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Is it a bubble?

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Re: Is it a bubble?

#521

Post by Sprotch »

dboon wrote: post #503
encyclopedism wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An LLM is an algorithm. You can obtain the same result as a SOTA LLM via pen and paper it will take a lot of long laborious effort. That's ONE reason why LLM's do not have cognition. Also they don't reason, or think or any of the other myriad nonsense attributed to LLM's. I hate the platitudes given to LLM's it's at PHD level. It's now able to answer math olympiad questions. It answers them by statistical pattern rec…

A brain is an algorithm. Given an unreasonably precise graph of neurons, neurotransmitter levels at each junction, and so on and so forth, one could obtain the same result via pen and paper. It will just take a lot of long laborious effort. That’s ONE reason why brains do not have cognition.

There is a whole branch of AI trying to do this, but they are still at the very initial stages. LLMs are not the same thing at all.

Re: Is it a bubble?

#522

Post by [deleted] »

9rx wrote: post #257
rfrey wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand what you're getting at, but compilers are deterministic. AI isn't just another tool, or just a higher level of program specification.

[flagged]

[deleted]

Re: Is it a bubble?

#523

Post by sshadmand »

What you make of this memo really depends on who you are and how you're positioned. The dot-com era was absolutely a bubble. Tons of companies died, but the internet itself didn't go away, and the people who backed the right companies did extremely well. The 2007 housing bubble, on the other hand, was a totally different kind of event: broad, systemic, long lasting, and painful for almost everyone.

AI looks a lot more like the former. Some companies will fail, valuations will swing, but the underlying technology isn't going anywhere. In fact, many of the AI firms that will end up mattering are probably still undervalued because we're early in what will likely be another decade long technology expansion.

If you're managing a portfolio that needs quick returns and can't tolerate a correction, then sure, it probably feels like a bubble, because at some point people will take profits and the market will reset.

But if you're an entrepreneur or a long-term builder, that framing is almost irrelevant. This is where the next wave of value gets created. It's never smooth and it's never easy, but the long-term opportunity is enormous.

Re: Is it a bubble?

#524

Post by sshadmand »

kscarlet wrote: post #33
sp4cec0wb0y wrote: post #7

> In many advanced software teams, developers no longer write the code; they type in what they want, and AI systems generate the code for them. What a wild and speculative claim. Is there any source for this information?

The line right after this is much worse: > Coding performed by AI is at a world-class level, something that wasn’t so just a year ago. Wow, finance people certainly don't understand programming.

Finance people are funny. They are so wrong when you hear their logic and references, but I also realized it doesn't matter. It is trends they try to predict, fuzzy directional signals, not facts of the moment.

Re: Is it a bubble?

#525

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

"Coding, which we called "computer programming" 60 years ago, is the canary in the coal mine in terms of the impact of AI."

And before that

"Grace Hopper: [I started to work on the] Mark I, second of July 1944. There was no so such thing as a programmer at that point. We had a code book for the machine and that was all. It listed the codes and what they did, and we had to work out all the beginning of programmingand writing programs and all the rest of it."

"Hopper: I was a mathematical officer. We did coding, we ran the computer, we did everything. We were coders. I wrote [programs for] both Mark I and Mark II."

http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Oral_Histo...

Re: Is it a bubble?

#526

Post by 9rx »

rfrey wrote: post #514
dust42 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so is "AI". Unless you add randomness AKA raise the temperature.

If you and I put the same input into GCC, we will get the same output (counting flags and config as input). The same is not true for an LLM.

> The same is not true for an LLM.

Incorrect. LLMs are designed to be deterministic (when temperature=0). Only if you choose for them to be non-deterministic are they so. Which is no different in the case of GCC. You can add all kinds of random conditionals if you had some reason to want to make it non-deterministic. You never would, but you could.

There are some known flaws in GPUs that can break that assumption in the real world, but in theory (and where you have working, deterministic hardware) LLMs are absolutely deterministic. GCC also stops being deterministic when the hardware breaks down. A cosmic bit flip is all it takes to completely defy your assertion.

Re: Is it a bubble?

#527

Post by dmurvihill »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #229
throwaway2037 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. This guy is way outside his area of expertise. For those unaware, Howard Marks is a legendary investment manager with a decades-long impressive track record. Additionally, these "insights" letters are also legendary in the money management business. Personally, I would say his wisdom is one notch below Warren Buffett. I am sure he is regularly asked (badgered?) by investors what he thinks about th…

Follow-up: This letter feels like a "jump the shark" moment. Ref: https://blog.codinghorror.com/has-joel-spolsky-jumped-the-sh...

It's funny, because this decision by Joel in 2006 prefigures TypeScript six years later. VBA was a terrible bet for a target language and Joel was crazy to think his little company could sustain a language ecosystem, but Microsoft had the same idea and nailed it.

Re: Is it a bubble?

#528

Post by interstice »

XenophileJKO wrote: post #306
interstice wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I beginning to think most "advanced" programmers are just poor communicators. This is a interesting take take considering that programmers are experts in communicating what someone has asked for (however vaguely) into code. I think you're referring to is the transition from 'write code that does X' which is very concrete to 'trick an AI into writing the code I would have written, only faster', which feels like work…

When you oversee a team technically as a tech lead or an architect, you need communication skills. 1. Basing on how the engineer just responded to my comment, what is the understanding gap? 2. How do I describe what I want in a concise and intuitive way? 3. How do I tell an engineer what is important in this system and what are the constraints? 4. What assumptions will an engineer likely make that are will cause me t…

The issue here is that LLM’s are not human and so having a human mental model of how to communicate doesn’t really work. If I communicate to my engineer to do X I know all kinds of things about them, like their coding style, strengths and weaknesses, and that they have some familiarity with the code they are working with and won’t bring the entirety of stack overflow answers to the context we are working in. LLM’s are nothing like this even when working with large amounts of context, they fail in extremely unpredictable ways from one prompt to the next. If you disagree I’d be interested in what stack or prompting you are using that avoids this.

Re: Is it a bubble?

#529

Post by dmurvihill »

obruchez wrote: post #362
dmurvihill wrote: post #340

This says it all: > I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t believe artificial intelligence has the potential to be one of the biggest technological developments of all time, reshaping both daily life and the global economy. You’re trying to weigh in on this topic and you didn’t even _talk_ to a bear?

It's difficult to know what people really believe, especially after only a few minutes of discussion, but I would say most people I talk to don't believe AGI is even possible. And they probably think their life won't be changed much by LLMs, AI, etc.

I believe AGI is possible. Also that LLMs are a dead end as far as that goes.

Re: Is it a bubble?

#530

Post by [deleted] »

lynx97 wrote: post #428
roenxi wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to the average human? Yes. Most people are distressingly bad at empathy to the point where just repeating what they just heard back to an interlocutor in a stressful situation could be considered an advanced technique. The average standard of empathy isn't that far away from someone who sees beatings as a legitimate form of communication. Humans suck at empathy, especially outside a tight in-group. But even…

I am sorry for you. You must surround yourself with a lot of awful people. That is pretty sad to read. Get out of whatever you are stuck in, it can't be good for you.

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