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I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

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Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#201

Post by edanm »

mcdeltat wrote: post #179
bredren wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I imagine: something that could input a description + a few resources, and write all the code, docs, etc for me It could be that you’re falling into a complete solution fallacy. LLMs can already be great at working each of these problems. It helps to work on a small piece of these problems. It does take practice and any sufficiently complicated problem will require practice and multiple attempts. But the more you p…

But the complete solution fallacy is what the believers are claiming will occur, isn't it? I'm 100% with you that LLMs will make subsets of problems easier. Similar to how great progress in image recognition has been made with other ML techniques. That seems like a very reasonable take. However, that wouldn't be "revolutionary", I don't think. That's not "fire all your developers because most jobs will be replaced by…

The thing is you're doing what a lot of critics do - lumping together different people saying different things about LLMs into one bucket - "believers" - and attributing the biggest "hype" predictions to all of them.

Yes, some people are saying the "complete solution" will occur - they might be right or might be wrong. But this whole thread with someone saying LLMs today are useful, so it's not hype. That's a whole different claim that is almost objective, or at least hard for you to disprove. It's people literally saying "I'm using this tool today in a way that is useful to me".

Of course, you also said: > Keeping in mind that most of our jobs are ultimately largely pointless anyway, so that implies a limit on the true usefulness of any tool.

Yeah, if you think most of the economy and most economic activity people do is pointless, that colors a lot about how you look at things. I don't think that's accurate and have no idea how you can even coherently hold that position.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#202

Post by crystal_revenge »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #67
sqs wrote: post #17

What a shallow, negative post. "Hype" is tautologically bad. Being negative and "above the hype" makes you sound smart, but this post adds nothing to the discussion and is just as fuzzy as the hype it criticizes. > It is a real shame that some of the most beneficial tools ever invented, such as computers, modern databases, data centers, etc. exist in an industry that has become so obsessed with hype and trends that i…

>> Would not the author have claimed at the time that those technologies were also "hype"? What consistent principle does the author use (a priori) to separate "useful facts" from "hype"? Are you saying someone hyped ... databases? In the same way as AI is hyped today? This is a tweet from Sam Altman, dated April 18 2025: https://x.com/sama/status/1913320105804730518 Whence I quote: i think this is gonna be more like…

> Are you saying someone hyped ... databases?

I was too young to remember databases but I vividly remember people (sometimes even myself) thinking “the web”, “smart phones”, “e-commerce“,“social media” and “cloud computing” all being “hype”.

Thinking about this was ultimately what led me to giving up my AI skepticism and diving into the space.

At this point I actually don’t know how people sincerely think AI is “hype”. For me, and many people I know, there are multiple AI tools that I’m not sure how I would get by without.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#203

Post by lgrapenthin »

kristianp wrote: post #162
lgrapenthin wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is a better search engine. The AI hype however is the promise that it will be smarter (not just more knowledgeable) than humans and replace all jobs. And it isn't on the way there. Just today, a leading state of the art model, that supposedly passed all the most difficult math entry exams and whatever they "benchmark", reasoned with the assumption of "60 days in January". It would simply assume that and…

It's not a better search engine, it's qualitatively different to search. An LLM compose its answers based on what you ask it. Search returns pre-existing texts to you.

If search was only about finding existing texts, LLMs would be qualitatively worse, as they frequently misquote or even invent non existing sources.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#204

Post by alganet »

DavidPiper wrote: post #197
alganet wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meant "premise", and reality. In the economic competition frame you initially used, they are not that strong.

Hmm I think I see what you mean - and that's fair. I guess I'm a bit too conservative to trust I'd get out soon enough (in financial investment, or work time spent) if the hype doesn't materialise. And if it does, there's always time to learn a new domain, etc. Fancy me pushing into the Late Majority of the bell curve. Must be getting old.

There are multiple overlapping bell curves. It is safe to assume that you don't even know if you are riding the wave you meant to ride.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#205

Post by latexr »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #199
latexr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I invite you to reread what I wrote and think about your comment. You’re making a rampant straw man, literally putting in quotes things I have never said or argued for. Please engage with what was written, not the imaginary enemy in your head. There’s no reason for you to be this irrationally angry.

