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Reminds me of crypto/Web-3.0 hype. Lots of bluster about changing economic systems, offering people freedom and wealth, only to mostly be scams, and coming with

Reminds me of crypto/Web-3.0 hype. Lots of bluster about changing economic systems, offering people freedom and wealth, only to mostly be scams, and coming with too serious inherent drawbacks/costs to solve many of the big problems it promises to solve. In the end leaving the world changed, but not as meaningfully or positively as promised.

mikert89 1y ago
the difference is the impact of crypto was always hypothetical, chatgpt can be used, explored, and if you are creative enough, levered in ways as the ultimate tool
- dotnet00 1y ago
  You've done nothing but reuse the Sam Altman/Elon Musk playbook of making wild and extremely vague statements. Maybe say something concrete? What's a positive real world impact of LLMs where they aren't hideously expensive and error prone to the point of near uselessness? Something that isn't just the equivalent of a crypto-bro saying that their system for semi-regulated speculation (totally not a rugpull!) will end the tyranny of the banks.
  - ogogmad 1y ago
    So you're saying that modern LLMs are a just like crypto/Web3, except in all the ways they're not, so they must be useless. --- Less flippantly, they are excellent for self-studying university-level topics. It's like being able to ask questions to a personal tutor/professor.
    - zirror 1y ago
      But you need to verify everything unless it’s self evident. The number of times CoPilot (Sonnett 4) still hallucinates Browser APIs is astonishing. Imaging trying to learn something that can’t be checked easily, like Egyptian archeology or something.
      - bluesnowmonkey 1y ago
        You have to verify everything from human developers too. They hallucinate APIs when they try to write code from memory. So we have: - documentation - design reviews - type systems - code review - unit tests - continuous integration - integration testing - Q&A process - etc. It turns out when include all these processes, teams of error-prone human developers can produce complex working software. Mostly -- sometimes there are bugs. Kind of a lot actually. But we get things done. Is it not the same with AI? With the right processes you can get consistent results from inconsistent tools.
        dotnet00 1y ago
        Taking the example of egyptian archeology, if you're reading the work of someone who is well regarded as an expert in the field, you can trust their word a lot more than you can trust the word of an AI, even if the AI is provided the text you're reading. This is a pretty massive difference between the two, and your narrative is part of why AI is proving to be so harmful for education in general. Delusional dreamers and greedy CEOs talking about AI being able to do "PhD level work" have potentially ruined a significant chunk of the next generation into thinking they are genuinely learning from asking AI "a few questions" and taking the answers at face value instead of struggling through the material to build true understanding.
        lxgr 1y ago
        The vast majority of people trying to do any given thing simply don’t have access to experts in the field, though. I’ll take a potential solution I can validate over no idea whatsoever of my own any day.
        dotnet00 1y ago
        What are books?
        crote 1y ago
        So you would prefer "Yes, the moon is indeed made of cheese!" over "I don't know what the moon is made of"? If any answer is acceptable, just get your local toddler to babble some nonsense for you.
  - mikert89 1y ago
    they speak in generalities because the models are profoundly general, a general learning system. below someone asked me to list the capabilities, its the wrong question to ask. its like asking what a baby can do
    - jay_kyburz 1y ago
      Babies are hopeless. They can't do anything. Oh, I guess you mean when they grow up.
    - southernplaces7 1y ago
      So to translate: You want concrete examples of capabilities for something billions are being spent on? What a Silly question! (hand waving about completely speculative future abilities "when they grow up") The woo is laughable. A cryptobro could have pulled the same nonsense out of their ass about web 3.0
- throwawa14223 1y ago
  ChatGPT is just as useless as a shitcoin and just like a shitcoin the sooner we stop burning electricity on LLMs the better.
  - mock-possum 1y ago
    I just vibecoded a photo gallery 100% from scratch - Frontend, backend, infrastructure, hosting and domain, from 0 to launch, in a couple of hours the other night. It would have taken me a whole day, easily, to do on my own. Useless it is emphatically not
tuatoru 1y ago
I have seen AI improve the quality and velocity of my wife's policy analysis dramatically. She doesn't like using Claude, but she accepts the necessity of doing so, and it reduces 3-month projects to 2-week projects. Claude is an excellent debating partner. Crypto? Blockchain? No-one sceptical could ever see the point of either, unless and until their transaction costs were less than that of cash. That... has not happened, to put it mildly. These things are NOT the same.
- vivzkestrel 1y ago
  that was not the sentiment people had in 2017. they were almost certain every major visa card provider and payment gateway on the planet will scrap fiat cash and adopt crypto just like how they are all thinking about every major software company adopting AI. Dont forget hindsight bias
  - Xss3 1y ago
    I dont know a single person that had such a belief.
techblueberry 1y ago
I’m watching Ken Burns Documentary on the Dust Bowl, and interesting that one of the causes of the dust bowl was a wheat hype cycle in western Oklahoma with all sorts of folks theorizing that because they were able to re-form the grassland to wheat land and grow wheat it would somehow cause more rains to come (to an area that is known for droughts) and it was thought the growth would go on forever. Turns out the grasses they replaced had roots like 6 feet deep that kept the soil in place and prevented events like the dust bowl during dry spells. Basically the hype cycle is as American as Apple Pie.
mock-possum 1y ago
Except that nothing of crypto/web3 ever touched my day or day life - ‘blockchain’ is now shorthand for ‘scam’ - whereas LLM-generated content is now an everyday element of both personal and professional projects, and while we maybe already be seeing diminishing returns, even the current state of advancement has already changed how digital content is searched and created forever. The hype is real, but there’s actual practical affordable understandable day-to-day use for the tech - unlike crypto, unlike blockchain, unlike web3.

