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This is a genre of article I find particularly annoying. Instead of writing an essay on why he personally thinks GPT-5 is bad based on his own analysis, the aut
by Uehreka 1y ago
This is a genre of article I find particularly annoying. Instead of writing an essay on why he personally thinks GPT-5 is bad based on his own analysis, the author just gathers up a bunch of social media reactions and tells us about them, characterizing every criticism as “devastating” or a “slam”, and then hopes that the combined weight of these overtorqued summaries will convince us to see things his way.
It’s both too slanted to be journalism, but not original enough to be analysis.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoIt's critique, which is a high sounding way of saying propaganda
- johnfn 1y agoFor some reason AI seems to bring out articles that seem to fundamentally lack curiosity - opting instead for gleeful mockery and scorn. I like AI, but I'll happily read thoughtful articles from people who disagree. But not this. This article has no value other than to dunk on the opposition. I tend to think HN's moderation is OK, but I think these sorts of low-curiosity articles need to be off the front page.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- willywutso 1y ago[dead]
- giantrobot 1y ago> opting instead for gleeful mockery and scorn This is well earned by the likes of OpenAI that is trying to convince everyone they need trillions of dollars to build fabs to build super genius AIs. These super genius AIs will replace everyone (except billionaires) and act as magic money printers (for billionaires). Meanwhile their super genius precursor AIs make up shit and can't count letters in words while being laughably sycophantic. There's no need to defend poor innocent megacorps trying to usher in a techno-feudal dystopia.
- MBCook 1y agoI think there’s plenty to mock about the hype around AI That doesn’t mean any article mocking it or trashing it is well written or insightful.
- frozenseven 1y ago>can't count letters in words This really hasn't been a thing since reasoning models showed up. Any recent example of such seems to come from non-reasoning variants. >laughably sycophantic Mainstream models are moving away from this, afaik. Part of the recent drama is that GPT-5 wasn't sycophantic enough for some users.
- jjani 1y agohttps://bsky.app/profile/kjhealy.co/post/3lvtxbtexg226 https://bsky.app/profile/kjhealy.co/post/3lvtxbtexg226
- frozenseven 1y agoThis is exactly what I'm talking about. The immediate issue with GPT-5's launch was that some people were getting rerouted to 4o, and there was no control over which version of GPT-5 you're getting. Whatever he's talking to there looks nothing like a reasoning model.
- hyperadvanced 1y agoI don’t like AI and I think this type of article is very boring. Imagine having one of the most interesting technological developments of the last 50 years unfolding before your eyes and resort to reposting tweet fragments…
- bko 1y ago> For some reason AI seems to bring out articles that seem to fundamentally lack curiosity - opting instead for gleeful mockery and scorn I think its broader to all tech. It all started in 2016 after it was deemed that tech, especially social media, had helped sway the election. Since then a lot of things became political that weren't in the past and tech got swept up w/ that. And unfortunately AI has its haters despite the fact that it's objectively the fastest growing most exciting technology in the last 50 years. Instead they're dissecting some CEOs shitposts. Fast forward to today, pretty much everything is political. Take this banger from NY Times: > Mr. Kennedy has singled out Froot Loops as an example of a product with too many ingredients. In an interview with MSNBC on Nov. 6, he questioned the overall ingredient count: “Why do we have Froot Loops in this country that have 18 or 19 ingredients and you go to Canada and it has two or three?” Mr. Kennedy asked. > He was wrong on the ingredient count, they are roughly the same. But the Canadian version does have natural colorings made from blueberries and carrots while the U.S. product contains red dye 40, yellow 5 and blue 1 as well as Butylated hydroxytoluene, or BHT, a lab-made chemical that is used “for freshness,” according to the ingredient label. No self-awareness. https://archive.is/dT2qK#selection-975.0-996.0 https://archive.is/dT2qK#selection-975.0-996.0
- moritzwarhier 1y agoI think you are missing the forest for the trees here. > It all started in 2016 after it was deemed that tech, especially social media, had helped sway the election. Since then a lot of things became political that weren't in the past and tech got swept up w/ that The 2016 election was a symptom of broader societal changes, and yeah, I'd also say it exhibited a new level of psychological manipulation in election campaigns. But the election being "deemed" influenced by technology and media (sure it was, why not?) as a cause for political division seems very far-fetched. Regarding the US healthcare politics farce, I don't understand your point or how it relates to the beginning of your comment. Political division and propaganda inciting outrage are flourishing, yes. Not because of what you describe about the 2016 election though, IMO. What's the connection? So you mean if nobody had assessed social media campaigns after that election, politics wozld be more honest and fact-based? Why? And what did you want to say with the NY Times article about the US secretary of health and American junk food / cereals?
- ants_everywhere 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- MBCook 1y agoSo everyone who isn’t pro AI is just an astroturfer in a coordinated campaign? I find that extremely unlikely.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoDo you see how you've chosen to try to twist what I've said instead of honestly engaging with it?
