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I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

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Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#221

Post by Wowfunhappy »

ffsm8 wrote: post #117
gilbetron wrote: post #109

I get so confused on this. I play around, test, and mess with LLMs all the time and they are miraculous. Just amazing, doing things we dreamed about for decades. I mean, I can ask for obscure things with subtle nuance where I misspell words and mess up my question and it figures it out. It talks to me like a person. It generates really cool images. It helps me write code. And just tons of other stuff that astounds me…

It's definitely a tech that's here to stay, unlike block chain/nfts But I mirror the confusion why people are still bullish on it. The current valuation for it is because the market thinks that it's able to write code like a senior engineer and have AGI, because that's how they're marketed by the LLM providers. I'm not even certain if they'll be ubiquitous after the venture capital investments are gone and the servic…

> because they're (at least currently) mostly pretty expensive to run.

But moore's law should kick in, shouldn't it?

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#222

Post by kylebenzle »

ffsm8 wrote: post #117
gilbetron wrote: post #109

I get so confused on this. I play around, test, and mess with LLMs all the time and they are miraculous. Just amazing, doing things we dreamed about for decades. I mean, I can ask for obscure things with subtle nuance where I misspell words and mess up my question and it figures it out. It talks to me like a person. It generates really cool images. It helps me write code. And just tons of other stuff that astounds me…

It's definitely a tech that's here to stay, unlike block chain/nfts But I mirror the confusion why people are still bullish on it. The current valuation for it is because the market thinks that it's able to write code like a senior engineer and have AGI, because that's how they're marketed by the LLM providers. I'm not even certain if they'll be ubiquitous after the venture capital investments are gone and the servic…

That's a funny comparison, I can and do use cryptocurrency to pay web hosting, VPN and a few other things as it's become the native currency of the internet. I love llms too but agree with the parent comment that says it's inevitable they'll be replaced with something better well Bitcoin seems to be sticking around for the long long term.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#223

Post by jayd16 »

gilbetron wrote: post #109

I get so confused on this. I play around, test, and mess with LLMs all the time and they are miraculous. Just amazing, doing things we dreamed about for decades. I mean, I can ask for obscure things with subtle nuance where I misspell words and mess up my question and it figures it out. It talks to me like a person. It generates really cool images. It helps me write code. And just tons of other stuff that astounds me…

Its fine if you don't care about correctness but a lot of people do.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#224

Post by autoexec »

jryan49 wrote: post #114
gilbetron wrote: post #109

I get so confused on this. I play around, test, and mess with LLMs all the time and they are miraculous. Just amazing, doing things we dreamed about for decades. I mean, I can ask for obscure things with subtle nuance where I misspell words and mess up my question and it figures it out. It talks to me like a person. It generates really cool images. It helps me write code. And just tons of other stuff that astounds me…

It would be fine if it were sold that way, but there is so much hype. We're told that it's going to replace all of us and put us all out our jobs. They set the expectations so high. Like remember OpenAI showing a video of it doing your taxes for you? Predictions that super-intelligent AI is going to radically transform society faster than we can keep up? I think that's where most of the backlash is coming from.

> We're told that it's going to replace all of us and put us all out our jobs.

I think this is the source of a lot of the hype. There are people salivating at the thought of no longer needing to employ the peasant class. They want it so badly that they'll say anything to get more investment in LLMs even if it might only ever allow them to fire a fraction of their workers, and even if their products and services suffer because the output they get with "AI" is worse than what the humans they throw away were providing.

They know they're overselling it, but they're also still on their knees praying that by some miracle their LLMs trained on the collective wisdom of facebook and youtube comments will one day gain actual intelligence and they can stop paying human workers.

In the meantime, they'll shove "AI" into everything they can think of for testing and refinement. They'll make us beta test it for them. They don't really care if their AI makes your customer service experience go to shit. They don't care if their AI screws up your bill. They don't care if their AI rejects your claims or you get denied services you've been paying for and are entitled to. They don't care if their AI unfairly denies you parole or mistakenly makes you the suspect of a crime. They don't care if Dr. Sbaitso 2.0 misdiagnoses you. Your suffering is worth it to them as long as they can cut their headcount by any amount and can keep feeding the AI more and more information because just maybe with enough data one day their greatest dream will become reality, and even if that never happens a lot of people are currently making massive amounts of money selling that lie.

The problem is that the bubble will burst eventually. The more time goes by and AI doesn't live up to the hype the harder that hype becomes to sell. Especially when by shoving AI into everything they're exposing a lot of hugely embarrassing shortcomings. Repeating "AI will happen in just 10 more years" gives people a lot of time to make money and cash out though.

