"You're absolutely right!"
Those models are geared towards continuing the text. I have my impression that without that, the model would disagree much more as a chat/conversation
LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
181–190 of 202 posts
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
Slogans are not promises, they are vague feelings. In the case of Coca-Cola, I know someone who might literally agree with the happiness part of it (though I certainly wouldn’t). The promises of Theranos and LLMs are concrete measurable things we can evaluate and report where they succeed, fall short, or are lies.
Sure but equating Theranos and LLMs seems a bit disingenuous. Theranos was an outright scam that never produced any results, whereas LMMs might not have (yet?) lived up to all the marketing promises (you might call them slogans?) they made, but they definitely provided some real measurable value.
> (you might call them slogans?)
You’re being ridiculous. These are not slogans, and no one arguing in good faith would claim they are.
https://youtu.be/l0K4XPu3Qhg?t=60
> but they definitely provided some real measurable value.
Something which provides value can still be a scam.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614364
I addressed all your points some eight levels up the thread.
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#183More like LLMs are 400-year-long project we're confident "just works"?
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#184I think it's interesting how gamers have developed a pretty healthy aversion to generative ai in video games. Steam and Itch both now make it mandatory that games disclose generative ai use and recently even beloved Larian Studios was under fire for using ai for concept art. Gamers hate that shit. I think that's good, but the whole "AI is literally not doing anything", that it's just some mass hallucination has to di…
> Gamers hate that shit. Unless AI is used for code (which it is, surely, almost everywhere), then Gamers don't give a damn. Also, Larian didn't use it for concept art, they used it to generate the first mood board to give to the concept artist as a guideline. And then there is Ark Raiders, who uses AI for all their VO, and that game is a massive hit. This is just a breathless bubble, the wider gaming audience couldn…
> they used it to generate the first mood board
Btw there was an update on this, larian did an AMA on reddit because of the backlash because the "just moodboard" excuse didn't satisfy many, they are now saying they won't use ai for anything at all:
> We already said this doesn’t mean the actual concept art is generated by AI but we understand it created confusion. So, to ensure there is no room for doubt, we’ve decided to refrain from using genAI tools during concept art development. That way there can be no discussion about the origin of the art.
https://www.ign.com/articles/everything-we-learned-about-div...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1q870w5/larian_studi...
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
But saying it's a confidence trick is saying it's a con. That they're trying to sell someone something that doesn't work. Th op is saying it makes then 10x more productive, so how is that a con?
The marketing says it does more than that. This isn't just a problem unique to LLMs either. We have laws about false advertising for a reason. It's going on all the time. In this case the tech is new so the lines are blurry. But to the technically inclined, it's very obvious where they are. LLMs are artificial, but they are not literally intelligent. Calling them "AI" is a scam. I hope that it's only a matter of time…
How does one go about competing at the IMO without "intelligence", exactly? At a minimum it seems we are forced to admit that the machines are smarter than the test authors.
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#186I disagree with the "confidence trick" framing completely. My belief in this tech isn't based on marketing hype or someone telling me it's good – it's based on cold reality of what I'm shipping daily. The productivity gains I'm seeing right now are unprecedented. Even a year ago this wouldn't have been possible, it really feels like an inflection point. I'm seeing legitimate 10x gains because I'm not writing code any…
> The productivity gains I'm seeing right now are unprecedented. How long have you been in the industry? This does not seem a revolution compared with database standardization, abandonment of assembly for most coding, introduction of game engines, etc. I see a lot of hype for LLMs from people that do not have the experience to compare them to anything else.
I been doing development for over 25 years and I completely agree with what they are saying. It's similar to going from punch cards to terminals. We were using assembly, COBOL, and Fortran in the 1990's and into the early 2000s. Zork even had a game engine. These are not the revolutions you think and have no hard cut off when change happened.
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#187I disagree with the "confidence trick" framing completely. My belief in this tech isn't based on marketing hype or someone telling me it's good – it's based on cold reality of what I'm shipping daily. The productivity gains I'm seeing right now are unprecedented. Even a year ago this wouldn't have been possible, it really feels like an inflection point. I'm seeing legitimate 10x gains because I'm not writing code any…
haha enterprise python/django! that was good
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even assuming all of what you said is true, none of it disproves the arguments in the article. You're talking about the technology, the article is about the marketing of the technology. The LLM marketing exploits fear and sympathy. It pressures people into urgency. Those things can be shown and have been shown. Whether or not the actual LLM based tools genuinely help you has nothing to do with that.
The point of the article is to paint LLMs as a confidence trick, the keyword being trick. If LLMs do actually deliver very real, tangible benefits then can you say there is really a trick? If a street performer was doing the cup and ball scam, but I actually won and left with more money than I started with then I'd say that's a pretty bad trick! Of course it is a little more nuanced than this and I would agree that s…
A huge amount of tech is a confidence trick. Not one aimed at It's not LLMs they care about, it's datacenter ownership. US political norms empower owners. If you think of a DC as a mega church and remote users the disciple, it makes the desired network effect obvious. That is leveraged to sway Congress and states.
These tech projects are not intended for users. They're designed to gain confidence of politicians, preferential political support.
Gen pop is not the market. DC is.
Most peoples individual data crunching problems can be resolved with a TI graphing calculator.
Big Tech convinced Congress that culture of helpless consumers of their data center outputs is simpler and will lead humanity to a forever growth future!... nevermind they will all be dead, unable to verify.
A con trick that worked great on older, more religious leaning Americans. One that's not working so well on the younger generation who know how these systems work.
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#189I disagree with the "confidence trick" framing completely. My belief in this tech isn't based on marketing hype or someone telling me it's good – it's based on cold reality of what I'm shipping daily. The productivity gains I'm seeing right now are unprecedented. Even a year ago this wouldn't have been possible, it really feels like an inflection point. I'm seeing legitimate 10x gains because I'm not writing code any…
And you not only use the emdash once -- you use it twice
Re: LLMs are a 400-year-long confidence trick
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. By now I don’t understand how anyone can still argue in the abstract while it’s trivial to simply give it a try and collect cold, hard facts. It’s like arguing that the piano in the room is out of tune and not bothering to walk over to the piano and hit its keys.
So I tried it and it is worse that having random dude from Fiverr write you code — it is actively malicious and goes out of it's way do decieve and to subtly sabotage existing working code. Do I now get the right to talk badly about all LLM coding, or is there another exercise I need to take?
Hey, serious question that I ask in good faith: would you be open to a screensharing session, where we compare approaches and experiences?