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A new AI winter is coming?

taranis.ie

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Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#221

Post by light_hue_1 »

riku_iki wrote: post #178
light_hue_1 wrote: post #101

As someone who is an expert in the area, everything in this article is misleading nonsense, failing at even the most basic CS101 principles. The level of confusion here is astounding. > People were saying that this meant that the AI winter was over The last AI winter was over 20 years ago. Transformers came during an AI boom. > First time around, AI was largely symbolic Neural networks were already hot and the state…

> This isn't what Turing-completeness is. And by definition all practical computing is not a Turing Machine, simply because TMs require an infinite tape. I think you are too triggered and entitled in your nit-picking. Its obvious in potentially limited universe infinite tape can't exists, but for practical purpose in CS, turing-completeness means expressiveness of logic to emulate TM regardless of tape size.

I was saying the same thing you were, this is the original post:

> If you allow a transformer to keep generating tokens indefinitely this is probably Turing-complete, though nobody actually does that because of the cost.

Either they're equivalent to Turning machines or not. Claiming that practically they aren't because no one runs them long enough defeats the very notion of a Turning machine in the first place.

I'm shocked a post like this that isn't even at the level of an intro to computation class is getting attention.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#222

Post by gishh »

LatencyKills wrote: post #207
youwatnow wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> as someone who is a sociopath completely devoid of ethics Ah yes... the hundred thousand researchers and engineers who work at MS are all evil. Many people who've made truly significant contributions to AI have either worked directly (through MS Research) or indirectly (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc) at MS. ResNet and concepts like Differential Privacy were invented there. What about the researchers at Stanford, Carnegie…

Discover, not invent

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#223

Post by orwin »

int_19h wrote: post #203
orwin wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its mostly metallurgy. The fact that we became so much better and precise at metallurgy enabled us to make use of steam machines. Of course a lot of stuff helped (Glassmaking, whale oil immediatly come to mind) but mostly, metallurgy.

I remember reading an article that argued that it was basically a matter of being path dependent. The earliest steam engines that could do useful work were notoriously large and fuel-inefficient, which is why their first application was for pumps in coal mines - it effectively made the fuel problem moot and similarly their other limitations were not important in that context, while at the same time rising wages in UK…

If we go by that analogy, i think LLMs (and all of current programming automation like compilers) are just different mechanical parts. They will improve in quality, in precision, surrounding product will make them even more effective (MCP is vulcanized rubber here? :D), but they aren't coal or even the steam engine.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#224

Post by gishh »

goncharom wrote: post #133
gishh wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If i could understand what the brain scans actually meant, I would consider it a good representation. I don't think we know yet what they mean. I saw some headline the other day about a person with "low brain activity" and said person was in complete denial about it, I would be too.

As I said then, and probably echoing what other commenters are saying - what do you mean by understanding when you say computers understand nothing? do humans understand anything? if so, how?

Does a computer understand how hot or cold it is outside? Does it understand that your offspring might be cranky because they’re hungry? Or not hungry, just tired? Can it divine the difference?

Does a computer know if your boss is mad at you or if they had a fight with their spouse last night, or whatever other reason they may be grumpy?

Can a computer establish relationships… with anything?

How about when a computer goes through puberty? Or menopause? Or a car accident? How do those things affect them?

Don’t bother responding, I think you get the point.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#225

Post by riku_iki »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #221
riku_iki wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This isn't what Turing-completeness is. And by definition all practical computing is not a Turing Machine, simply because TMs require an infinite tape. I think you are too triggered and entitled in your nit-picking. Its obvious in potentially limited universe infinite tape can't exists, but for practical purpose in CS, turing-completeness means expressiveness of logic to emulate TM regardless of tape size.

I was saying the same thing you were, this is the original post: > If you allow a transformer to keep generating tokens indefinitely this is probably Turing-complete, though nobody actually does that because of the cost. Either they're equivalent to Turning machines or not. Claiming that practically they aren't because no one runs them long enough defeats the very notion of a Turning machine in the first place. I'm s…

> Claiming that practically they aren't because no one runs them long enough defeats the very notion of a Turning machine in the first place.

