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2025: The Year in LLMs

simonwillison.net

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Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#441

Post by aoeusnth1 »

steveBK123 wrote: post #362
pjc50 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing a trillion dollars for a revenue of a billion dollars doesn't sound great yet.

Indeed, its the old Uber playbook at nearly two extra orders of magnitude. It is a large enough number to simply run out of private capital to consume before it turns cash flow positive. Lots of things sell well if sold at such a loss. I’d take a new Ferrari for $2500 if it was on offer.

You say that as if Uber's playbook didn't work. Try this: https://www.google.com/finance/quote/UBER:NYSE

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#442

Post by aoeusnth1 »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #182
CamperBob2 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all very impressive, to be sure. But are you sure you're getting the point? As of 2025, LLMs are now very good at writing new code, creating new imagery, and writing original text. They continue to improve at a remarkable rate. They are helping their users create things that didn't exist before. Additionally, they are now very good at searching and utilizing web resources that didn't exist at training time. So…

I think the confusion is people's misunderstanding of what 'new code' and 'new imagery' mean. Yes, LLMs can generate a specific CRUD webapp that hasn't existed before but only based on interpolating between the history of existing CRUD webapps. I mean traditional Markov Chains can also produce 'new' text in the sense that "this exact text" hasn't been seen before, but nobody would argue that traditional Markov Chains…

> It's pretty clear you don't have a solid background in generative models, because this is fundamentally what they do: model an existing probability distribution and draw samples from that.

After post-training, this is definitively NOT what an LLM does.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#443

Post by jfyi »

duchef wrote: post #290
chii wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the "usefulness" excuse is irrelevant, and the claim that phones/internet is "immediately useful" is just a post hoc rationalization. It's basically trying to find a reasonable reason why opposition to AI is valid, and is not in self-interest. The opposition to AI is from people who feel threatened by it, because it either threatens their livelihood (or family/friends'), and that they feel they are unable to benefit…

The usefulness of mobile phones was identifiable immediately and it is absolutely not 'post hoc rationalization'. The issue was the cost - once low cost mobile telephones were produced they almost immediately became ubiquitous (see nokia share price from the release of the nokia 6110 onwards for example). This barrier does not exist for current AI technologies which are being given away free. Minor thought experiment…

It's only low cost for general usage chat users. If you are using it for anything beyond that, you are paying or sitting in a long queue (likely both).

You may just be a little early to the renaissance. What happens when the models we have today run on a mobile device?

The nokia 6110 was released 15 years after the first commercial cell phone.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#444

Post by jay_kyburz »

computably wrote: post #396
wpietri wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have different definitions of "actual value". But even if I pick the flaccid definition, that isn't proof of value of the thing itself, but of any placebo. In which case we can focus on the cheapest/least harmful placebo. Or, better, solving the underlying problem that the placebo "helps".

I'll preface by saying I fully agree that psychics aren't providing any non-placebo value to believers, although I think it's fine to provide entertainment for non-believers. > Or, better, solving the underlying problem that the placebo "helps". The underlying problems are often a lack of a decent education and a generally difficult/unsatisfying life. Systemic issues which can't be meaningfully "solved" without massi…

Actually, I'd go one step further and say they are harmful to everybody else.

It might just be my circles, but I've seen Carl Sagans quote everywhere in the last couple of months.

"“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”"

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#445

Post by aoeusnth1 »

llmslave2 wrote: post #170
aoeusnth1 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has! CLs/engineer increased by 10% this year. LLMs from late 2024 were nearly worthless as coding agents, so given they have quadrupled in capability since then (exponential growth, btw), it's not surprising to see a modestly positive impact on SWE work. Also, I'm noticing you're not explaining yourself :)

Hey, I'm not the OG commentator, why do I have to explain myself! :) When Fernando Alonso (best rookie btw) goes from 0-60 in 2.4 seconds in his Aston Martin, is it reasonable to assume he will near the speed of light in 20 seconds?

If you're not going to explain yourself, at least stay on topic. We're talking about exponential growth, so address the points I'm making.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#446

Post by HumblyTossed »

ksec wrote: post #228

All these improvement in a single year, 2025. While this may seem obvious to those who follows along the AI / LLM news. It may be worth pointing out again ChatGPT was introduced to us in November 2022. I still dont believe AGI, ASI or Whatever AI will take over human in short period of time say 10 - 20 years. But it is hard to argue against the value of current AI, which many of the vocal critics on HN seems to have…

It's a great tool, but right now it's only being used to feed the greed.

>> Again, I guess no one knew AI would be as big as it is today, and it is only just started.

People have been saying similar about self driving cars for years now. "AI" is another one of those expensive ideas that we'll get 85% of the way there and then to get the other 15% will be way more expensive than anyone will want to pay for. It's already happening - HW prices and electricity - people are starting to ask, "if I put more $ into this machine, when am I actually going to start getting money out?" The "true believers" are like, soon! But people are right to be hugely skeptical.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#447

Post by claudiug »

didip wrote: post #67

Indeed. I don't understand why Hacker News is so dismissive about the coming of LLMs, maybe HN readers are going through 5 stages of grief? But LLM is certainly a game changer, I can see it delivering impact bigger than the internet itself. Both require a lot of investments.

because lies. all the people involved in this, the one a C title, tell us about how great is now.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#448

Post by arctic-true »

nen-nomad wrote: post #118
snigsnog wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet and smartphones were immediately useful in a million different ways for almost every person. AI is not even close to that level. Very to somewhat useful in some fields (like programming) but the average person will easily be able to go through their day without using AI. The most wide-appeal possibility is people loving 100%-AI-slop entertainment like that AI Instagram Reels product. Maybe I'm just too d…

ChatGPT has roughly 800 million weekly active users. Almost everyone around me uses it daily. I think you are underestimating the adoption.

Usage plunges on the weekends and during the summer, suggesting that a significant portion of users are students using ChatGPT for free or at heavily subsidized rates to do homework (i.e., extremely basic work that is extraordinarily well-represented in the training data). That usage will almost certainly never be monetizable, and it suggests nothing about the trajectory of the technology’s capability or popularity. I suspect ChatGPT, in particular, will see its usage slip considerably as the education system (hopefully) adapts.

Re: 2025: The Year in LLMs

#449

Post by senordevnyc »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #120
didip wrote: post #67

Indeed. I don't understand why Hacker News is so dismissive about the coming of LLMs, maybe HN readers are going through 5 stages of grief? But LLM is certainly a game changer, I can see it delivering impact bigger than the internet itself. Both require a lot of investments.

> I don't understand why Hacker News is so dismissive about the coming of LLMs I find LLMs incredibly useful, but if you were following along the last few years the promise was for “exponential progress” with a teaser world destroying super intelligence. We objectively are not on that path. There is no “coming of LLMs”. We might get some incremental improvement, but we’re very clearly seeing sigmoid progress. I can’t…

I’ve been reading this comment multiple times a week for the last couple years. Constant assertions that we’re starting to hit limits, plateau, etc. But a cursory glance at where we are today vs a year ago, let alone two years ago, makes it wildly obvious that this is bullshit. The pace of improvement of both models and tooling has been breathtaking. I could give a shit whether you think it’s “exponential”, people like you were dismissing all of this years ago, meanwhile I just keep getting more and more productive.
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