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Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

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Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#231

Post by threethirtytwo »

mjr00 wrote: post #151
nl wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is some limited truth in this but we still see claims that LLMs are "just next token predictors" and "just regurgitate code they read online". These are just uninformed and wrong views. It's fair to say that these people were (are!) wrong.

> we still see claims that LLMs are "just next token predictors" and "just regurgitate code they read online". These are just uninformed and wrong views. It's fair to say that these people were (are!) wrong. I don't think it's fair to say that at all. How are LLMs not statistical models that predict tokens? It's a big oversimplification but it doesn't seem wrong , the same way that "computers are electricity running…

It's wrong because it’s deliberately used to mischaracterize the current abilities of AI. Technically it's not wrong but the context of usage in basically every case is that the person saying it is deliberately trying to use the concept to downplay AI as just a pattern matching machine.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#232

Post by layer8 »

etra0 wrote: post #127

LLMs have certainly become extremely useful for Software Engineers, they're very convincing (and pleasers, too) and I'm still unsure about the future of our day-to-day job. But one thing that has scared me the most, is the trust of LLMs output to the general society. I believe that for software engineers it's really easy to see if it's being useful or not -- We can just run the code and see if the output is what we e…

> We can just run the code and see if the output is what we expected

There is a vast gap between the output happening to be what you expect and code being actually correct.

That is, in a way, also the fundamental issue with LLMs: They are designed to produce “expected” output, not correct output.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#233

Post by laterium »

etra0 wrote: post #127

LLMs have certainly become extremely useful for Software Engineers, they're very convincing (and pleasers, too) and I'm still unsure about the future of our day-to-day job. But one thing that has scared me the most, is the trust of LLMs output to the general society. I believe that for software engineers it's really easy to see if it's being useful or not -- We can just run the code and see if the output is what we e…

The issue you're overlooking is the scarcity of experts. You're comparing the current situation to an alternative universe where every person can ask a doctor their questions 10 times a day and instantly get an accurate response.

That is not the reality we're living in. Doctors barely give you 5 minutes even if you get an appointment days or weeks in advance. There is just nobody to ask. The alternatives today are

1) Don't ask, rely on yourself, definitely worse than asking a doctor

2) Ask an LLM, which gets you 80-90% of the way there.

3) Google it and spend hours sifting through sponsored posts and scams, often worse than relying on yourself.

The hallucinations that happen are massively outweighed by the benefits people get by asking them. Perfect is the enemy of good enough, and LLMs are good enough.

Much more important also is that LLMs don't try to scam you, don't try to fool you, don't look out for their own interests. Their mistakes are not intentional. They're fiduciaries in the best sense, just like doctors are, probably even more so.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#234

Post by daveguy »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #88
dejv wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do LLMs make bad code: yes all the time (at the moment zero clue about good architecture). Are they still useful: yes, extremely so." Well, lets see how all the economics will play out. LLMs might be really useful, but as far as I can see all the AI companies are not making money on inference alone. We might be hitting plateau in capabilities with money being raised on vision of being this godlike tech that will cha…

They're not making money on inference alone because they blow ungodly amounts on R&D. Otherwise it'd be a very profitable business.

Private equity will swoop in, bankrupt the company to shirk the debt of training / R&D, and hold on to the models in a restructuring. +Enshittification to squeeze maximum profit. This is why they're referred to as vulture capitalists.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#235

Post by bgwalter »

laterium wrote: post #233
etra0 wrote: post #127

LLMs have certainly become extremely useful for Software Engineers, they're very convincing (and pleasers, too) and I'm still unsure about the future of our day-to-day job. But one thing that has scared me the most, is the trust of LLMs output to the general society. I believe that for software engineers it's really easy to see if it's being useful or not -- We can just run the code and see if the output is what we e…

The issue you're overlooking is the scarcity of experts. You're comparing the current situation to an alternative universe where every person can ask a doctor their questions 10 times a day and instantly get an accurate response. That is not the reality we're living in. Doctors barely give you 5 minutes even if you get an appointment days or weeks in advance. There is just nobody to ask. The alternatives today are 1)…

> Much more important also is that LLMs don't try to scam you, don't try to fool you, don't look out for their own interests.

They follow their corporations instead. Just look at the status-quoism of the free "Google AI" and the constant changes in Grok, where xAI is increasingly locking down Grok, perhaps to stay in line with EU regulations. But Grok is also increasingly pro-billionaire.

Copilot was completely locked down on anything political before the 2024 election.

They all scam you according to their training and system prompts. Have you seen the minute change in the system prompt that led to MechaHitler?

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#236

Post by threethirtytwo »

mjr00 wrote: post #122
bachmeier wrote: post #99

> Programmers resistance to AI assisted programming has lowered considerably. Even if LLMs make mistakes, the ability of LLMs to deliver useful code and hints improved to the point most skeptics started to use LLMs anyway: now the return on the investment is acceptable for many more folks. I'm not a fan of this phrasing. Use of the terms "resistance" and "skeptics" implies they were wrong. It's important we don't eng…

"Skeptics" is also a loaded term; what does it actually mean? I find LLMs incredibly useful for various programming tasks (generating code, searching documentation, and yes with enough setup agents can accomplish some tasks), but I also don't believe they have actual intelligence, nor do I think they will eviscerate programming jobs, the same way that Python and JavaScript didn't eviscerate programming jobs despite l…

You're not a skeptic but you're not fully a supporter either. You live in this grey zone of contradictions.

