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LLM Inevitabilism

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Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#781

Post by bloppe »

This inevitabilist framing rests on an often unspoken assumption: that LLM's will decisively outperform human capabilities in myriad domains. If that assumption holds true, then the inevitabilist quotes featured in the article are convincing to me. If LLM's turn out to be less worthwhile at scale than many people assume, the inevitabilist interpretation is another dream of AI summer.

Burying the core assumption and focusing on its implication is indeed a fantastic way of framing the argument to win some sort of debate.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#782

Post by babelfish »

jdauriemma wrote: post #732
DanMcInerney wrote: post #712

These articles kill me. The reason LLMs (or next-gen AI architecture) is inevitably going to take over the world in one way or another is simple: recursive self-improvement. 3 years ago they could barely write a coherent poem and today they're performing at at least graduate student level across most tasks. As of today, AI is writing a significant chunk of the code around itself. Once AI crosses that threshold of con…

> they're performing at at least graduate student level across most tasks I strongly disagree with this characterization. I have yet to find an application that can reliably execute this prompt: "Find 90 minutes on my calendar in the next four weeks and book a table at my favorite Thai restaurant for two, outside if available." Forget "graduate-level work," that's stuff I actually want to engage with. What many peopl…

OpenAI Operator can do that task easily, assuming you've configured it with your calendar and Yelp login.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#783

Post by ohyes »

underdeserver wrote: post #740
brokencode wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “most people agree that the output is trite and unpleasant to consume” That is a such a wild claim. People like the output of LLMs so much that ChatGPT is the fastest growing app ever. It and other AI apps like Perplexity are now beginning to challenge Google’s search dominance. Sure, probably not a lot of people would go out and buy a novel or collection of poetry written by ChatGPT. But that doesn’t mean the outp…

> That is a such a wild claim. People like the output of LLMs so much that ChatGPT is the fastest growing app ever. The people using ChatGPT like its output enough when they're the ones reading it. The people reading ChatGPT output that other people asked for generally don't like it. Especially if it's not disclosed up front.

Had someone put up a project plan for something that was not disclosed as LLM assisted output.

While technically correct it came to the wrong conclusions about the best path forward and inevitably hamstrung the project.

I only discovered this later when attempting to fix the mess and having my own chat with an LLM and getting mysteriously similar responses.

The problem was that the assumptions made when asking the LLM were incorrect.

LLMs do not think independently and do not have the ability to challenge your assumptions or think laterally. (yet, possibly ever, one that does may be a different thing).

Unfortunately, this still makes them as good as or better than a very large portion of the population.

I get pissed off not because of the new technology or the use of the LLM, but the lack of understanding of the technology and the laziness with which many choose to deliver the results of these services.

I am more often mad at the person for not doing their job than I am at the use of a model, the model merely makes it easier to hide the lack of competence.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#784

Post by johnnyanmac »

brokencode wrote: post #706
lsy wrote: post #63

I think two things can be true simultaneously: 1. LLMs are a new technology and it's hard to put the genie back in the bottle with that. It's difficult to imagine a future where they don't continue to exist in some form, with all the timesaving benefits and social issues that come with them. 2. Almost three years in, companies investing in LLMs have not yet discovered a business model that justifies the massive expen…

> “most people agree that the output is trite and unpleasant to consume” That is a such a wild claim. People like the output of LLMs so much that ChatGPT is the fastest growing app ever. It and other AI apps like Perplexity are now beginning to challenge Google’s search dominance. Sure, probably not a lot of people would go out and buy a novel or collection of poetry written by ChatGPT. But that doesn’t mean the outp…

People "like" or people "suffice" with the output? This "rise of whatever" as one blog put it gives me feelings that people are instead lowering their standards and cutting corners. Letting them cut through to stuff they actually want to do.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#786

Post by johnnyanmac »

ants_everywhere wrote: post #741
brokencode wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “most people agree that the output is trite and unpleasant to consume” That is a such a wild claim. People like the output of LLMs so much that ChatGPT is the fastest growing app ever. It and other AI apps like Perplexity are now beginning to challenge Google’s search dominance. Sure, probably not a lot of people would go out and buy a novel or collection of poetry written by ChatGPT. But that doesn’t mean the outp…

> That is a such a wild claim. Some people who hate LLMs are absolutely convinced everyone else hates them. I've talked with a few of them. I think it's a form of filter bubble.

