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A lot of people saw crypto coming right at us as well.

by johnfn 4y ago

nuancebydefault 4y ago
It is easy to find such examples. A lot of people see aliens in the skies. A lot of people buy into get rich quick schemes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- palata 4y ago
  That doesn't help your case :). Your intuition is not enough to say it's coming right at us. So where is the data? If there is no data, then it's just an intuition.
  - nuancebydefault 4y ago
    Even with or without data, every prediction is intuition. Data, if you need them, are the current events. But remember the quote 'Lies, damn lies and statistics'. It is the interpretation of the data that is what counts and that interpretation is partly subjective. Otherwise we would not be having this rather fierce but interesting conversation in the first place.
    - palata 4y ago
      Well, it can be more or less backed by facts. That's the difficult part: making the difference between what seems like a reasonable prediction and what is merely a belief. Climate change is coming at us. That's still a prediction (it hasn't happened yet), but not believing in it right now is irrational and dangerous. I don't think we can say that for AI. That AI will change the world is a belief. Doesn't mean that it won't.
wsgeorge 4y ago
Crypto wasn't good enough as a currency, so what was coming in terms of that use case didn't pan out en masse. But it did work to an extent for some people. Crypto's value fluctuation made more sense as a speculative asset class, and it clearly saw most of its traction there. It's potential as a currency did lead to banks, financial institutions and governments taking a hard look at it. And CBDC's are an area of active investigation. So the hyper-optimists may have been off on some of their predictions, but something came out of it. AGI-agencent tools are more grounded. They don't threaten to tear down existing entrenched institutions. They do one thing simple: commoditize and scale some level of intelligence. And they're pretty good at it, hence the hype. Unless humanity develops a deep distaste for many things AI-made, the fascination will wear off and we'll be left with the cold hard truth of raw productivity increase and digital production on an unprecedented scale.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > AGI-agencent tools are more grounded. They don't threaten to tear down existing entrenched institutions. I disagree with this part. (I disagree with calling this tech "AGI-adjacent", too, but that's not the part I'm calling out here). I'm not sure what you mean by "more grounded", but if you mean "more based in reality", I don't think this is clear. But, if what the evangelizers say is correct, it absolutely threatens to tear down entrenched institutions. It even threatens to tear down society itself by destroying what little trust remains.
  - wsgeorge 4y ago
    By "grounded", I mean the promises of crypto vs the promises of AI. IIRC, crypto was a little too idealistic in the promise of providing a digital currency without needing a central, trusted authority to back it. From my perspective, AI as we've seen it in the last few months simply provides a tool that can automate intelligent tasks easily. I think the distinction is fuelled more by the companies and leading figures pushing the latter. OpenAI's stewardship, concerns for safety and generally downplaying how amazing these tools are while not ignoring the real effects they could have make AI sound more "grounded" than peak crypto was. Or it could just be the folks I pay more attention to. > I disagree with calling this tech "AGI-adjacent", too, but that's not the part I'm calling out here I think this rests mostly on the definition of "General" here. Here, I'm talking about LLMs as general task performers, as opposed to models created for more specific tasks. LLMs have proven to be more general purpose, which I'd argue makes them closer to the AGI ideal than, say, a sentiment analysis model.
nightski 4y ago
Crypto is a $1T industry even with all the hate it gets on HN.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  So? Cryptocurrency (or even blockchain) has not (yet) changed the world. That was what everyone was predicting.
  - reidjs 4y ago
    Yes it has, I see bitcoin ATMs all over the place and know that tons of people exchange cryptocurrencies daily for fiat and for other cryptocurrencies. A lot of people use it to gamble and buy drugs online. Some people are using it as a monetization scheme for their artwork (NFTs). The actual impact of those things is pretty small, but none of this was possible before their invention, so they literally changed the world, for better or worse (mostly worse).
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      > The actual impact of those things is pretty small Then it hasn’t changed the world. That phrase doesn’t mean “a small number of things are different” it means that everything has pivoted.
    - andsoitis 4y ago
      > The actual impact of those things is pretty small That’s the definition of NOT changing the world.
      - reidjs 4y ago
        I guess I interpreted the expression literally as "changed the world [at all]", when most people interpret it as "changed the world [significantly]".
        andsoitis 4y ago

A lot of people saw crypto coming right at us as well.

by johnfn 4y ago

A lot of people saw crypto coming right at us as well.

