4 ms·

> I mean, when I sit in a train I don’t spend half the ride saying “oh my god this is incredible, big thanks to whoever invented the wheel. So smooth!” Two tho

> I mean, when I sit in a train I don’t spend half the ride saying “oh my god this is incredible, big thanks to whoever invented the wheel. So smooth!” Two thoughts: - In that context, neither do you expect people to be invested in why the train is nothing special, it’s basically a horse cart, etc, etc - And maybe here’s where I’m weird: I often am overcome by the miracle of thousands of tons of metal hurtling along at 50 - 200mph, reliably, smoothly enough to work or eat, many thousands of times a day, for pennies per person per mile. I mean, I’ll get sucked in to how the latches to release the emergency windows were designed and manufactured at scale despite almost none of them ever being used. But maybe that’s just me.

nothrabannosir 1y ago
Louis CK did a bit on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U :) My point isn’t that other people shouldn’t be amazed, it’s that I see this recurring assumption they aren’t. How do you know the people holding LLMs to higher standards aren’t also the same people who herald the dawn of a new AI era? Emphasis in the text you quoted: “saying”, not “thinking”.
- brookst 1y ago
  My point was more that there is a subset of technical people who delight in the “they’re not perfect, because / therefore they are just glorified spellcheck” fallacy. Search this thread for “spell” or “parrot” to see examples. So I don’t think it’s the same people, because the tone is not “they’re amazing but have farther to go”; there is a substantial group who at least claims to believe there’s no qualitative difference between Opus 4.1 and the spellcheck in Word ‘95. Not trying to be argumentative here; I appreciate the conversation and you’ve helped me sharpen my point, which I appreciate.

nothrabannosir 1y ago

Louis CK did a bit on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U :) My point isn’t that other people shouldn’t be amazed, it’s that I see this recurring assumption they aren’t. How do you know the people holding LLMs to higher standards aren’t also the same people who herald the dawn of a new AI era? Emphasis in the text you quoted: “saying”, not “thinking”.

brookst 1y ago
My point was more that there is a subset of technical people who delight in the “they’re not perfect, because / therefore they are just glorified spellcheck” fallacy. Search this thread for “spell” or “parrot” to see examples. So I don’t think it’s the same people, because the tone is not “they’re amazing but have farther to go”; there is a substantial group who at least claims to believe there’s no qualitative difference between Opus 4.1 and the spellcheck in Word ‘95. Not trying to be argumentative here; I appreciate the conversation and you’ve helped me sharpen my point, which I appreciate.