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The Generative AI Con

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Re: The Generative AI Con

#371

Post by tim333 »

outworlder wrote: post #351
light_triad wrote: post #336

If you've been in SV long enough, you've seen multiple hype cycles. AI is the latest one. It doesn't mean AI is a con, there's just a tendency to exaggerate and make hyperbolic claims to sell. AI is primarily used to write text and code. Actually integrating it into workflows across markets will take time. A great article that is neither overly pessimistic or optimistic is Benedict Evan's The AI Summer [1]. He argues…

> you've seen multiple hype cycles. AI is the latest one. It doesn't mean AI is a con, there's just a tendency to exaggerate and make hyperbolic claims to sell. The term "AI Winter" dates back from the 80s, and that should tell us something. At every cycle, we have insane hype (remember when "expert systems" would replace doctors?), a lot of investment. Hype fails to catch up to reality, investors get spooked. Nobody…

Not remembering when expert systems were the thing myself I looked it up:

>Expert systems were formally introduced around 1965

and hyped in the 1970s, launched in the 1980s and found to be a bit rubbish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert_system

Re: The Generative AI Con

#372

Post by camdenreslink »

simonw wrote: post #349
camdenreslink wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would never trust an LLM to do this unless it was pointing me to pages/sections in a real manual or reputable source I could reference.

I admire your optimism that good manuals and reputable sources exist for the average furnace in the average basement.

I would accept a link to a YouTube video with a timestamp. Just something connected to the real world.

Re: The Generative AI Con

#373

Post by tim333 »

34679 wrote: post #350
light_triad wrote: post #336

If you've been in SV long enough, you've seen multiple hype cycles. AI is the latest one. It doesn't mean AI is a con, there's just a tendency to exaggerate and make hyperbolic claims to sell. AI is primarily used to write text and code. Actually integrating it into workflows across markets will take time. A great article that is neither overly pessimistic or optimistic is Benedict Evan's The AI Summer [1]. He argues…

>It doesn't mean AI is a con, there's just a tendency to exaggerate and make hyperbolic claims to sell. "Con", in this context, is short for confidence. A con-man is a confidence man. "a swindler who exploits the confidence of his victim" It's a con.

You've got to distinguish the tech from the companies and salesmen. Like in the dot com bubble the internet was real and important but a lot of the companies were cons.

Likewise here AI is real and important but a lot of the companies are cons.

Re: The Generative AI Con

#374

Post by SubiculumCode »

automatic6131 wrote: post #87
danroblew wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is about how the economics of the LLM market is making all tech look bad. They need trillions of dollars in returns. VC's won't finance tech startups for decades. I use Cursor sometimes, and VSCode + Continue with llama.cpp, and it's great. That's not worth billions. It's definitely not worth trillions.

This is the crux. A cool thing has been invented, with real usages. Unfortunately, it's cost hundreds of billions of dollars and it has absolutely zero hope of making the trillions needed to justify that. Now someone will respond about how it's just a stepping stone, and how the billions are justified by _something completely imaginary, and not invented yet, and maybe not ever_ e.g. agents.

To train. Inference is much cheaper...and getting cheaper by the day

Re: The Generative AI Con

#375

Post by levkk »

consumer451 wrote: post #344
levkk wrote: post #91

If my Android (or IPhone) disappeared tomorrow, I would feel like I time traveled back a century. If Google search was gone, I wouldn't be able to do my job anymore. If the cloud disappeared, I wouldn't be able to build apps anymore. There are no workarounds, unless you feel like going to a library...? If ChatGPT disappeared tomorrow (or derivatives like Copilot, etc.), I would be mildly inconvenienced. Then I'd go b…

While that might be true for you, it's not at all true for me. If generic chatbots went away, no big deal. If Windsurf IDE + Sonnet 3.5 went away tomorrow, my prospects would look very different. The last production code I wrote was over 20 years ago. I don't know React and TypeScript. I recently created a SaaS MVP using Windsurf/Sonnet/React/Refine.dev/Supabase in 8 days. We already have live humans excitedly using…

What remains to be seen if your venture (and others like it) will translate into hundreds of billions of new economy. That was the effect of the iPhone, cloud, and Google Search (analogies used in the article). That's the difference between a "new era" and a cool tool that could of (and should of) been built at university with enough funding to produce it for the public good.

Re: The Generative AI Con

#376

Post by AvAn12 »

light_triad wrote: post #336

If you've been in SV long enough, you've seen multiple hype cycles. AI is the latest one. It doesn't mean AI is a con, there's just a tendency to exaggerate and make hyperbolic claims to sell. AI is primarily used to write text and code. Actually integrating it into workflows across markets will take time. A great article that is neither overly pessimistic or optimistic is Benedict Evan's The AI Summer [1]. He argues…

In the securities industry, "hype" - i.e. making claims which can not be fulfilled - is known as "fraud" and it lands people in jail. And, even with a ton of regulation in the securities industry, we still get some kind of financial crisis every decade or so. So tech people: why not think ahead and stop making false claims before you (1) cause the next crisis and (2) get slapped with heavy regulations? Stop hyping and think.

Re: The Generative AI Con

#377

Post by light_triad »

34679 wrote: post #350
light_triad wrote: post #336

If you've been in SV long enough, you've seen multiple hype cycles. AI is the latest one. It doesn't mean AI is a con, there's just a tendency to exaggerate and make hyperbolic claims to sell. AI is primarily used to write text and code. Actually integrating it into workflows across markets will take time. A great article that is neither overly pessimistic or optimistic is Benedict Evan's The AI Summer [1]. He argues…

>It doesn't mean AI is a con, there's just a tendency to exaggerate and make hyperbolic claims to sell. "Con", in this context, is short for confidence. A con-man is a confidence man. "a swindler who exploits the confidence of his victim" It's a con.

Sure you'll find folks that perhaps literally believe that AI is bigger than fire and the wheel, or whatever. Or business leaders that more cynically try to ride the hype wave with their own customers.

I think the key here is actual usage and adoption. If early adopters (marketers and coders) keep using the new tools for real work over the long term then it's a positive signal.

Re: The Generative AI Con

#378

Post by tim333 »

Red_Comet_88 wrote: post #180

"We are in the midst of a group delusion — a consequence of an economy ruled by people that do not participate in labor of any kind outside of sending and receiving emails and going to lunches that last several hours — where the people with the money do not understand or care about human beings." Regardless of the hostile tone of the article, this stuck out to me as an incredibly poignant description of the current t…

>non-deterministic outputs, wherein they give different answers to the same question if asked enough times

I think you may find some humans do that too.

Re: The Generative AI Con

#380

Post by jcgrillo »

deadbabe wrote: post #157
paulgb wrote: post #11

> And even then, we still don't have a killer app! There is no product that everybody loves, and there is no iPhone moment! I would strongly argue that coding assistants are AI’s first killer app. Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf etc.

The killer app is entertainment. Since LLMs emerged people have consistently loved getting them to say whatever they want or roleplay with them. Once integrated into games, it will be very fun to have natural conversations with the inhabitants of game worlds. Imagine a goomba talking to Super Mario before he stomps its head or delivering your pithy one liner in response to some final boss’s villainous monologue.

This only works if your game doesn't use the GPU. Then there's the whole problem with nondeterminism. But I'm sure when those small problems are solved people will use this technology in games /s
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