mikert89 1y ago

the difference is the impact of crypto was always hypothetical, chatgpt can be used, explored, and if you are creative enough, levered in ways as the ultimate tool

dotnet00 1y ago
You've done nothing but reuse the Sam Altman/Elon Musk playbook of making wild and extremely vague statements. Maybe say something concrete? What's a positive real world impact of LLMs where they aren't hideously expensive and error prone to the point of near uselessness? Something that isn't just the equivalent of a crypto-bro saying that their system for semi-regulated speculation (totally not a rugpull!) will end the tyranny of the banks.
- ogogmad 1y ago
  So you're saying that modern LLMs are a just like crypto/Web3, except in all the ways they're not, so they must be useless. --- Less flippantly, they are excellent for self-studying university-level topics. It's like being able to ask questions to a personal tutor/professor.
  - zirror 1y ago
    But you need to verify everything unless it’s self evident. The number of times CoPilot (Sonnett 4) still hallucinates Browser APIs is astonishing. Imaging trying to learn something that can’t be checked easily, like Egyptian archeology or something.
    - bluesnowmonkey 1y ago
      You have to verify everything from human developers too. They hallucinate APIs when they try to write code from memory. So we have: - documentation - design reviews - type systems - code review - unit tests - continuous integration - integration testing - Q&A process - etc. It turns out when include all these processes, teams of error-prone human developers can produce complex working software. Mostly -- sometimes there are bugs. Kind of a lot actually. But we get things done. Is it not the same with AI? With the right processes you can get consistent results from inconsistent tools.
      - dotnet00 1y ago
        Taking the example of egyptian archeology, if you're reading the work of someone who is well regarded as an expert in the field, you can trust their word a lot more than you can trust the word of an AI, even if the AI is provided the text you're reading. This is a pretty massive difference between the two, and your narrative is part of why AI is proving to be so harmful for education in general. Delusional dreamers and greedy CEOs talking about AI being able to do "PhD level work" have potentially ruined a significant chunk of the next generation into thinking they are genuinely learning from asking AI "a few questions" and taking the answers at face value instead of struggling through the material to build true understanding.
        lxgr 1y ago
        The vast majority of people trying to do any given thing simply don’t have access to experts in the field, though. I’ll take a potential solution I can validate over no idea whatsoever of my own any day.
        dotnet00 1y ago
        What are books?
        crote 1y ago
        So you would prefer "Yes, the moon is indeed made of cheese!" over "I don't know what the moon is made of"? If any answer is acceptable, just get your local toddler to babble some nonsense for you.
- mikert89 1y ago
  they speak in generalities because the models are profoundly general, a general learning system. below someone asked me to list the capabilities, its the wrong question to ask. its like asking what a baby can do
  - jay_kyburz 1y ago
    Babies are hopeless. They can't do anything. Oh, I guess you mean when they grow up.
  - southernplaces7 1y ago
    So to translate: You want concrete examples of capabilities for something billions are being spent on? What a Silly question! (hand waving about completely speculative future abilities "when they grow up") The woo is laughable. A cryptobro could have pulled the same nonsense out of their ass about web 3.0
throwawa14223 1y ago
ChatGPT is just as useless as a shitcoin and just like a shitcoin the sooner we stop burning electricity on LLMs the better.
- mock-possum 1y ago
  I just vibecoded a photo gallery 100% from scratch - Frontend, backend, infrastructure, hosting and domain, from 0 to launch, in a couple of hours the other night. It would have taken me a whole day, easily, to do on my own. Useless it is emphatically not

tuatoru 1y ago

I have seen AI improve the quality and velocity of my wife's policy analysis dramatically. She doesn't like using Claude, but she accepts the necessity of doing so, and it reduces 3-month projects to 2-week projects. Claude is an excellent debating partner. Crypto? Blockchain? No-one sceptical could ever see the point of either, unless and until their transaction costs were less than that of cash. That... has not happened, to put it mildly. These things are NOT the same.

vivzkestrel 1y ago
that was not the sentiment people had in 2017. they were almost certain every major visa card provider and payment gateway on the planet will scrap fiat cash and adopt crypto just like how they are all thinking about every major software company adopting AI. Dont forget hindsight bias
- Xss3 1y ago
  I dont know a single person that had such a belief.

techblueberry 1y ago

I’m watching Ken Burns Documentary on the Dust Bowl, and interesting that one of the causes of the dust bowl was a wheat hype cycle in western Oklahoma with all sorts of folks theorizing that because they were able to re-form the grassland to wheat land and grow wheat it would somehow cause more rains to come (to an area that is known for droughts) and it was thought the growth would go on forever. Turns out the grasses they replaced had roots like 6 feet deep that kept the soil in place and prevented events like the dust bowl during dry spells. Basically the hype cycle is as American as Apple Pie.

mock-possum 1y ago

Except that nothing of crypto/web3 ever touched my day or day life - ‘blockchain’ is now shorthand for ‘scam’ - whereas LLM-generated content is now an everyday element of both personal and professional projects, and while we maybe already be seeing diminishing returns, even the current state of advancement has already changed how digital content is searched and created forever. The hype is real, but there’s actual practical affordable understandable day-to-day use for the tech - unlike crypto, unlike blockchain, unlike web3.