3 ms·

Why are we wasting resources on toy chatbots?

dang 9mo ago
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
Borrowing state money that ultimately indentures a country with over-engineered massive boondoggle projects. That regulatory capture con strangled more emerging economies than most like to admit. =3 "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith)
- gruez 9mo ago
  >Borrowing state money that ultimately indentures a country with over-engineered massive boondoggle projects. The datacenters of Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. are primarily funded by the government?
  - Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
    Do they get tax breaks, subsidy, loan deals, and naive non-voting investor money? My point was these folks never gamble with their own cash from revenue. It is always the tax payer that ends up holding the gamblers debts. =3 https://www.usdebtclock.org/ https://www.usdebtclock.org/
    - gruez 9mo ago
      >Do they get tax breaks The government also has "tax breaks" for certain foods and my 401k. Does that make my evening meal and retirement plan "state money funded" as well? > loan deals, and naive non-voting investor money? Well?
      - Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
        Indeed, every US child is now born -$108,000 in national debt due to the behavior of their parents. The classic boondoggle state funded "big" projects have bankrupted many economies. Inflation corrected, people can expect $0.84 back for every dollar they now put into retirement plans. =3
boxed 9mo ago
If you think this is what LLMs are, then you are a bit behind the times. Opus 4.5 is a huge step up. The previous generation was good for starting basic hobby projects, now we can do pretty big time-consuming changes with it. I have been extremely skeptical and dismissive of LLMs for a long time, but after a certain level of improvement you have to realize that at least for programming the advantages are substantial.
- ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
  Okay, that's great. LLMs offer no benefit though.
  - boxed 9mo ago
    Ok, let's take it this way: What evidence could convince you there is some benefit?
    - ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
      Well, what would those benefits be? I genuinely don't see what it's useful for. From what I've seen, people spend an inordinate amount of time typing in "prompts", and the chatbot goes off and pretends to generate some code, and then the people have to work out what's wrong with it and type in another prompt. So it looks like the humans get to do all the slow, time-consuming drudge work of typing stuff in and debugging the result, but the chatbot does the interesting part. Why would I voluntarily just do the drudge work?
      - boxed 9mo ago
        Yea ok, I see. That's not how I use Claude Code for sure. I can write or even speak fairly small sentences and it goes and does pretty big changes, and for some things I know it can do it correctly. I think the interesting and useful part of the job is coming up with ideas to try and the design and getting the result. Typing code isn't really the fun part.
alansaber 9mo ago
Because fusion energy isn't cool anymore.
adamsb6 9mo ago
Why are we wasting resources hosting countless replicas of alt.tv.simpsons?

dang 9mo ago

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Joel_Mckay 9mo ago

Borrowing state money that ultimately indentures a country with over-engineered massive boondoggle projects. That regulatory capture con strangled more emerging economies than most like to admit. =3 "The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics" (Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Alastair Smith)

gruez 9mo ago
>Borrowing state money that ultimately indentures a country with over-engineered massive boondoggle projects. The datacenters of Meta, Google, Amazon, etc. are primarily funded by the government?
- Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
  Do they get tax breaks, subsidy, loan deals, and naive non-voting investor money? My point was these folks never gamble with their own cash from revenue. It is always the tax payer that ends up holding the gamblers debts. =3 https://www.usdebtclock.org/ https://www.usdebtclock.org/
  - gruez 9mo ago
    >Do they get tax breaks The government also has "tax breaks" for certain foods and my 401k. Does that make my evening meal and retirement plan "state money funded" as well? > loan deals, and naive non-voting investor money? Well?
    - Joel_Mckay 9mo ago
      Indeed, every US child is now born -$108,000 in national debt due to the behavior of their parents. The classic boondoggle state funded "big" projects have bankrupted many economies. Inflation corrected, people can expect $0.84 back for every dollar they now put into retirement plans. =3

boxed 9mo ago

If you think this is what LLMs are, then you are a bit behind the times. Opus 4.5 is a huge step up. The previous generation was good for starting basic hobby projects, now we can do pretty big time-consuming changes with it. I have been extremely skeptical and dismissive of LLMs for a long time, but after a certain level of improvement you have to realize that at least for programming the advantages are substantial.

ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
Okay, that's great. LLMs offer no benefit though.
- boxed 9mo ago
  Ok, let's take it this way: What evidence could convince you there is some benefit?
  - ErroneousBosh 9mo ago
    Well, what would those benefits be? I genuinely don't see what it's useful for. From what I've seen, people spend an inordinate amount of time typing in "prompts", and the chatbot goes off and pretends to generate some code, and then the people have to work out what's wrong with it and type in another prompt. So it looks like the humans get to do all the slow, time-consuming drudge work of typing stuff in and debugging the result, but the chatbot does the interesting part. Why would I voluntarily just do the drudge work?
    - boxed 9mo ago
      Yea ok, I see. That's not how I use Claude Code for sure. I can write or even speak fairly small sentences and it goes and does pretty big changes, and for some things I know it can do it correctly. I think the interesting and useful part of the job is coming up with ideas to try and the design and getting the result. Typing code isn't really the fun part.

alansaber 9mo ago

Because fusion energy isn't cool anymore.

adamsb6 9mo ago

Why are we wasting resources hosting countless replicas of alt.tv.simpsons?