It is easy to find such examples. A lot of people see aliens in the skies. A lot of people buy into get rich quick schemes.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
palata 4y ago
That doesn't help your case :). Your intuition is not enough to say it's coming right at us. So where is the data? If there is no data, then it's just an intuition.
- nuancebydefault 4y ago
  Even with or without data, every prediction is intuition. Data, if you need them, are the current events. But remember the quote 'Lies, damn lies and statistics'. It is the interpretation of the data that is what counts and that interpretation is partly subjective. Otherwise we would not be having this rather fierce but interesting conversation in the first place.
  - palata 4y ago
    Well, it can be more or less backed by facts. That's the difficult part: making the difference between what seems like a reasonable prediction and what is merely a belief. Climate change is coming at us. That's still a prediction (it hasn't happened yet), but not believing in it right now is irrational and dangerous. I don't think we can say that for AI. That AI will change the world is a belief. Doesn't mean that it won't.

wsgeorge 4y ago

Crypto wasn't good enough as a currency, so what was coming in terms of that use case didn't pan out en masse. But it did work to an extent for some people. Crypto's value fluctuation made more sense as a speculative asset class, and it clearly saw most of its traction there. It's potential as a currency did lead to banks, financial institutions and governments taking a hard look at it. And CBDC's are an area of active investigation. So the hyper-optimists may have been off on some of their predictions, but something came out of it. AGI-agencent tools are more grounded. They don't threaten to tear down existing entrenched institutions. They do one thing simple: commoditize and scale some level of intelligence. And they're pretty good at it, hence the hype. Unless humanity develops a deep distaste for many things AI-made, the fascination will wear off and we'll be left with the cold hard truth of raw productivity increase and digital production on an unprecedented scale.

JohnFen 4y ago
> AGI-agencent tools are more grounded. They don't threaten to tear down existing entrenched institutions. I disagree with this part. (I disagree with calling this tech "AGI-adjacent", too, but that's not the part I'm calling out here). I'm not sure what you mean by "more grounded", but if you mean "more based in reality", I don't think this is clear. But, if what the evangelizers say is correct, it absolutely threatens to tear down entrenched institutions. It even threatens to tear down society itself by destroying what little trust remains.
- wsgeorge 4y ago
  By "grounded", I mean the promises of crypto vs the promises of AI. IIRC, crypto was a little too idealistic in the promise of providing a digital currency without needing a central, trusted authority to back it. From my perspective, AI as we've seen it in the last few months simply provides a tool that can automate intelligent tasks easily. I think the distinction is fuelled more by the companies and leading figures pushing the latter. OpenAI's stewardship, concerns for safety and generally downplaying how amazing these tools are while not ignoring the real effects they could have make AI sound more "grounded" than peak crypto was. Or it could just be the folks I pay more attention to. > I disagree with calling this tech "AGI-adjacent", too, but that's not the part I'm calling out here I think this rests mostly on the definition of "General" here. Here, I'm talking about LLMs as general task performers, as opposed to models created for more specific tasks. LLMs have proven to be more general purpose, which I'd argue makes them closer to the AGI ideal than, say, a sentiment analysis model.

nightski 4y ago

Crypto is a $1T industry even with all the hate it gets on HN.

JohnFen 4y ago
So? Cryptocurrency (or even blockchain) has not (yet) changed the world. That was what everyone was predicting.
- reidjs 4y ago
  Yes it has, I see bitcoin ATMs all over the place and know that tons of people exchange cryptocurrencies daily for fiat and for other cryptocurrencies. A lot of people use it to gamble and buy drugs online. Some people are using it as a monetization scheme for their artwork (NFTs). The actual impact of those things is pretty small, but none of this was possible before their invention, so they literally changed the world, for better or worse (mostly worse).
  - edgyquant 4y ago
    > The actual impact of those things is pretty small Then it hasn’t changed the world. That phrase doesn’t mean “a small number of things are different” it means that everything has pivoted.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    > The actual impact of those things is pretty small That’s the definition of NOT changing the world.
    - reidjs 4y ago
      I guess I interpreted the expression literally as "changed the world [at all]", when most people interpret it as "changed the world [significantly]".
      - andsoitis 4y ago