This isn't some niche outcry: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2024/03/19/is-the-p...

And that was 18 months ago.

Yes, believe it or not, people eventually wake up and realize slop is slop. But like everything else with LLM development, tech is trying to brute force it on people anyway.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#787

Post by johnnyanmac »

Centigonal wrote: post #678
dbalatero wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might generate 10b ARR, but they lose a lot more than that. Their paid users are a fraction of the free riders. https://www.wheresyoured.at/openai-is-a-systemic-risk-to-the...

This echoes a lot of the rhetoric around "but how will facebook/twitter/etc make money?" back in the mid 2000s. LLMs might shake out differently from the social web, but I don't think that speculating about the flexibility of demand curves is a particularly useful exercise in an industry where the marginal cost of inference capacity is measured in microcents per token. Plus, the question at hand is "will LLMs be rele…

Well, given the answers to the former: maybe we should stop now before we end up selling even more of our data off to technocrats. Or worse, your chatbot shilling to you between prompts.

And yes these are still businesses. If they can't find profitability they will drop it like it's hot. i.e. we hit another bubble burst that tech is known to do every decade or 2. There's no free money anymore to carry them anymore, so perfect time to burst.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#788

Post by jdauriemma »

babelfish wrote: post #782
jdauriemma wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're performing at at least graduate student level across most tasks I strongly disagree with this characterization. I have yet to find an application that can reliably execute this prompt: "Find 90 minutes on my calendar in the next four weeks and book a table at my favorite Thai restaurant for two, outside if available." Forget "graduate-level work," that's stuff I actually want to engage with. What many peopl…

OpenAI Operator can do that task easily, assuming you've configured it with your calendar and Yelp login.

That's great to hear - do you know what success rate it might have? I've used scheduled tasks in ChatGPT and they fail regularly enough to fall into the "toy" category for me. But if Operator is operating significantly above that threshold, that would be remarkable and I'd gladly eat my words.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#789

Post by zdragnar »

jack_pp wrote: post #769
sejje wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he's referencing how people don't like when other humans post LLM responses in the comments. "Here's what chatGPT said about..." I don't like that, either. I love the LLM for answering my own questions, though.

"Here's what chatGPT said about..." Is the new lmgtfy

lmgtfy was (from what I saw) always used as a snarky way to tell someone to do a little work on their own before asking someone else to do it for them.

I have seen people use "here's what chatGPT" said almost exclusively unironically, as if anyone else wants humans behaving like agents for chatbots in the middle of other people's discussion threads. That is to say, they offer no opinion or critical thought of their own, they just jump into a conversation with a wall of text.

Re: LLM Inevitabilism

#790

Post by callc »

rafaelero wrote: post #770

Right now, I’m noticing how my colleagues who aren’t very comfortable using LLMs for most of their work are getting sidelined. It's a bit sad seeing them struggle by not keeping pace with everyone else who is using it for ~90% of our tasks. They seem to really care about writing code themselves, but, if they don't pivot, things are probably not going to end well for them. So is LLM inevitable? Pretty much if you want…

The “use LLMs or you will fall behind” narrative is pearl clutching.

I don’t see anywhere in the near future our profession becoming something other than knowledge work.

So, at the end of the day training your brain is what matters.

Over-reliance on LLM is like skipping the brain gym.

Under utilizing LLM may make you slower. There’s a good optimum of putting in the work so you learn and asking LLM

If it’s mostly a social phenomenon in your company that non believers are pushed out, that does not seem like a fun place to work.

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