- jfengel 1y agoThat was what it sounded like to me, too. I see another comment express the same. I trust that wasn't what was intended but I'm not entirely sure what you did intend. So it's a little hard to engage with it.
- ants_everywhere 1y agoIs there any single sentence in my comment that you think is factually incorrect as written? And do you not see that it's a common form of intellectual dishonesty to pretend that a "there exists" statement is a "for all" statement, and now three people have tried to do this without adding anything at all to the discussion?
- MBCook 1y agoYou said people underestimate the amount of astroturfing. Clearly implying there is more than people think. You seemed to imply there was a small amount of genuine anti-AI posting. You then said the posts came in identifiable waves followed by explaining how people organize on discord to post such things. All of that added up sounds to me like you are implying the vast majority of anti-AI sentiment is organized astroturfing. Yeah you never said every single one, I generalized on that front. You say that’s not what you meant. Sorry, that was how I read your post. It sounded to me like a blatant dismissal of all critiques as fake or insincere.
- hckrfucrs 1y agoAh yes, the highest form of curiosity, the kind that attempts to silence those whose opinion differs from your own. If it hurts your feelings to have your terrible opinions "dunked" on then take the time to form better opinions.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- johnfn 1y agoI said clearly and explicitly in my comment that I am happy to read thoughtful anti-AI material. That you disregarded this to write your comment says more about your ability to "form better opinions" than mine.
- jepson19 1y agoI think this is the fundamental trend of all "commentary" in the digital age. Thoughtful, nuanced takes simply cannot generate the same audience and velocity, and by the time you write something of actual substance the moment is gone and the hyper-narrative has moved on.
- diatone 1y agoFTA > That’s exactly what it means to hit a wall, and exactly the particular set of obstacles I described in my most notorious (and prescient) paper, in 2022. Real progress on some dimensions, but stuck in place on others. The author includes their personal experience — recommend reading to the end.
- Uehreka 1y agoI did read to the end before commenting. The author alludes to a paper they wrote 3 years ago while self-importantly complimenting themself on how good it was (always a red flag). They don’t really say much other than that in the post.
- drakenot 1y agoGary Marcus tends to have pretty shallow analysis or points. His takes often remind me of Jim Cramer’s stock analysis — to the point I’d be willing to bet on the side of a “reverse Gary Marcus”.
- colechristensen 1y agoAny journalism (or anything that resembles it) which contains the words "devastating", "slam", or the many equivalents is garbage. Unless it's about a natural disaster or professional wrestling.
- joshuamoyers 1y ago100% agree. I feel like this is a symptom of Dead Internet Theory as well - as a negative take starts to spiral out of control, we start to get an absolute deluge of a repurposing of the directionally negative sound bytes and it honestly feels like bot canvasing.
- dangus 1y agoThis style of journalism existed long before dead internet theory.
- tokai 1y ago>It’s both too slanted to be journalism, but not original enough to be analysis. Its a blog post.
- roenxi 1y agoI don't think the complaint is ultimately against the post - if someone wants to post whatever on their blog that is fine. The complaint is more targeted against the people upvoting it because ... it is hard to speculate what their motivations are, but their ability to pick a low-content article when they see it is limited.
- BlueTemplar 1y agoSome people are trying to defend some kind of pure vision of journalism, but most journalism has always been shit. I prefer the 4th power definition : if it has the power of broadcast (yes here), then it's journalism.
- GodelNumbering 1y agoI think it's a broad problem across every aspect of life - it has gotten increasingly more difficult to find genuine takes. Most people online seem to be just relaying a version of someone else's take and we end up with unnecessarily loud and high volume shallow content.
- hyperadvanced 1y agoThey don’t call it an echo chamber for nothin’
- zombiwoof 1y ago[dead]
- ramchip 1y ago> Gary Marcus always, always says AI doesn't actually work - it's his whole thing. If he's posted a correct argument it's a coincidence. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44278811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44278811 I think you're absolutely right about this being a wider problem though.
- mcswell 1y agoThat's not at all what Marcus is saying. He admits that it does remarkably well, but says (1) it's still not trustworthy; and (2) This version is not much better than the previous version. Both points are in support of his claim that just scaling isn't ever going to lead to General AI.
- mortsnort 1y agoIt's a blog post about whether GPT 5 lived up to the hype and how it is being received, which is a totally legitimate thing to blog about. This is Gary Marcus's blog, not BBC coverage, of course it's slanted to the opinion he is trying to express.
- ninetyninenine 1y agoYeah which is exactly what the post you’re responding to is commenting on. It’s a classic HN comment asking for nuance and discrediting Gary. It’s about how Gary is always following classic mob mentality, so of course it’s not slanted at all and commenting about the accuracies of the post. So ironically you’re saying Gary’s shit is supposed to be that way and you’re criticizing the HN comment for that, but now I’m criticizing you for criticizing the comment because HN comments ARE supposed to be the opposite of Gary’s bullshit opinions. I expect to read better stuff on HN. Not this type of biased social media violence and character take downs.