First you find them useful but not intelligent. That is a bit of a contradiction. Basically anyone who has used AI, seriously knows that while it can be used to regurgitate generic filler and bootstrap code it can also be used to solve complex domain specific problems that is not at all part of its training data. This by definition makes it intelligent and it makes it so we know the LLM understands the problem it was given. it would be This by definition makes it intelligent, and it makes it so we know the LLM understands the problem it was given. It would be disingenuous for me not to mention how wrong and how much an LLM hallucinates, so obviously the thing has flaws and is not super intelligence. But you have to judge the entire spectrum of what it does. It gets things right and it gets things wrong and getting something complex right makes it intelligent while getting something wrong does not predude it from intelligence.

Second most non skeptics aren't saying all human work is going to be obsolete. no one can predict the future. But you've got to be blind if you don't see the trendline of progress. Literally look at the progress of AI for the past 15 years. You have to be next level delusional if you can't project another 15 years and see that obviously a super intelligence or at least an intelligence comparable to humans is not a reasonable prediction. Most skeptics like you ignore the trendline and cling to what Yann lecunn said about llms being stochastic parrots. It is very likely something with human intelligence exists in the future and in our lifetimes, whether or not its an LLM remains to be seen but we can't ignore where the trendlines are pointing.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#237

Post by daveguy »

qsort wrote: post #58
dhpe wrote: post #43

I have programmed 30K+ hours. Do LLMs make bad code: yes all the time (at the moment zero clue about good architecture). Are they still useful: yes, extremely so. The secret sauce is that you'd know exactly what to do without them.

One of the mental frameworks that convinced me is how much of a "free action" it is. Have the LLM (or the agent) churn on some problem and do something else. Come back and review the result. If you had to put significant effort into each query, I agree it wouldn't be worth it, but you can just type something into the textbox and wait.

Are you counting the time/effort to evaluate the accuracy and relevance of an LLM left to "think" for a while?

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#238

Post by eastbound »

laterium wrote: post #233
etra0 wrote: post #127

LLMs have certainly become extremely useful for Software Engineers, they're very convincing (and pleasers, too) and I'm still unsure about the future of our day-to-day job. But one thing that has scared me the most, is the trust of LLMs output to the general society. I believe that for software engineers it's really easy to see if it's being useful or not -- We can just run the code and see if the output is what we e…

The issue you're overlooking is the scarcity of experts. You're comparing the current situation to an alternative universe where every person can ask a doctor their questions 10 times a day and instantly get an accurate response. That is not the reality we're living in. Doctors barely give you 5 minutes even if you get an appointment days or weeks in advance. There is just nobody to ask. The alternatives today are 1)…

Excellent way of putting it. Just a nitpick: People should look up in medical encyclopedias/research papers/libraries, not blogs. It requires the ability to find and summarize… which is exactly what AI is excellent at.

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#239

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

RussianCow wrote: post #159
twoodfin wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like any information can’t be taken as fact, it can just be rolled into your world view and discarded if useful or not. The concern, I think, is that for many that “discard function” is not, “Is this information useful?”. Instead: “Does this information reinforce my existing world view?” That feedback loop and where it leads is potentially catastrophic at societal scale.

This was happening well before LLMs, though. If anything, I have hope that LLMs might break some people out of their echo chambers if they ask things like "do vaccines cause autism?"

> I have hope that LLMs might break some people out of their echo chambers

Are LLMs "democratized" yet, though? If not, then it's just-as-likely that LLMs will be steered by their owners to reinforce an echo-chamber of their own.

For example, what if RFK Jr launched an "HHS LLM" - what then?

Re: Reflections on AI at the End of 2025

#240

Post by dgemm »

laterium wrote: post #233
etra0 wrote: post #127

LLMs have certainly become extremely useful for Software Engineers, they're very convincing (and pleasers, too) and I'm still unsure about the future of our day-to-day job. But one thing that has scared me the most, is the trust of LLMs output to the general society. I believe that for software engineers it's really easy to see if it's being useful or not -- We can just run the code and see if the output is what we e…

The issue you're overlooking is the scarcity of experts. You're comparing the current situation to an alternative universe where every person can ask a doctor their questions 10 times a day and instantly get an accurate response. That is not the reality we're living in. Doctors barely give you 5 minutes even if you get an appointment days or weeks in advance. There is just nobody to ask. The alternatives today are 1)…

This seems true for our moment in time but looking forward I'm not sure how much it will stay that way. The LLMs will inevitably need to find a sustainable business model so I can very much see them becoming enshittified similar to google eventually making 2) and 3) more similar to each other.
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