4 ms·
I'm glad to read articles like this one, because I think it is important that we pour some water on the hype cycle If we want to get serious about using these
by bluefirebrand 1y ago
I'm glad to read articles like this one, because I think it is important that we pour some water on the hype cycle
If we want to get serious about using these new AI tools then we need to come out of the clouds and get real about their capabilities
Are they impressive? Sure. Useful? Yes probably in a lot of cases
But we cannot continue the hype this way, it doesn't serve anyone except the people who are financially invested in these tools.
- fhd2 1y agoEven of the people invested in these tools, hype only benefits those attempting a pump and dump scheme, or those selling training, consulting or similar services around AI. People who try to make genuine progress, while there's more money in it now, might just have to deal with another AI winter soon at this rate.
- bluefirebrand 1y ago> hype only benefits those attempting a pump and dump scheme I read some posts the other day saying Sam Altman sold off a ton of his OpenAI shares. Not sure if it's true and I can't find a good source, but if it is true then "pump and dump" does look close to the mark
- aeronaut80 1y agoYou probably can’t find a good source because sources say he has a negligible stake in OpenAI. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/12/10/billionaire-sam-altman-doesnt-own-openai-equity-childhood-dream-job.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/12/10/billionaire-sam-altman-d...
- bluefirebrand 1y agoInteresting When I did a cursory search, this information didn't turn up either Thanks for correcting me. I suppose the stuff I saw the other day was just BS then
- aeronaut80 1y agoTo be fair I struggle to believe he’s doing it out of the goodness of his heart.
- spookie 1y agoThink the same thing, we need more breakthroughs. Until then, it is still risky to rely on AI for most applications. The sad thing is that most would take this comment the wrong way. Assuming it is just another doomer take. No, there is still a lot to do, and promissing the world too soon will only lead to disappointment.
- Zigurd 1y agoThis is the thing of it: "for most applications." LLMs are not thinking. They way they fail, which is confidently and articulately, is one way they reveal there is no mind behind the bland but well-structured text. But if I was tasked with finding 500 patents with weak claims or claims that have been litigated and knocked down, I would turn into LLMs to help automate that. One or two "nines" of reliability is fine, and LLMs would turn this previously impossible task into something plausible to take on.
- mountainriver 1y agoI’ll take critiques from someone who knows what a test train split is. The idea that a guy so removed from machine learning has something relevant to say about its capabilities really speaks to the state of AI fear
- devwastaken 1y agoexperts are often blinded by their paychecks to see how nonsense their expertise is
- soulofmischief 1y ago[citation needed]
- Spooky23 1y agoRemember Web 3.0? Lol
- Zigurd 1y agoIt's unfortunate that a discussion about LLM weaknesses is giving crypto bro. But telling. There are a lot of bubble valuations out there.
- soulofmischief 1y agoIt's only telling of the people who have a nascent understanding of tech cycles and who are more interested in confirming biases than attempting to respect or understand a subculture, and who are unable to recognize that every hype cycle will attract parasitic undesirables who are not representative of the movement they are hijacking.
- soulofmischief 1y agoYes, did you have an argument to make?
- 1y ago
- senko 1y agoGary Marcus isn't about "getting real", it's making a name for himself as a contrarian to the popular AI narrative. This article may seem reasonable, but here he's defending a paper that in his previous article he called "A knockout blow for LLMs". Many of his articles seem reasonable (if a bit off) until you read a couple dozen a spot a trend.
- adamgordonbell 1y agoThis! For all his complaints about llms, his writing could be generated by an llm with a prompt saying: 'write an article responding to this news with an essay saying that you are once again right that this AI stuff is overblown and will never amount to anything.'
- woopsn 1y agoGiven that the links work, the quotes were actually said, numbers are correct, cited research actually exists etc we can immediately rule that out.
- steamrolled 1y ago> Gary Marcus isn't about "getting real", it's making a name for himself as a contrarian to the popular AI narrative. That's an odd standard. Not wanting to be wrong is a universal human instinct. By that logic, every person who ever took any position on LLMs is automatically untrustworthy. After all, they made a name for themselves by being pro- or con-. Or maybe a centrist - that's a position too. Either he makes good points or he doesn't. Unless he has a track record of distorting facts, his ideological leanings should be irrelevant.
- sinenomine 1y agoMarcus' points routinely fail to pass scrutiny, nobody in the field takes him seriously. If you seek real scientifically interesting LLM criticism, read François Chollet and his Arc AGI series of evals.
- senko 1y ago
- bigyabai 1y agoThere's something innately funny about "HN's undying optimism" and "bad-news paper from Apple" reaching a head like this. An unstoppable object is careening towards an impervious wall, anything could happen.
- DiogenesKynikos 1y agoI don't understand what people mean when they say that AI is being hyped. AI is at the point where you can have a conversation with it about almost anything, and it will answer more intelligently than 90% of people. That's incredibly impressive, and normal people don't need to be sold on it. They're just naturally impressed by it.
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y agoI don’t need a tool that’s right maybe 70% of the time (and that’s me being optimistic). It needs to be right all the time or at least tell you when it doesn’t know for sure, instead of just making up something. Comparing it to going out in the streets and asking random people random questions is not a good comparison.
- newswasboring 1y ago> I don’t need a tool that’s right maybe 70% of the time (and that’s me being optimistic). Where are you getting this from? 70%?
- amohn9 1y agoIt might not fit your work, but there are tons of areas where “good enough” can still provide a lot of value. I’m sure you’d be thrilled with a tool that could correctly tell you if Apple’s stock was going up or down tomorrow 70% of the time.
- chongli 1y agoI work in a mail room sending hard copy letters to customers. If I got my job right only 70% of the time then I’d be causing massive privacy breaches daily by sending the wrong personal information to the wrong customers. Would you trust an AI that gets your banking transactions right only 70% of the time?
- amohn9 1y agoNo. I also wouldn’t use a hammer to cut a board in half - I’d grab a saw. Knowing how to pick the right tool is a fundamental part of being a good engineer. Sometimes 70% is unacceptable, sometimes it’s exceptional. LLMs are incredible technology, but also just another tool in the toolbox. Use them where they fit, not where they don’t.
- bandrami 1y agoHow actually useful are they though? We've had more than a year now of saying these things 10X knowledge workers and creatives, so.... where is the output? Is there a new office suite I can try? 10 times as many mobile apps? A huge new library of ebooks? Is this actually in practice producing things beyond Ghibli memes and RETVRN nostalgia slop?
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y agoI think it largely depends on what you’re writing. I’ve had it reply to corporate emails which is good since I need to sound professional not human. If I’m coding it still needs a lot of baby sitting and sometimes I’m much faster than it.
- Gigachad 1y agoAnd then the person on the end is using AI to summarise the email back to normal English. To what end?
- js8 1y agoBut look the GDP has increased!
- bandrami 1y agoBut that's what I don't get: it hasn't in that scenario because that doesn't lead to a greater circulation of money at any point. And that's the big thing I'm looking for: something AI has created that consumers are willing to pay for. Because if that doesn't end up happening no amount of sunk investment is going to save the ecosystem.
- bandrami 1y agoSo this would be an interesting output to measure but I have no idea how we would do that: has the volume of corporate email gone up? Or the time spent creating it gone down?
- landl0rd 1y ago[flagged]