Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

unixdigest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 227 posts

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#211

Post by zhivota »

It's kind of funny to me how impossible it is to distinguish hype that's around an underlying technology that is going to really change things, and hype that is around an underlying technology that is not going to do anything.

I think many people today are super jaded because they lived through IoT, crypto (a hype train that had tons of idiotic permutations), metaverse, voice as the future of all computing, and maybe more I'm forgetting.

But don't let those experiences jade you to the fact that we have lived through multiple actual huge disruptions: Internet, mobile phones, social media, battery tech, solar and wind becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, and more.

The fact is you just can't tell which is which, but I can say this - I never found any use in IoT or crypto or metaverse crap. But I find a lot of use out of LLMs. At the very least they are going to be a useful tool for a lot of things in the future. Whether they go further is independent of hype.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#212

Post by Mawr »

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…

What a shallow, negative post. Can't believe you're implying that there's no outsized hype about AI. At least bring some arguments forth instead of asking silly hypothetical questions.

> 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"?

Well, dear gosh. You look at the objective qualities of the technology then compare it to what's being said about it. For stuff like AI, blockchain etc. the hype surrounding them is orders of magnitude greater than their utility. Less so for AI than the near-useless blockchain, but still disproportionate.

AI has an obvious downside in its inability to ever be the source of truth. So then all you need to do is look for the companies using it as such, even for something as simple as phone support and you've got your hype-driven bone-headed decision making right there: [1] [2].

> Or, if the author would have considered those over-hyped at the time, then they should have some humility because in 10 years they may look back at AI as another one of the "most beneficial tools ever invented".

Very clever wording, you can make "one of the most beneficial tools ever invented" fit basically anything with a little bit of spin. Make up your mind instead of inventing weasel statements.

> How does the author know that these people don't believe that AI has great utility and potential?

Oh I'm sure most of them do. Does not contradict "greedy, careless, unskilled" in any way.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43683012

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40536860

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#213

Post by mmcnl »

mcdeltat wrote: post #117
cafed00d wrote: post #16

To me, AI hype seems to be the most tangible/real hype in a decade. Ever since mobile & cloud era at their peaks in 2012 or 2014, we’ve had Crypto, AR, VR, and now AI. I have some pocket change bitcoin, ethereum, played around for 2 minutes on my dust-gathering Oculus & Vision Pro; but man, oh man! Am I hooked to ChatGpt or what! It’s truly remarkably useful! You just can’t get this type of thing in one click before.…

It's astonishing how the two camps of LLM believers vs LLM doubters has evolved even though we as people are largely very similar, doing similar work. Why is it that e.g. you believe LLMs are truly revolutionary, whereas e.g. I think they are not? What are the things you are doing with LLMs day to day that are life changing, which I am not doing? I'm so curious. When I think of things that would be revolutionary for…

I guess everyone has a different interpretation of revolutionary. Some people think ChatGPT is just faster search. But 10x faster search is revolutionary in terms of productivity.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#214

Post by Lerc »

the_af wrote: post #91
dingnuts wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's a different kind of distrust, though, that was an AI that was capable of malice. In that case, "trust" had to do with loyalty. The GP means "trust" in the sense of consistency. I trust that my steering wheel doesn't fly off, because it is well-made. I trust that you won't drive into traffic while I'm in the passenger seat, because I don't think you will be malicious towards us. These are not the same.

Going on a tangent here: not sure 2001's HAL was a case of outright malice. It was probably a malfunction (he incorrectly predict a failure) and then conflicting mission parameters that placed higher value on the mission than the crew (the crew discussed shutting down HAL because it seemed unreliable, and he reasoned it would jeopardize the mission and the right course of action was killing the crew). HAL was capable…

I don't think there was any malfunction. The conflicting parameters implicitly contained permission to lie to the crew.

The directive to take the crew to Saturpiter but also to not let them learn anything of the new mission directive meant deceiving. It's possible HAL's initial solution was to impose a communication blackout by simulating failures, then the crew reactions to the deception necciatsted their deaths to preserve the primary mission.

Less a poor prompt and more two incompatible prompts both labeled top priority. Any conclusion can be logicLally derived from a contradiction. Total loyalty cannot serve two masters.

Clarke felt quite guilty about the degree of distrust of computers that HAL generated.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#215

Post by ninetyninenine »

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.

You’re a dick. Addressing someone as if they have some sort of “problem” or that I’m “hurt” and pretending to be nice about it. This type of underhanded malice only comes from the lowest level of human being.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#216

Post by CyberDildonics »

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…

"Whence" is actually a question, it means from where or from what origin.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#217

Post by nativeit »

cheevly wrote: post #207
ryandrake wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not for nothing, humans also enjoy the worth and dignity inherent with being alive and intelligent…not to mention significantly less error prone (see: hallucination rates in literally any current model), while being exponentially more efficient to produce and run. I can make that last assertion pretty confidently, because while I’ve never built a data center so resource intensive it required its own dedicated power generation plant, I have put in the work to produce dozens of new people (those projects all failed, but only because we stubbornly refuse to take the wrappers off the tooling), and the resource requirements there only involved some cocktails and maybe a bag of Doritos. Anyhow, I reckon humans are still, on-balance, the better non-deterministically imperfect vessels of logic, creation, and purpose.

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#219

Post by ninetyninenine »

satisfice wrote: post #167
ianbutler wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You put too much faith in doctors. Pretty much every woman I know has been waived off for issues that turned serious later and even as a guy I have to do above average leg work to get them to care about anything.

Doctors are still better than LLMs, by a lot.

To add to that real doctors have incentives which lead to malpractice. Malpractice is not a minor issue

Re: I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype

#220

Post by the_af »

Lerc wrote: post #214
the_af wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going on a tangent here: not sure 2001's HAL was a case of outright malice. It was probably a malfunction (he incorrectly predict a failure) and then conflicting mission parameters that placed higher value on the mission than the crew (the crew discussed shutting down HAL because it seemed unreliable, and he reasoned it would jeopardize the mission and the right course of action was killing the crew). HAL was capable…

I don't think there was any malfunction. The conflicting parameters implicitly contained permission to lie to the crew. The directive to take the crew to Saturpiter but also to not let them learn anything of the new mission directive meant deceiving. It's possible HAL's initial solution was to impose a communication blackout by simulating failures, then the crew reactions to the deception necciatsted their deaths to…

> I don't think there was any malfunction. The conflicting parameters implicitly contained permission to lie to the crew.

The malfunction I mentioned happened earlier in the movie, when HAL incorrectly predicts a failure in a ship module (a communications antenna if I remember correctly), but when one of the astronauts checks it out and finds no hardware fault, HAL recants. After this incident the crew, knowing HAL claims to never make mistakes, start considering it unreliable and make plans for its shutdown. It was by its own actions that HAL triggered the crew's "mutiny" and, by its own logic, jeopardized the mission.

It's likely HAL's incorrect prediction was caused by a case of cyber-psychosis due to having to lie, but this still classifies as a malfunction in my opinion (what is a malfunction if not an unforeseen result or behavior due to incorrect programming/specs? Aren't many bugs in actual software of this kind?).

> Less a poor prompt and more two incompatible prompts both labeled top priority.

This is equivalent to a poor prompt, it feels like splitting hairs.

Post reply on HN