On the plus side, we do get some cool toys to play with and the dream of replacing humans has sparked more interest in robotics so it's not all bad.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#225

Post by MattGaiser »

jasonjayr wrote: post #179
MattGaiser wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans bullshit and hallucinate and claim authority without citation or knowledge. They will believe all manner of things. They frequently misunderstand. The LLM doesn’t need to be perfect. Just needs to beat a typical human. LLM opponents aren’t wrong about the limits of LLMs. They vastly overestimate humans.

LLM's can't be held accountable. And many, many companies are proposing and implementing uses for LLM's to intentionally obscure that accountability. If a person makes up something, innocently or maliciously, and someone believes it and ends up getting harmed, that person can have some liability for the harm. If a LLM hallucinates something, that somone believes and they end up getting harmed, there's no accountabili…

Accountability exists for two reasons:

1. To make those harmed whole. On this, you have a good point. The desire of AI firms or those using AI to be indemnified from the harms their use of AI causes is a problem as they will harm people. But it isn't relevant to the question of whether LLMs are useful or whether they beat a human.

2. To incentivize the human to behave properly. This is moot with LLMs. There is no laziness or competing incentive for them.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#226

Post by walleeee »

codr7 wrote: post #132
tempestn wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it won't do your taxes for you, but it can sure help you do them yourself. Probably won't put you out of your job either, but it might help you accomplish more. Of course, one result of people accomplishing more in less time is that you need fewer people to do the same amount of work - so some jobs could be lost. But it's also possible that for the most part instead, more will be accomplished overall.

People frame that like it's something we gain, efficiency, as if before we were wasting time by thinking for ourselves. I get that they can do certain things better, I'm not sure that delegating to them is free of charge. We're paying something, losing something. Probably learning and fulfillment. We become increasingly dependent on machines to do anything. Something important happened when we turned the tables aroun…

Yes. Use an LLM with any regularity to write code or anything else and the effect becomes perceptible. It discourages effortful thought.

Sometimes the means are just as important as the ends, if not more

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#227

Post by brookst »

ffsm8 wrote: post #117
gilbetron wrote: post #109

I get so confused on this. I play around, test, and mess with LLMs all the time and they are miraculous. Just amazing, doing things we dreamed about for decades. I mean, I can ask for obscure things with subtle nuance where I misspell words and mess up my question and it figures it out. It talks to me like a person. It generates really cool images. It helps me write code. And just tons of other stuff that astounds me…

It's definitely a tech that's here to stay, unlike block chain/nfts But I mirror the confusion why people are still bullish on it. The current valuation for it is because the market thinks that it's able to write code like a senior engineer and have AGI, because that's how they're marketed by the LLM providers. I'm not even certain if they'll be ubiquitous after the venture capital investments are gone and the servic…

Remember the quote that IBM thought there would be a total market for maybe 10 or 15 computer computers in the entire world? They were giant, and expensive, and very limited in application.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#228

Post by oytis »

jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #204
gilbetron wrote: post #109

I get so confused on this. I play around, test, and mess with LLMs all the time and they are miraculous. Just amazing, doing things we dreamed about for decades. I mean, I can ask for obscure things with subtle nuance where I misspell words and mess up my question and it figures it out. It talks to me like a person. It generates really cool images. It helps me write code. And just tons of other stuff that astounds me…

I agree. I recently asked if a certain GPU would fit in a certain computer... And it understood that fit could mean physically inside by could also mean that the interface is compatible, and answered both. WhY aRe PeOpLe BuLlIsH

Did it answer correctly though?

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#229

Post by h0l0cube »

kupopuffs wrote: post #176
ffsm8 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely a tech that's here to stay, unlike block chain/nfts But I mirror the confusion why people are still bullish on it. The current valuation for it is because the market thinks that it's able to write code like a senior engineer and have AGI, because that's how they're marketed by the LLM providers. I'm not even certain if they'll be ubiquitous after the venture capital investments are gone and the servic…

blockchain is here to stay, dont kid yourself

While it could be said that LLMs are in the 'peak of inflated expectations', blockchain is definitely still in the 'trough of disillusionment'. Even if there was a way for blockchain to affordably facilitate everyday transactions without destroying the planet and somehow sideloading into government acceptance, it's not clear that there would be anything novel enough to motivate people to use it vs a bank - beyond a complete collapse of the banking system.

Re: I genuinely don't understand why some people are still bullish about LLMs

#230

Post by cogman10 »

vladms wrote: post #218
Animats wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inbuilt into the models of all LLMs is that they'll fabricate a lot. Still the elephant in the room. We need an AI technology that can output "don't know" when appropriate. How's that coming along?

I have seen many people not saying "don't know" when appropriate. If you believe whomever without some double-checking you will have (bad) surprises. To make another parallel: that's why we have automated testing in software (long before LLMs). Because you can't trust without checking.

And what's you opinion of people that never say "don't know"?

Unless you are in sales or marketing, getting caught lying is really detrimental to your career.

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