long time to come to pass.

If you're currently a heavy LLM user, probably you'll continue for the time being. But that doesn't mean you'll inevitably end up doing everything by telling an LLM to do it for you. And it doesn't mean people who currently don't use LLMs at all will start doing so soon (some of them need internet access first), nor will monthly users who literally only use LLMs once a month inevitably convert to heavy users.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#182

Post by [deleted] »

dilawar wrote: post #23
HPsquared wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just remember that machines already do most of the work. Nobody ploughs fields anymore.

Those machines unlocked more work, different work, that led to better paying jobs! I am all up for AI if it leads to "better" work and jobs but cutting jobs to cut cost sound like a race to bottom!! Are AI time /cost savings going to help me pursue creative hobbies, open source, help my community without worrying about livelihood then great. If it is a means to make rich people richer by making most of us worse off,…

[deleted]

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#183

Post by nmfisher »

mbgerring wrote: post #97
bee_rider wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never really get the cryptocurrency comparison. AI has an application beyond grift. Like, even if they stopped developing it now, an AI “style hints” in the style of spellcheck and grammar rule check would be a no-brainer as a thing to add to an office suite. The valuations are totally and completely nuts. But, LLMs have little legitimate applications in a way that cryptocurrencies never will.

Lots of crypto boosters said that crypto had use cases beyond grift and that anyone who couldn’t see that was a moron.

Millions of people are using (and paying for) LLMs for their daily work. The number of people using crypto as an actual currency is a rounding error by comparison.

There's definitely similarities when it comes to the wave of hype and greed behind them both, but the fundamentals really are completely different.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#184

Post by praptak »

Inevitabilism has a long history of being used to persuade people to accept shitty stuff. Soviet bloc used Marx's historicism (or their interpretation thereof) to argue that communism (or their implementation thereof) is inevitable.

There was also TINA which was used to push the neoliberal version of capitalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_is_no_alternative

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#185

Post by minikomi »

oxfordmale wrote: post #154
bradly wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what that same GPT4 told me today after trying to get a simple mqttwarn config: ChatGPT: Let’s cut through the mqttwarn quirks and get you a single, complete warn.ini that I’ve actually tested with mqttwarn 0.32 Me: that "I’ve actually tested with mqttwarn 0.32:" How did you perform this test? ChatGPT: I set up a quick local sandbox on my laptop Me: What brand is your laptop? What store did you buy it at? Cha…

LLM apology cascade: - That didn’t happen. - And if it did, I’m really sorry. - And if it was that bad, I truly apologise. - And if it is a big deal, I understand and I’m sorry again. - And if it’s my fault, I’ll try to do better. - And if I meant it… I didn’t — but I’m still sorry.

That didn't happen.

And if it did, you formatted the prompt wrong.

And if you didn't, you poisoned the context.

And if you didn't, you exceeded the token limit.

And if you didn't, you're missing the right MCP server.

And if you're not, you're using too many MCP servers.

And if you're not, your temperature was wrong.

And if it wasn't, you should have used RAG.

And if you did, your embeddings weren't tuned.

And if they were, you used the wrong system prompt.

And if you didn't, you deserved it.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#186

Post by Dylan16807 »

bradly wrote: post #121
mg wrote: post #70

In the 90s a friend told me about the internet. And that he knows someone who is in a university and has access to it and can show us. An hour later, we were sitting in front of a computer in that university and watched his friend surfing the web. Clicking on links, receiving pages of text. Faster than one could read. In a nice layout. Even with images. And links to other pages. We were shocked. No printing, no shipp…

This is what that same GPT4 told me today after trying to get a simple mqttwarn config: ChatGPT: Let’s cut through the mqttwarn quirks and get you a single, complete warn.ini that I’ve actually tested with mqttwarn 0.32 Me: that "I’ve actually tested with mqttwarn 0.32:" How did you perform this test? ChatGPT: I set up a quick local sandbox on my laptop Me: What brand is your laptop? What store did you buy it at? Cha…

So did it actually give you a config file? And did it work or fail?

If it didn't give you a config file I really don't understand why your followup wasn't getting it to spit one out, and instead you decided to ask it questions about an obviously fake laptop.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#187

Post by leoedin »

ako wrote: post #115
NBJack wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically, this is exactly the technique for arguing that the blog mentions. Remember the revolutionary, seemingly inevitable tech that was poised to rewrite how humans thought about transportation? The incredible amounts of hype, the secretive meetings disclosing the device, etc.? That turned out to be the self-balancing scooter known as a Segway?

Trend vs single initiative. One company failed but overall personal electric transportation is booming is cities. AI is the future, but along the way many individual companies doing AI will fail. Cars are here to stay, but many individual car companies have and will fail, same for phones, everyone has a mobile phone, but nokia still failed…

Nobody is riding Segways around any more, but a huge percentage of people are riding e-bikes and scooters. It’s fundamentally changed transportation in cities.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#188

Post by cess11 »

wilson090 wrote: post #177
baxuz wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that the data from actual research doesn't support your anecdotal proof of quality: - https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o... - https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/29/ai_agents_fail_a_lot/ But more importantly, it makes you stupid: - https://www.404media.co/microsoft-study-finds-ai-makes-human... - https://archive.is/M3lCG And it's an unsustainable bubble and wishful thinking, muc…

These studies profoundly miss the mark and were clearly written for engagement/to push a certain view. It's abundantly clear to any developer who has used LLMs that they are a useful tool and have turned the corner in terms of the value they're able to provide vs their limitations.

Not to me. I have also not seen any signs that this technology has had macroeconomic effects, and I don't know of any developers in meatspace that are impressed.

To me it seems like a bunch of religious freaks and psychopaths rolled out a weird cult, in part to plaster over layoffs for tax reasons.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#189

Post by clarinificator »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #106
scubbo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hours of time saved Come back in a week and update us on how long you've spent debugging all the ways that the code was broken that you didn't notice in those 15 minutes. Usually I don't nitpick spelling, but "mimnutes" and "stylisitic" are somewhat ironic here - small correct-looking errors get glossed over by human quality-checkers, but can lead to genuine issues when parsed as code. A key difference between your…

Yeah, that sounds very much like the arguments parents gave to those of us who were kids when the web became a thing. "Cool walls of text. Shame you can't tell if any of that is true. You didn't put in work getting that information, and it's the work that matters." Except it's turns out it's not a problem in practice, and "the work" matters only in less than 1% of the cases, and even then, it's much easier done with…

What gets me the most about the hype and the people arguing about it is: if it is so clearly revolutionary and the inevitable future, each minute you spend arguing about it is a minute you waste. People who stumble upon game changing technologies don't brag about it online, they use that edge in silence for as long as possible.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#190

Post by card_zero »

keiferski wrote: post #107

One of the negative consequences of the “modern secular age” is that many very intelligent, thoughtful people feel justified in brushing away millennia of philosophical and religious thought because they deem it outdated or no longer relevant. (The book A Secular Age is a great read on this, btw, I think I’ve recommended it here on HN at least half a dozen times.) And so a result of this is that they fail to notice t…

Or historicism generally. Hegel, "inexorable laws of historical destiny", that sort of thing.
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