- indigodaddy 1y agoYeah, but, he did "play with it for about an hour!"
- kelnos 1y agoSure, that's fine, but the question is whether or not that's interesting to the HN crowd. Apparently it is, as it made it to the front page. But I agree with GP's criticism of the article; if I wanted to know what reddit thought about GPT-5, I'd go to reddit. I don't need to read an article filled with gleeful vitriol. I gave up after a couple paragraphs.
- benreesman 1y agoWe as a community have decided to absolutely drench the front page with low-effort hot takes by non-practitioners about one of many areas of modern neural network ... progress. This low-effort hot take is every bit as "valid" as all the nepobaby vibecode hype garbage: we decided to do the AI thing. This is the AI thing. What's your point? This one is on the critical side of the argument that was stupid in toto to begin with?
- screye 1y agoTo be fair, Gary Marcus pioneered the "LLMs will never make it" genre of complaining. Everyone else is derivative [1]. Let the man have his victory lap. He's been losing arguments for 5 years straight at this point. [1] Due credit to Yann for his 'LLMs will stop scaling, energy based methods are the way forward' obsession.
- lorenzo_medici 1y agoI was a grad student at NYU, its been much longer than 5 years of this, not just with LLMs but with just ML in the past.
- disgruntledphd2 1y agoI mean, his conceptual arguments are pretty good, ML/LLMs/statistical learning methods have real problems with out of distribution inputs and samples, and there's really no way to work around this (that I know of). I get what you mean though, even if he's right it must've been pretty annoying hearing the same thing all the time.
- jdefr89 1y agoI think from the authors perspective, LLM hype has been mostly the same exact thing you’re accusing him of doing. People with very little technical background claiming AGI is near or all these CEOs pushing these nonsense narratives are getting old.. People are blindly trusting these people and offloading all their thinking to a sophisticated stochastic machine. It’s useful yes, super cool yes. Some super god like power or something that brings us to AGI? No probably not. I can’t blame him. I am sick of the hype. Grifters are coming out of the woodwork in a field with too many grifters to begin with. All these AI/LLM companies are high of their own supply and it’s getting old.
- jvanderbot 1y agoI will never understand the "bad diagram" kind of critique. Yes maybe it can't build and label a perfect image of a bicycle, but could it list and explain the major components of a bike? Schematics are a whole different skill, and do we need to remind everyone what the L is?
- mcswell 1y agoListing and explaining is essentially repeating what someone else has said somewhere. Labeling a schematic requires understanding what you're saying (or copy-pasting a schematic, so I guess we can be happy that GPT-5 doesn't do that). No one who actually understood the function of the major components would mislabel the schematic like that, unless they were blind.
- jvanderbot 1y agoIts true if you expect general intelligence. Its forgiveable for expecting general intelligence given the hype. But there's no real reason we should have expected a language model to create an image that is for some reason a perfect bicycle schematic (other than hype). And I'm not sure that imagery is actually a required format to demonstrate intelligence. I bet it could generate assembly instructions and list each part and help diagnose or tune. And that's remarkable and demonstrates enough fake understanding to be useful.
- mcswell 1y ago"fake understanding" is exactly the right term. And the image is just fine, it's the labeling that's bonkers. What it illustrates is that the LLM can repeat words, but it has no idea what it's saying. Whereas any pre-1817 engineer, reading descriptions of bicycles (which GPT-5 obviously has access to), could easily have labeled a picture of one. (1817 is the date the first real bicycle is believed to have been invented, but driven by the rider's feet on the ground. Bicycles with chain drives weren't invented until decades later. But an engineer would have understood the principle.)
- mbac32768 1y agoI agree. A better article would dive into the economics of what and why they didn't release the model that won gold in the 2025 International Math Olympiad. And the answer there is (probably) because it had a million dollars in inference compute costs just to take the test. If you follow that line of reasoning, they're onto something, possibly something that is AGI, but it's still much too expensive to commercialize. If AI gains now come from spending OOMs more on inference than compute, it means we're in slow takeoff-istan and they're going to need to keep the hype train going for a long time to keep investment up. Can they get there? Is it a matter of waiting out the clock on Moore's law? Or are they on the sigmoid curve with inference based gains well? That's the question of our time and it's completely ignored.
- moritzwarhier 1y ago99% of content about AI nowadays is smug bullshitting with no real value. Is that new? I'm eagerly awaiting more insightful analyses about how AI will create a perpetuum mobile of wealth for all of humanity, independent from natural resource consumption and human greed. It seems so logical! Even some lesswrong discussions, however confused, are more insightful than most blog posts by AI company customers. Fascinating technology though, sure.
- stocksinsmocks 1y agoI did get a strong sense of gilted nerd. Why didn’t they give ME those billions in research funding? Nobody sees that I am the smartest boy because they’re just a bunch of dopes. Opinion people are something I think we could all do with less of.