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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

#251

Post by outside1234 »

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…

It can be an amazing technology and the valuation for companies be completely wrong.

We saw this with the web. Pet.com was not a billion dollar company but the web was real.

I am actually of the belief that LLMs will be amazing but that rank and file companies are going to be the ones that benefit the most.

Just like the internet.

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

#252

Post by [deleted] »

sarchertech wrote: post #242
lostmsu wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people who don't believe LLMs to be AGI are not very good at Venn diagrams. Because they certainly are artificial, general, and intelligent according to any dictionary.

That’s not how language works.

[deleted]

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

#253

Post by selfhoster »

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 talks to me like a person."

No, it provides responses. It does not talk.

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

#254

Post by Terr_ »

brookst wrote: post #227
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…

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.

A popular myth, it seems to be made-up from a way-less-interesting statement about a single specific model of computer during a 1953 stockholder meeting:

> IBM had developed a paper plan for such a machine and took this paper plan across the country to some 20 concerns that we thought could use such a machine. I would like to tell you that the [IBM 701] machine rents for between $12,000 and $18,000 a month, so it was not the type of thing that could be sold from place to place. But, as a result of our trip, on which we expected to get orders for five machines, we came home with orders for 18.

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

#255

Post by loktarogar »

brookst wrote: post #227
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…

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.

And that might have been true for a period of time. Advancements made it so they could become smaller and more efficient, and opened up a new market.

LLMs today feel like the former, but are being marketed as the latter. Fully believe that advancements will make them better, but in their current state they're being touted for their possibilities, not their actual capabilities.

I'm for using AI now as the tool they are, but AI is a while off taking senior development jobs. So when I see them being hyped for doing that it just feels like a hype bubble.

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

#256

Post by nopinsight »

timewizard wrote: post #197
nopinsight wrote: post #186

Can our brains recall precise citations to tens of papers we read a while ago? For the vast majority, no. LLMs function somewhat similarly to our brains in many ways, as opposed to classical computers. Their strengths and flaws differ from our brains, to be sure, but some of these flaws are being mitigated and improved on by the month. Similarly, unaided humans cannot operate successfully in many situations. We build…

> LLMs function somewhat similarly to our brains in many ways, Including the arrogance to confidently deliver a wrong answer. Which is the opposite of the reasons we use computers in the first place. Why this is worth billions of dollars is utterly beyond me. > unaided humans cannot operate successfully in many situations Absolute nonsense driven by a total lack of historical perspective or knowledge. > We build tool…

>> unaided humans cannot operate successfully in many situations

> Absolute nonsense driven by a total lack of historical perspective or knowledge.

An LLM can give you a list of examples:

Historical Examples:

- During historical epidemics, structured record-keeping and statistical analysis (such as John Snow’s cholera maps in 1854) significantly improved outcomes.

- Development of physics, architecture, and engineering depended heavily on tools such as abacus, logarithmic tables, calculators, slide rules, to supplement human cognitive limitations.

- Astronomical calculations in ancient civilizations (Babylonian, Greek, Mayan) depended heavily on abacuses, tables, and other computational tools.

- The pyramids in ancient Egypt required extensive use of tools, mathematics, coordinated human labor, and sophisticated organization.

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

#257

Post by throw7373838 »

amrocha wrote: post #177
intrasight wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans also get things wrong surprisingly large percentage of the time.

Yeah but if your accountant bullshits when doing your taxes, you can sue them.

Good luck with that. People get send to prison for decades, for other people's bullshit all the time!

I will take LLM over real person anytime! At least it does not get b*hurt when I double check!

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

#258

Post by titanomachy »

yodsanklai wrote: post #250

I used to be skeptical of the hype but it's hard to deny that they are incredible tools. For coding, they save me a few hours a week and this is just the beginning. A few months ago I would use them to generate simple pieces of code, but now they can handle refactoring across several files. Even if LLMs don't get smarter, the tooling around them will improve and they'll be even more useful. We'll also learn to use th…

> Maybe Sabine Hossenfelder tries to use them for things they can't do well and she's not aware that they work for other use cases.

Yeah. That was my first thought. There’s probably orders of magnitude more training data for software engineering than for theoretical physics (her field). Also, how much of software engineering is truly novel? Probably someone else has already come up with a decent solution to your problem, it’s “just” a matter of finding it.

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

#259

Post by gonzobonzo »

cogman10 wrote: post #161
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…

> Wah, it can't write code like a Senior engineer with 20 years of experience! No, that's not my problem with it. My problem with it is that inbuilt into the models of all LLMs is that they'll fabricate a lot. What's worse, people are treating them as authoritative. Sure, sometimes it produces useful code. And often, it'll simply call the "doTheHardPart()" method. I've even caught it literally writing the wrong algor…

> My problem with it is that inbuilt into the models of all LLMs is that they'll fabricate a lot. What's worse, people are treating them as authoritative.

The same is true about the internet, and people even used to use these arguments to try to dissuade people from getting their information online (back when Wikipedia was considered a running joke, and journalists mocked blogs). But today it would be considered silly to dissuade someone from using the internet just because the information there is extremely unreliable.

Many programmers will say Stack Overflow is invaluable, but it's also unreliable. The answer is to use it as a tool and a jumping off point to help you solve your problem, not to assume that its authoritative.

The strange thing to me these days is the number of people who will talk about the problems with misinformation coming from LLMs, but then who seem to uncritically believe all sorts of other misinformation they encounter online, in the media, or through friends.

Yes, you need to verify the information you're getting, and this applies to far more than just LLMs.

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

#260

Post by mplanchard »

lostmsu wrote: post #233
lolinder wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see a difference between seeing them as valuable in their current state vs being "bullish about LLMs" in the stock market sense. The big problem with being bullish in the stock market sense is that OpenAI isn't selling the LLMs that currently exist to their investors, they're selling AGI. Their pitch to investors is more or less this: > If we accomplish our goal we (and you) will have infinite money. So the expecte…

I think that people who don't believe LLMs to be AGI are not very good at Venn diagrams. Because they certainly are artificial, general, and intelligent according to any dictionary.

By this argument the DEA is the FBI because they are also a federal bureau that does investigations.
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