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Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

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Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#511

Post by observationist »

olivierestsage wrote: post #296

Big vibe shift against AI right now among all the non-tech people I know (and some of the tech people). Ignoring this reaction and saying "it's inevitable/you're luddites" (as I'm seeing in this thread) is not going to help the PR situation

Fortunately, the PR situation will handle itself. Someone will create a superhuman persuasion engine, AGI will handle it itself, and/or those who don't adapt will fade away into irrelevance.

You either surf this wave or get drowned by it, and a whole lot of people seem to think throwing tantrums is the appropriate response.

Figure out how to surf, and fast. You don't even need to be good, you just have to stay on the board.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#512

Post by observationist »

bgwalter wrote: post #508
observationist wrote: post #499

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney Pike, stone throwing, glass houses, etc. The AI village experiment is cool, and it's a useful example of frontier model capabilities. It's also ok not to like things. Pike had the option of ignoring it, but apparently throwing a thoughtless, hypocritical, incoherently targeted tantrum is the appropriate move? Not a great look, especially for someone we're supposed to respe…

This is really getting desperate. Markov chains were fun in those days. You might as well say that anyone who ever wrote an IRC bot is not allowed to criticize current day "AI".

Pike's posts aren't criticism, they're whinging. There's no reasoned, principled position there - he's just upset that an AI dared sully his inbox, and lashing out at the operators.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#513

Post by layer8 »

ludicrousdispla wrote: post #473
dbcpp wrote: post #357

The thing that drives me crazy is that it isn't even clear if AI is providing economic value yet (am I missing something there?). Right now trillions of dollars are being spent on a speculative technology that isn't benefitting anyone right now. The messaging from AI companies is "we're going to cure cancer" and "you're going to live to be 150 years old" (I don't believe these claims!). The messaging should be "every…

Yeah, comparing this with research investments into fusion power, I expect fusion power to yield far more benefit (although I could be wrong), and sooner.

What I’m afraid of is the combination of cheap fusion power and AI. ;)

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#514

Post by lokar »

29athrowaway wrote: post #306
jabedude wrote: post #252

Did Google, the company currently paying Rob Pike's extravagant salary, just start building data centers in 2025? Before 2025 was Google's infra running on dreams and pixie farts with baby deer and birdies chirping around? Why are the new data centers his company is building suddenly "raping the planet" and "unrecyclable"?

They claim they have net zero carbon footprint, or carbon neutrality. In reality what they do is pay "carbon credits" (money) to some random dude that takes the money and does nothing with it. The entire carbon credit economy is bullshit. Very similar to how putting recyclables in a different color bin doesn't do shit for the environment in practice.

They know the credits are not a good system. The 1st choice has always been a contract with a green supplier, often helping to build out production. And they have a lot of that, with more each year. But construction is slow, in the mean time they use credits, which are better than nothing.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#515

Post by runjake »

There's a lot of irony in this rant. Rob was instrumental in developing distributed computing and cloud technologies that directly contributed to the advent of AI.

I wish he had written something with more substance. I would have been able to understand his points better than a series of "F bombs". I've looked up to Rob for decades. I think he has a lot of wisdom he could impart, but this wasn't it.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#516

Post by MrDarcy »

jabedude wrote: post #252

Did Google, the company currently paying Rob Pike's extravagant salary, just start building data centers in 2025? Before 2025 was Google's infra running on dreams and pixie farts with baby deer and birdies chirping around? Why are the new data centers his company is building suddenly "raping the planet" and "unrecyclable"?

They are building data centers of TPUs now, not general purpose processors.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#517

Post by cm2012 »

simonask wrote: post #299
tomlue wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what all theses kinds of comments miss is that AI can be help people to express their own ideas. I used AI to write a thank you to a non-english speaking relative. A person struggling with dimentia can use AI to help remember the words they lost. These kinds of messages read to me like people with superiority complexes. We get that you don't need AI to help you write a letter. For the rest of us, it allows us…

I’m sorry, but this really gets to me. Your writing is not improved. It is no longer your writing. You can achieve these things, but this is a way to not do the work , by copying from people who did do the work, giving them zero credit. (As an aside, exposing people with dementia to a hallucinating robot is cruelty on an unfathomable level.)

Do you feel the same about spellcheck?

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#518

Post by tomlue »

WD-42 wrote: post #346
tomlue wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what all theses kinds of comments miss is that AI can be help people to express their own ideas. I used AI to write a thank you to a non-english speaking relative. A person struggling with dimentia can use AI to help remember the words they lost. These kinds of messages read to me like people with superiority complexes. We get that you don't need AI to help you write a letter. For the rest of us, it allows us…

I’d much rather read a letter from you full of errors than some smooth average-of-all-writers prose. To be human is to struggle. I see no reason to read anything from anyone if they didn’t actually write it.

If I spend hours writing and rewriting a paragraph into something I love while using AI to iterate, did I write that paragraph?

edit: Also, I think maybe you don't appreciate the people who struggle to write well. They are not proud of the mistakes in their writing.

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#519

Post by tomlue »

minimaxir wrote: post #273
tomlue wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what all theses kinds of comments miss is that AI can be help people to express their own ideas. I used AI to write a thank you to a non-english speaking relative. A person struggling with dimentia can use AI to help remember the words they lost. These kinds of messages read to me like people with superiority complexes. We get that you don't need AI to help you write a letter. For the rest of us, it allows us…

That is not what is happening here. There is no human the loop, it's just automated spam.

good point. My response was to the comment not the OP

Re: Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI

#520

Post by tomlue »

nkrisc wrote: post #290
tomlue wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what all theses kinds of comments miss is that AI can be help people to express their own ideas. I used AI to write a thank you to a non-english speaking relative. A person struggling with dimentia can use AI to help remember the words they lost. These kinds of messages read to me like people with superiority complexes. We get that you don't need AI to help you write a letter. For the rest of us, it allows us…

Well your examples are things that were possible before LLMs.

This is disingenuous
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