You wish I didn’t read it. You said we never wished for this “level” of AI. We did man. We did. And we couldn’t even approach 2 percent of what we wished for and everybody knew we couldn’t even approach that. Now we have AI that approaches 70 percent of what we wished for. It’s AI smarter than a mentally retarded person. That means current AI is likely smarter than 10 percent of the population. Then we have geniuses…

I genuinely wish whatever is hurting you in life ceases. You are being deeply, irrationally antagonistic and sound profoundly unwell. I hope you’ll be able to perceive that. I honestly recommend you take some time off from the internet, we all should from time to time. You clearly are currently unfit for a reasoned discussion and I do not wish to add to your pain. All the best.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#206

Post by cheevly »

latexr wrote: post #205
ninetyninenine wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wish I didn’t read it. You said we never wished for this “level” of AI. We did man. We did. And we couldn’t even approach 2 percent of what we wished for and everybody knew we couldn’t even approach that. Now we have AI that approaches 70 percent of what we wished for. It’s AI smarter than a mentally retarded person. That means current AI is likely smarter than 10 percent of the population. Then we have geniuses…

I genuinely wish whatever is hurting you in life ceases. You are being deeply, irrationally antagonistic and sound profoundly unwell. I hope you’ll be able to perceive that. I honestly recommend you take some time off from the internet, we all should from time to time. You clearly are currently unfit for a reasoned discussion and I do not wish to add to your pain. All the best.

Can you diagnose me too? Because you are peak facepalm right now and I can’t cringe harder. So please tell me to touch grass so I can go heal from the damage you caused my brain from having to read you.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#207

Post by cheevly »

ryandrake wrote: post #145
ninetyninenine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was never this level of AI. You're completely out of it. We couldn't even get AI to hold a freaking conversation. It was so bad we came up with this thing called the turing test and that was the benchmark. Now people like you are all, like "well it's obvious the turing test was garbage". No. It's not obvious. It's the hype got to your head. If we found a way to travel at light speed for 3 dollars the hype would b…

LLMs are glorified, overhyped autocomplete systems that fail, but in different, nondeterministic ways than existing autocomplete systems fail. They are neat, but unreliable toys, not “more profound than fire or electricity” as has been breathless claimed.

You just literally described humans; and the meta lack of awareness reinforces itself. You cyclicly devalue your own point.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#208

Post by cheevly »

manoDev wrote: post #177
kadushka wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LLMs do about half of my work for me. Today I spent most of my time interacting with o3 and 2.5-pro and I have accomplished what would take me 3 days to accomplish in the past. That’s real impact.

LLMs can’t do anything for my work besides being an alternative to Google, and even then I need to double check on another source. You get a lot of positive reinforcement from positive opinions online, but the people who don’t depend on this to work won’t be vocal about it.

If you are involved in knowledge work, please pay me to automate your job with LLMs for you. I’m able to take on any breadth of work thrown my way, so looking forward to your outreach.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#209

Post by alganet »

kadushka wrote: post #146
ninetyninenine wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was never this level of AI. You're completely out of it. We couldn't even get AI to hold a freaking conversation. It was so bad we came up with this thing called the turing test and that was the benchmark. Now people like you are all, like "well it's obvious the turing test was garbage". No. It's not obvious. It's the hype got to your head. If we found a way to travel at light speed for 3 dollars the hype would b…

I remember how ~5 years ago I said - here on HN - that AI will pass TT within 2 years. I was downvoted into oblivion. People said I was delusional and that it won’t happen in their lifetime.

The test has been laxed by previous generations.

You miss the people who were skeptic about the details of the test since the very beginning. There are those too.

Moving the goalpost is a human behavior. The human part should be able to do it. The passing AI should also be able to do it.

Many challenges that AI still struggles with, like identifying what is funny in complex multi-layered false cognates jokes, are still simpler for humans.

I trust it can get there. That doesn't mean we are already in a good enough place.

Maybe there is a point in which we should consider if keeping testing it is ethical. Humans are also paranoid, fragile, emotionally sensitive. Those are human things. Making a machine that "passes it" is kind of a questionable decision (thankfully, not mine to make).

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#210

Post by HDThoreaun »

latexr wrote: post #45
ninetyninenine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one of the stupidest concepts on the face of the earth and tons of people ascribe to it unknowingly: hype = bad. AI is one of the most revolutionary things to ever happen in the last couple of years. But with enough hype tons of people now think it's complete garbage. I'm literally shocked how we can spend a couple decades fantasizing and writing stories about this level of AI, only to be bored of it in two year…

> I'm literally shocked how we can spend a couple decades fantasizing and writing stories about this level of AI It was never this level of AI. The stories we wrote and fantasised were about AI you could blindly rely on, trust, and reason about. No one ever fantasised about AI which couldn’t accurately count the number of letters in a common word or that would give you provably wrong information in an assertive autho…

> It was never this level of AI.

People have been dreaming of an AI that can pass the turing test for close to a century. We have accomplished that. I get moving the goalposts since the turing test leaves a lot to be desired, but pretending you didnt is crazy. We have absolutely accomplished the stuff of dreams with AI

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