Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Rise of Whatever

eev.ee

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 537 posts

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#51

Post by reasonableklout »

csomar wrote: post #22
tptacek wrote: post #2

LLM output is crap. It’s just crap. It sucks, and is bad. Still don't get it. LLM outputs are nondeterministic. LLMs invent APIs that don't exist. That's why you filter those outputs through agent constructions, which actually compile code. The nondeterminism of LLMs don't make your compiler nondeterministic. All sorts of ways to knock LLM-generated code. Most I disagree with, all colorable. But this article is based…

> LLM outputs are nondeterministic. LLM outputs are deterministic. There is no intrinsic source of randomness. Users can add randomness (temperature) to the output and modify it. > But this article is based on a model of LLM code generation from 6 months ago There hasn't been much change in models from 6 months ago. What happened is that we have better tooling to sift through the randomly generated outputs. I don't d…

Nit: in practice, even at temperature 0, production LLM implementations have some non-determinism. One reason is because many floating point computations are technically non-commutative even when the mathematical operation is, and the order can vary if they are carried out in parallel by the GPU. For example, see: https://www.twosigma.com/articles/a-workaround-for-non-deter...

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#52

Post by yieldcrv »

pjc50 wrote: post #40
yieldcrv wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are many people with many use cases for distributed ledgers. we are already aware of the flowchart of your argument path “list them” “oh I can do that in this other convoluted way that doesnt solve any of these users goals or problems” “I’m not the target audience for that so it doesnt count” “ah so financial speculation, that doesnt count despite being the largest application and sector on the planet” “marketc…

It's clear that financial speculation is a big use for crypto, probably the biggest. But since almost all the tokens bear neither interest nor dividends, it looks a lot more like a casino.

if you made every incorporated and unincorporated organization and product line and revenue stream to be fractionalized and publicly traded it would look the same

its just a filtering problem

there are screeners to narrow everything down just like for the stock exchanges

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#53

Post by happytoexplain »

paulddraper wrote: post #15
ipdashc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an article that made the rounds a few weeks ago that still rings true. Basically, it feels like one is going crazy reading either "extreme" of the whole LLM conversation, with one extreme (obviously) being the "AI can do anything" Twitter techbro types, but the other extreme being articles like this that claim it can't do anything. I know the author already addressed this, literally calling out HN by name,…

> it just makes me take them less seriously Indeed. This is how to spot an ideologue with an axe to grind, not someone whose beliefs are shaped by dispassionate observation.

Aside from trivial facts, beliefs can not be, and should not be, shaped by dispassionate observation alone. Even yours are not. And framing it the way you have is simply the same but oppositely-positioned fallacy as the one the author is accused of.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#54

Post by doug_durham »

arthurbrown wrote: post #49
doug_durham wrote: post #47

Wow, the lack of self-awareness on the part of the writer of this is stunning. To say "I don't go out of my way to dunk on people who use LLMs", and then write a multipage blog post doing exactly that is fascinating. You do you, and I'll do me. Perhaps spend more time coding which you say you like to do and less time sneering at people who use different tools.

You've read that paragraph backwards. They are talking about LLM enthusiasts dunking on people who aren't using.

The author mocks LLM enthusiasts, because they "dunk" on him. While writing an blog post that "dunks" on LLM enthusiasts. Total lack of awareness. If they had taken the time to read their blog before posting it, they might have avoided embarrassment.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#55

Post by ako »

bruce511 wrote: post #29
maegul wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed! The only silver lining I can see is that a new perspective may be forced on how well or badly we’ve facilitated learning, usability, generally navigating pain points and maybe even all the dusty presumptions around the education / vocational / professional-development pipeline. Before, demand for employment/salary pushed people through. Now, if actual and reliable understanding, expertise and quality is desir…

To be fair, LLMs are just the most recent step in a long road of doing the same thing. At any point of progress in history you can look backwards and forwards and the world is different. Before tractors a man with an ox could plough x field in y time. After tractors he can plough much larger areas. The nature of farming changes. (Fewer people needed to farm more land. ) The car arrives, horses leave. Computers arrive…

The scare for most people is that AI isn't better tools, but outsourced work. In the past we would create our own products, now other countries do this. In the past we did our own thinking and creative activities, now LLMs will.

If we don't have something better to do we'll all be at home doing nothing. We all need jobs to afford living, and already today many have bullshit jobs. Are we going to a world where 99.9% of the people need a bullshit job just to survive?

