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Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

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Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#71

Post by orwin »

vv_ wrote: post #57
hiddencost wrote: post #26

I've started to feel like Ed Zitron is actively hurting people I care about. I'm lucky to have worked in the field for a long time, and be able to spend a lot of tokens. In the last month it's become clear to me that the tech works. The science is done, and what's left is engineering. There are a lot of risks and mitigations and theory to build, but it's all solvable. The tech isn't mature, but neither was the Intern…

> They insist the tech will never work, and avoid learning about it, becoming progressively more paranoid and isolated. They can always learn the technology later, when and if it proves itself to be useful :) I personally don't understand the hype, even after using Claude and other AI tools - but perhaps that will change in the future.

If your company offer 'training' with 'AI expert' and 'prompt engineers', I urge you to attend. It's very gratifying, it cure imposter syndrome, and you will understand who is behind the hype and their technical level.

(And it is already useful, just not as much as some people sell it)

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#72

Post by surgical_fire »

simianwords wrote: post #68
surgical_fire wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The graph you linked seems to compare different OpenAI models in terms of "price per million tokens". I am very skeptical of any financial information that comes from OpenAI. I have no idea how truthful those numbers are, or how creatively they can be collected to paint a rosier future for them. Even if the numbers are truthful, I have no idea how the calculate price there. Is it in terms of cost of compute they rent…

>To analyze the decline in LLM prices over time, we focused on the most cost-effective LLMs above a certain performance threshold at each point in time. To identify these models, we iterated through models sorted by release date. In each iteration, we added a model to the set of cheapest models if it had a lower price than all previous models that scored at or above the threshold. Can you look at the analysis? It wil…

> Overall you have shown what I feel is extreme skepticism in something that is obvious.

I think you show extreme faith in something that is very obscure.

For me to believe in the analysis I would need to trust the numbers that the analysis is based upon. I see no reason why I should trust this. What sort of regulatory body or neutral third party inspects those numbers to ensure they are not a fabrication?

But you can claim I am a hater if it justifies your worldview. Skepticism is sinful for the believer.

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#73

Post by Moomoomoo309 »

frozenseven wrote: post #54

Good to see people are finally turning against this grifter. " AI fake, AI poo poo, AI going away! " is the only argument he ever had. Nothing more.

Did you actually read the articles he made going through the finances of these companies? He definitely has a bone to pick, but his numbers don't lie. The amount of return these AIs need to give due to the amount of spend is so ridiculous that unless they really do automate most jobs, they're screwed. There's a reason these companies only post AI revenue now, not profit.

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#74

Post by noosphr »

ubercore wrote: post #59
rwmj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's saying the good half of developers have to deal with the increased slop output of the bad half. Probably will be overwhelmed by it, in the end.

It _can_ produce slop if people stop thinking. I've also seen it do just fine, when people know when, where and how to use it. That's the part that frightens me, not the code it makes itself.

I will have to bring out the Venn diagram.

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#75

Post by Kye »

danlitt wrote: post #41
pityJuke wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t encourage his diaper fetish! [0] [0]: https://bsky.app/search?q=from%3Aedzitron.com+diaper

"Search is currently unavailable when logged out"

He has this thing where he tries to involve people in his ABDL roleplay without consent.

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#76

Post by Kye »

surgical_fire wrote: post #67
simianwords wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://epoch.ai/data-insights/llm-inference-price-trends Do you have any reason to not believe it? It’s expected for costs to come down

The graph you linked seems to compare different OpenAI models in terms of "price per million tokens". I am very skeptical of any financial information that comes from OpenAI. I have no idea how truthful those numbers are, or how creatively they can be collected to paint a rosier future for them. Even if the numbers are truthful, I have no idea how the calculate price there. Is it in terms of cost of compute they rent…

>> "The dataset for this insight combines data on large language model (LLM) API prices and benchmark scores from Artificial Analysis and Epoch AI."

I don't know about Epoch AI, but Artificial Analysis shares its methodology: https://artificialanalysis.ai/methodology

Their chart of inference prices split by benchmark intelligence: https://artificialanalysis.ai/trends#efficiency

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#77

Post by Kye »

simianwords wrote: post #6
returnInfinity wrote: post #2

Offtopic - The success of coding agents must be Ed Zitron's nightmare. He has been a perpetual bear

Some one should compile concrete predictions that he made vs how they turned out.

He hedges so much that it's probably impossible to catch him in a contradiction or missed prediction. It must be all that practice running a PR firm for AI companies.

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#78

Post by 000ooo000 »

GaryBluto wrote: post #11

Ed Zitron, from what little I have heard of him, seems incredibly irrational. I don't think I've ever seen anybody stick their head deeper in the sand more than I've seen him do. It's one thing to dislike or even detest something, but to constantly claim it is worthless and without use when people are already benefitting from it everyday is nothing short of delusion.

>from what little I have heard of him

That's an interesting way to start criticism about ignorance

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#79

Post by vv_ »

orwin wrote: post #71
vv_ wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They insist the tech will never work, and avoid learning about it, becoming progressively more paranoid and isolated. They can always learn the technology later, when and if it proves itself to be useful :) I personally don't understand the hype, even after using Claude and other AI tools - but perhaps that will change in the future.

If your company offer 'training' with 'AI expert' and 'prompt engineers', I urge you to attend. It's very gratifying, it cure imposter syndrome, and you will understand who is behind the hype and their technical level. (And it is already useful, just not as much as some people sell it)

> I urge you to attend

Of course :) It’s interesting to hear the ideas people come up with, but so far no one has demonstrated any practical results that would significantly improve the quality of work in my field. It has, however, increased the amount of slop that I need to deal with on a daily basis. Worse yet, it is not always programming slop :)

> And it is already useful, just not as much as some people sell it

In a general context, I agree. When it comes to programming, however, my experience has been different. If this technology were presented more modestly / realistically, it likely wouldn’t have attracted billions of dollars in investment and the hype. I think this is exactly what many sensible people point to when debating whether this is a bubble :)

Re: Ed Zitron loses his mind annotating an AI doomer macro memo

#80

Post by ubercore »

noosphr wrote: post #74
ubercore wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It _can_ produce slop if people stop thinking. I've also seen it do just fine, when people know when, where and how to use it. That's the part that frightens me, not the code it makes itself.

I will have to bring out the Venn diagram.

Go ahead!
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