5 ms·

>You’re implying 100% reliability is actually attainable. If that were the case, wouldn’t that mean the halting problem would have been solved by AI? I’m not an

>You’re implying 100% reliability is actually attainable. If that were the case, wouldn’t that mean the halting problem would have been solved by AI? I’m not an expert but I’ve heard that’s like one of those fundamental laws of information theory that really can’t be broken. Nah even 100% reliability isn't attainable by a human. 100% obviously doesn't imply solving the halting problem. 100% as in 100% as reliable as a human. Even surpassing a human. Sort of in the same way as a computer now beats humans at chess. >I think applying the sociology of hipster band fans to LLMs is a mistake Why would it be a mistake? Human psychology is similar across all spectrums. What happens in one area is likely possible in another area. If it happens among hipster bands it can happen among hipster technology fads. >I think there’s a temptation to apply the analogy of something like the early internet or smartphone to LLMs but those are networked products. LLMs don’t really improve with the various applications built on top of them if the LLM is itself fundamentally broken or faulty to the point that it is unsafe to use in practice. This is a valid speculation. But it's speculation. Basically your saying that LLMs are fundamentally broken and stuck at 38% forever because of fundamental and permanent flaws. The jury on that one is still out. And your point is highly, highly speculative. We see quantitative improvements on LLMs constantly AND this is a nascent technology we don't completely understand yet. The most probably and logical conclusion is to follow the technological trendline. That trendline is pointing up. To speculate on fundamental flaws of the LLM when people don't even fully understand what's going on with the LLM is illogical because you can't derive conclusions from something you don't understand. We can only generalize the trendline and constant improvements we've seen in AI for the past decade. Again that trendline is pointing to further break throughs in the future. >Obviously, I, like probably everyone else on this website would love LLMs to be reliable to a high degree. No this is not obvious to me. I disagree. I think some people are like you but other people, for example Geoffrey Hinton are in the apocalyptic camp. Personally I'm in the middle, I think it could go either way. It will definitely harm a segment of our society by taking over work, but whether the benefits of AGI outweighs the harm remains to be seen.

jsunderland323 3y ago
I'm not going to rebut everything but I want to point out that I think Geoffrey Hinton is way more in your camp in regards to faith in the technology (which is what we're discussing). I'm in the camp that thinks LLMs are at best a viable competitor to furby -- I have zero existential fears and have very little confidence in them. I'm not opposed to AIs, I just think the state of the art is really really bad (sorry) and the doom and existentialism is a marketing ploy to a world imbued in conspiracy theory and institutional distrust in order to compensate for a wildly over promised and under delivered product. But hey, when you gotta raise money, you gotta raise money, and as you put it, the "trend line is going up" and that's all that matters.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  Your hypothesis is "our company will destroy the world" is a marketing move? Look. People in reality are basically never this gigabrained. Maybe consider as your first-line theory, that when people say "AI will destroy the world", that they mean to express that they believe that AI will destroy the world?
  - __loam 3y ago
    It's definitely a marketing strategy. "Our technology is so good it might destroy the world. So we're letting you use it for 19.99 a month." It's just a completely inconsistent position. Who benefits from the government saying only openAI and a few other companies can make this stuff? Would openAI rather talk about the (non-existent) existential threat of AGI or actual problems with their technology like data privacy issues and the amount of power their bullshit consumes?
    - jsunderland323 3y ago
      Yeah, I think that's well said. I think the doomerism is more of a sell to investors than users sorta situation but it cuts both ways, which makes me sad for the tech industry having just made this same mistake with crypto. Who benefits from this? Anyone invested who doesn’t want to disappoint an investor (LPS, VCs, and founders) and/or anyone who’s ego is invested in the space and/or anyone who is raising money in the space and reliant on the technology and/or AI companies who benefit from the publicity/legitimacy of having their CEO talk to congress and/or AI companies who get an entire NYT piece run for a week about how an LLM is going to kill us all and/or any public company that can benefit from a stock rally by pushing the narrative that they’re in a land grab market and have the coveted goods and/or any large company that could benefit from blocking out nimbler competitors by getting arduous regulation passed… I could go on. You realize that like every 10th article on HN is an AI existentialism piece? Reddit is even worse. It also diverts the conversation from LLMs being shitty to the machines are coming. I’m fine with doomerism (getting hysterical can be fun) but I think it’s completely unwarranted with where we’re at. I don’t think we should overlook the risks associated with intellectual property, impersonation, data privacy, the ever growing body of bot spam destroying the internet etc. but worrying about the more dramatic risks has proven to be a pretty effective diversion tactic from the obvious acute problems — namely that LLMs have very little practical utility as they are now and the little utility they do have is primarily beneficial to spammers/scammers. I can already feel the person chiming in to tell me they love co-pilot (please just learn the language you’re working in). But to be clear I’m not saying this is a methodical highly coordinated ad campaign amongst multiple companies. I don’t think human beings are that competent. I think it’s way more grassroots and feeds on cultural tropes that have existed since at least the 1950s but probably the early 1900s. I think Anthropic’s leadership probably genuinely believes their own bullshit but I also think they understand that that same bullshit has raised over a billion in funding.