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#57

Post by zwnow »

raincole wrote: post #44
gyomu wrote: post #10

Broadly agreed with all the points outlined in there. But for me the biggest issue with all this — that I don't see covered in here, or maybe just a little bit in passing — is what all of this is doing to beginners, and the learning pipeline. > There are people I once respected who, apparently, don’t actually enjoy doing the thing. They would like to describe what they want and receive Whatever — some beige sludge th…

People will write lengthy and convoluted explanation on why LLM isn't like calculator or microwave oven or other technology before. (Like OP's article) But it really is. Humans have been looking for easier and lazier ways to do things since the dawn of civilization. Tech never ever prevents people who really want to hone their skills from doing so. World record of 100m sprint kept improving even since car was invente…

My guy its not only about the art its about killing passion and the lifeline of people. Your take is incredibly ignorant to people who value human created work. These things will kill industries. What jobs should people work in, who got their income cut by LLMs? Force them into blue collar work?

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#58

Post by arthurbrown »

doug_durham wrote: post #54
arthurbrown wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've read that paragraph backwards. They are talking about LLM enthusiasts dunking on people who aren't using.

The author mocks LLM enthusiasts, because they "dunk" on him. While writing an blog post that "dunks" on LLM enthusiasts. Total lack of awareness. If they had taken the time to read their blog before posting it, they might have avoided embarrassment.

So just misquoting the author intentionally then?

You should pick some of the substance of the article to take issue with instead of jumping to be a victim. They clearly read it if they wrote it.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#59

Post by bruce511 »

thankyoufriend wrote: post #48
bruce511 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, LLMs are just the most recent step in a long road of doing the same thing. At any point of progress in history you can look backwards and forwards and the world is different. Before tractors a man with an ox could plough x field in y time. After tractors he can plough much larger areas. The nature of farming changes. (Fewer people needed to farm more land. ) The car arrives, horses leave. Computers arrive…

The difference between GenAI and your examples is a theft component. They stole our data - your data - and used it to build a machine that diverts wealth to the rich. The only equitable way for GenAI to move forward is if we all own a share of it, since it would not exist in its current form without our data. GenAI should be a Universal Basic Asset.

I appreciate the idealism but your argument has some flaws.

Firstly the "theft component" isn't exactly new. There have always been rich and poor.

Secondly everyone is standing on the shoulders of giants. The Beatles were influenced by the works of others. Paul and John learned to write by mimicking other writers.

That code you right is the pinicle of endless work dine by others. By Ada Lovelace, and Charles Babbage, and Alan Turing and Brian Kernigan and Denis Ritchie and Doug Englebart and thousands and thousands more.

By your logic the entire output of all industries for all foreseeable generations should be universally owned. [1]

But that's not the direction we have built society on. Rather society has evolved in the US to reward those who create value out of the common space. The oil in Texas doesn't belong to all Texans, it doesn't belong to the pump maker, it belongs to the company that pumps the oil.

Equally there's no such thing as 'your data'. It's your choice to publish or not. Information cannot be 'owned'. Works can be copyrighted, but frankly you have a bigger argument on that front going after Google (and Google Books, not to mention the Internet Archive) than AI. AI may train on data you produced, but it does not copy it.

[1] I'm actually for a basic income model, we don't need everyone working all day like it's 1900 anymore. That means more taxes on companies and the ultra wealthy. Apparently voters disagree as they continue to vote for people who prefer the opposite.

Re: The Rise of Whatever

#60

Post by autumnstwilight »

gyomu wrote: post #10

Broadly agreed with all the points outlined in there. But for me the biggest issue with all this — that I don't see covered in here, or maybe just a little bit in passing — is what all of this is doing to beginners, and the learning pipeline. > There are people I once respected who, apparently, don’t actually enjoy doing the thing. They would like to describe what they want and receive Whatever — some beige sludge th…

I learned Japanese by painstakingly translating interviews and blog posts from my favorite artist 15+ years ago, dictionary in hand. I also live and work in Japan now. Today I can click a button under the artist's tweets and get an instant translation that looks coherent (and often is, though it can also be quite wrong maybe 1/10 times).

In terms of the artist being accessible to overseas fans it's a great improvement, but I do wonder if I had grown up with this, would I have had any motivation to learn?

Post reply on HN