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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

#191

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

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…

Not automatically, but you don't give a new employee unfettered access to delete data, send funds, enter contracts; they tend to be overseen by someone. Separately, the expectation is that they prove themselves a little first ( as opposed to having every possible door opened for them without the understanding that friction is there for a reason ).

Edit: Something got cut. But then CEOs ( and other decision makers, because I am dealing with something like it now ) treat them nearly as humans in terms of perceived capability. AND ( part that personally drives me nuts ) without any real testing or even fucking first hand experience beyond 'it made me a cool presentation'.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#192

Post by mcmcmc »

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…

> It will delete your prod db faster and with a bigger smile than your most upset employee.

It will do this without any feeling whatsoever, without "knowing" what it is doing, because it is a predictive model and not a living being with thoughts and emotions. Anthropomorphizing software is lazy and dangerous.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#193

Post by 1attice »

krupan wrote: post #112
1attice wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living under its constant threat sure is bad for the ol MH tho isn't it. The pathology is that we have this system in the first place.

"this system" is wild when you are talking about the universe we evolved in

Breathtaking that you view trillionaires and casino capitalism as a state of nature.

I imagine you imagine our primitive ancestors in the canopy, glancing at their iPhones to see how their property value is doing.

But the truth is, we didn't even have this level of thoroughgoing, casual precarity as recently as fifty years ago.

Or even twenty.

There was a time, even in my memory, where rents were tolerable and housing within reach.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#194

Post by BenFranklin100 »

This line jumped out at me:

“In other words, AI is on track to perform at base competence on most tasks in about three years. These researchers believe agents will need another few years to outperform humans”

LLMs have shown steady improvements, but it’s a big assumption they will continue their performance gains, and specifically, that it’s a simple matter of time before they surpass human level performance on “most tasks”. (In six years no less!) The author is claiming LLMs are fundamentally AGI capable.

This is not going to end well. At least I will be able to pick up used DDR5 memory and GPUs on the cheap in the not too distant future.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#195

Post by bauldursdev »

themanmaran wrote: post #188
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…

> If a junior makes a mistake and it will not be caught in time they will automatically learn. I think this sentiment applies well to junior software engineers (with mentorship). But imagine the much larger swaths of entry level employees in operations, support, or sales functions. When you have a 400 person team with 20% annual turnover (since people move in / out of entry level jobs frequently), the management + tr…

Ya my experience is that many people honestly don't produce output as good as AI. An educated (formally or informally), experienced person who is putting forward good effort is better than AI, but I do know people who honestly just produce results having AI do it for them.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#196

Post by drngdds »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #181
WalterBright wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author calling it "psychosis" discredits the author.

Psychosis is a medical term for a collection of symptoms that indicate a loss of contact with reality. He posits that reality is that AI cannot automate nearly as many things as people believe it can, while C-suites ignore that reality and dive head first into belief without evidence. Tell me how using that term discredits the author.

That's not psychosis, that's just being wrong. Perhaps read something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#197

Post by SecretDreams »

moffkalast wrote: post #158
harshreality wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will delete your prod db faster and with a bigger smile than your most upset employee. You're right, that was incorrect. I've discovered my error. I should have deleted the filesystem instead of the database. That hasn't solved the problem either. Let me examine my options. I see there are cloud services involved in this project. Decommissioning them will solve the problem.

I was reading some posts on r/locallama the other day and apparently it's a common problem that when people try to use Qwen to develop something that hosts a server, it'll try to use the same port as vllm, see that it's already being used, then it'll try to remove the process that is using it and promptly commit suicide. The self awareness of missile tasked with blowing up its own control center.

> then it'll try to remove the process that is using it and promptly commit suicide.

Not unlike a child trying to take the safety cover off a plug so that they can stick a fork into it.

LLMs need that "world model" view that most people have acquired by their 20s where they (hopefully) stop to ask "why" before they "do".

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#198

Post by [deleted] »

the_af wrote: post #97
john_strinlai wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe the html part is unique to ai, i suppose. but a c-suite picking up some tool, making a toy example, then declaring “well doing X is super easy, roll it out” (or “change the kpi”, etc.) is something i have seen dozens of times.

HTML is not relevant here. I think the problem is that LLMs are qualitatively different. "No code" tools are usually just tools. They have the pitfalls you describe, but they aren't ego stroking machines like LLMs. LLMs not only share the same pitfalls, they also encourage you to make the dumbest things. They will make this CEO believe they are the smartest engineer in the world, "you're building exactly the right pr…

[deleted]

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#199

Post by mcmcmc »

ssl-3 wrote: post #139
causal wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be psychosis. > Psychosis is the term for a collection of symptoms that happen when a person has trouble telling the difference between what’s real and what’s not[0] For many seemingly intelligent, rational, competent humans AI has become a layer between them and reality that has absolutely sabotaged their ability to know what is real. [0] https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/23012-psychos...

There probably are a non-zero number of people in the world who are afflicted with real-live AI psychosis. For everyone else, that term is being applied with disingenuous levels of incompetence.

AI-induced psychosis... "AI Psychosis" is not a real thing. People who aren't psych professionals should stop trying to make psych diagnoses. I made another comment in another thread about this that got downvoted to hell, but as someone who has experienced actual psychosis (several years ago, unrelated to AI) it's extremely grating to see "AI Psychosis" become part of the zeitgeist, especially when psychosis is still highly stigmatized.

Re: Tech CEOs are apparently suffering from AI psychosis

#200

Post by [deleted] »

drngdds wrote: post #196
IAmGraydon wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Psychosis is a medical term for a collection of symptoms that indicate a loss of contact with reality. He posits that reality is that AI cannot automate nearly as many things as people believe it can, while C-suites ignore that reality and dive head first into belief without evidence. Tell me how using that term discredits the author.

That's not psychosis, that's just being wrong. Perhaps read something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosis

[deleted]
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