jsunderland323 3y ago

I'm not going to rebut everything but I want to point out that I think Geoffrey Hinton is way more in your camp in regards to faith in the technology (which is what we're discussing). I'm in the camp that thinks LLMs are at best a viable competitor to furby -- I have zero existential fears and have very little confidence in them. I'm not opposed to AIs, I just think the state of the art is really really bad (sorry) and the doom and existentialism is a marketing ploy to a world imbued in conspiracy theory and institutional distrust in order to compensate for a wildly over promised and under delivered product. But hey, when you gotta raise money, you gotta raise money, and as you put it, the "trend line is going up" and that's all that matters.

FeepingCreature 3y ago
Your hypothesis is "our company will destroy the world" is a marketing move? Look. People in reality are basically never this gigabrained. Maybe consider as your first-line theory, that when people say "AI will destroy the world", that they mean to express that they believe that AI will destroy the world?
- __loam 3y ago
  It's definitely a marketing strategy. "Our technology is so good it might destroy the world. So we're letting you use it for 19.99 a month." It's just a completely inconsistent position. Who benefits from the government saying only openAI and a few other companies can make this stuff? Would openAI rather talk about the (non-existent) existential threat of AGI or actual problems with their technology like data privacy issues and the amount of power their bullshit consumes?
  - jsunderland323 3y ago
    Yeah, I think that's well said. I think the doomerism is more of a sell to investors than users sorta situation but it cuts both ways, which makes me sad for the tech industry having just made this same mistake with crypto. Who benefits from this? Anyone invested who doesn’t want to disappoint an investor (LPS, VCs, and founders) and/or anyone who’s ego is invested in the space and/or anyone who is raising money in the space and reliant on the technology and/or AI companies who benefit from the publicity/legitimacy of having their CEO talk to congress and/or AI companies who get an entire NYT piece run for a week about how an LLM is going to kill us all and/or any public company that can benefit from a stock rally by pushing the narrative that they’re in a land grab market and have the coveted goods and/or any large company that could benefit from blocking out nimbler competitors by getting arduous regulation passed… I could go on. You realize that like every 10th article on HN is an AI existentialism piece? Reddit is even worse. It also diverts the conversation from LLMs being shitty to the machines are coming. I’m fine with doomerism (getting hysterical can be fun) but I think it’s completely unwarranted with where we’re at. I don’t think we should overlook the risks associated with intellectual property, impersonation, data privacy, the ever growing body of bot spam destroying the internet etc. but worrying about the more dramatic risks has proven to be a pretty effective diversion tactic from the obvious acute problems — namely that LLMs have very little practical utility as they are now and the little utility they do have is primarily beneficial to spammers/scammers. I can already feel the person chiming in to tell me they love co-pilot (please just learn the language you’re working in). But to be clear I’m not saying this is a methodical highly coordinated ad campaign amongst multiple companies. I don’t think human beings are that competent. I think it’s way more grassroots and feeds on cultural tropes that have existed since at least the 1950s but probably the early 1900s. I think Anthropic’s leadership probably genuinely believes their own bullshit but I also think they understand that that same bullshit has raised over a billion in funding.