3 ms·
Those aren’t mutually exclusive; something can be both useful and a con. When a con man sells you a cheap watch for an high price, what you get is still useful
by latexr 10mo ago
Those aren’t mutually exclusive; something can be both useful and a con.
When a con man sells you a cheap watch for an high price, what you get is still useful—a watch that tells the time—but you were also still conned, because what you paid for is not what was advertised. You overpaid because you were tricked about what you were buying.
LLMs are useful for many things, but they’re also not nearly as beneficial and powerful as they’re being sold as. Sam Altman, while entirely ignoring the societal issues raised by the technology (such as the spread of misinformation and unhealthy dependencies), repeatedly claims it will cure all cancers and other kinds of diseases, eradicate poverty, solve the housing crisis, democracy… Those are bullshit, thus the con description applies.
https://youtu.be/l0K4XPu3Qhg?t=60 https://youtu.be/l0K4XPu3Qhg?t=60
- BoxOfRain 10mo agoI think the following things can both be true at the same time: * LLMs are a useful tool in a variety of circumstances. * Sam Altman is personally incentivised to spout a great deal of hyped-up rubbish about both what LLMs are capable of, and can be capable of.
- latexr 10mo agoYes, that’s the point I’m making. In the scenario you’re describing, that would make Sam Altman a con man. Alternatively, he could simply be delusional and/or stupid. But given his history of deceit with Loopt and Worldcoin, there is precedent for the former.
- pousada 10mo agoIt would make every marketing department and basically every startup founder conmen too. While I don’t completely disagree with that framing it’s not really helpful.
- latexr 10mo agoNo, that is not true. Coca-Cola doesn’t advertise itself as a cure for cancer. Dropbox doesn’t advertise itself as a tax-filing application. Theranos on the other hand… That was a con and the founder was prosecuted. And again, Sam Altman has a history of deceit. https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoin-cryptocurrency-biometrics-web3/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/04/06/1048981/worldcoi... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-crypto-eyeball-scanning-orb-problems https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/richardnieva/worldcoin-...
- pousada 10mo agoCoca-Cola advertises itself as a “happiness machine” as something that brings people together, builds communities, creates love and friendship. The latest slogan i can remember is “open happiness”. I like fizzy sugar drinks as much as the next guy but Coca-Cola is not liquid happiness. Edit: Dropbox marketing slogan is “for all things worth saving”
- latexr 10mo agoSlogans are not promises, they are vague feelings. In the case of Coca-Cola, I know someone who might literally agree with the happiness part of it (though I certainly wouldn’t). The promises of Theranos and LLMs are concrete measurable things we can evaluate and report where they succeed, fall short, or are lies.
- pousada 10mo agoSure but equating Theranos and LLMs seems a bit disingenuous. Theranos was an outright scam that never produced any results, whereas LMMs might not have (yet?) lived up to all the marketing promises (you might call them slogans?) they made, but they definitely provided some real measurable value.
- latexr 10mo ago> (you might call them slogans?) You’re being ridiculous. These are not slogans, and no one arguing in good faith would claim they are. https://youtu.be/l0K4XPu3Qhg?t=60 https://youtu.be/l0K4XPu3Qhg?t=60 > but they definitely provided some real measurable value. Something which provides value can still be a scam. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614364 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46614364 I addressed all your points some eight levels up the thread.
- runarberg 10mo agoThese are not independent hypotheses. If (b) is true it decreases the possibility that (a) is true and vice versa. The dependency here is that if Sam Altman is indeed a con man, it is reasonable to assume that he has in fact conned many people who then report an over inflated metric on the usefulness of the stuff they just bought (people don’t like to believe they were conned; cognitive dissonance). In other words, if Sam Altman is indeed a con man, it is very likely that most metrics of the usefulness of his product is heavily biased.