I think this is your own conclusion, which can't be strictly derived from citation.

Here, I am just nit-picking on your nit-picking, I don't think this discussion is productive or intresting.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#226

Post by starchild3001 »

The author is conflating a financial correction with a technological failure.

I agree that the economics of GenAI are currently upside down. The CapEx spend is eye-watering, and the path to profitability for the foundational model providers is still hazy. We are almost certainly in an age of inflated-expectations hype-cycle peak that will self-correct, and yes, "winter is harsh on tulips".

However, the claim that the technology itself is a failure is objectively disconnected from reality. Unlike crypto or VR (in their hype cycles), LLMs found immediate, massive product-market fit. I use K-means clustering and logistic regression every day; they aren't AGI either, but they aren't failures.

If 95% of corporate AI projects fail, it's not because the tech is broken; it's because middle management is aspiring to replace humans with a terminal-bound chatbot instead of giving workers an AI companion. The tech isn't going away, even if AI valuations might be questioned in the short term.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#227

Post by Abekkus »

ryanjshaw wrote: post #40
Barathkanna wrote: post #37

Interesting take. His argument is basically that LLMs have hit their architectural ceiling and the industry is running on hype and unsustainable economics. I’m not fully convinced, but the points about rising costs and diminishing returns are worth paying attention to. The gap between what these models can actually do and what they’re marketed as might become a real problem if progress slows.

The existence of an AI hype train doesn’t mean there isn’t a productive AI no-hype train. Context: I have been writing software for 30 years. I taught myself assembly language and hacked games/apps as a kid, and have been a professional developer for 20 years. I’m not a noob. I’m currently building a real-time research and alerting side project using a little army of assistant AI developers. Given a choice, I would n…

If you're using cloud AI assistants, they're being heavily discounted to you by investors, for now. Those discounts won't exist forever.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#228

Post by dragonwriter »

anthonypasq wrote: post #211
dragonwriter wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI may be the worst, but I am pretty sure Anthropic is still bleeding money on AI, and I would expect a bunch of smaller dedicated AI firms are too; Google is the main firm with competitive commercial models at the high end across multiple domains that is funding AI efforts largely from its own operations (and even there, AI isn’t self sufficient, its just an internal rather than an external subsidy.)

Dario has said many times over that each model is profitable if viewed as a product that had development costs and operational costs just like any other product from any other business ever.

What that means, and whether it means much of anything at all depends on the assumed “useful life” of the model used to set the amortization period assumed for the development costs.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#229

Post by stingraycharles »

buildbot wrote: post #120
stingraycharles wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’ve been programming for 30+ years, you definitely don’t fall under the category of “non-programmers”. You have decades upon decades of experience on how to approach software development and solve problems. You know the right questions to ask. The actual non-programmers I see on Reddit are having discussions about topics such as “I don’t believe that technical debt is a real thing” and “how can I go back in tim…

People learning to code always have had those questions and issues though. For example, “git ate my code’ or “I don’t believe in python using white space as a bracket so I’m going to end all my blocks with #endif”

Yes, I’m not saying this is new, I’m giving examples of what struggles non-programmers have.

Re: A new AI winter is coming?

#230

Post by judgmentday »

LatencyKills wrote: post #207
youwatnow wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> as someone who is a sociopath completely devoid of ethics Ah yes... the hundred thousand researchers and engineers who work at MS are all evil. Many people who've made truly significant contributions to AI have either worked directly (through MS Research) or indirectly (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc) at MS. ResNet and concepts like Differential Privacy were invented there. What about the researchers at Stanford, Carnegie…

T2 would have been a different movie if Miles Dyson just said to Sarah Connor: "The tech was fantastic to work with, we had an amazing team, and I am proud of what we accomplished."
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