3 ms·

Less than 6 months ago I would say about 50% of HN was at the denial phase saying it's just a next token predictor and that it doesn't actually understand code.

Less than 6 months ago I would say about 50% of HN was at the denial phase saying it's just a next token predictor and that it doesn't actually understand code. To all of you I can only say, you were utterly wrong and I hope you realize how unreliable your judgements all are. Remember I'm saying this to roughly 50% of HN., an internet community that's supposedly more rational and intelligent than other places on the internet. For this community to be so wrong about something so obvious.... That's saying something.

bigstrat2003 7mo ago
> To all of you I can only say, you were utterly wrong and I hope you realize how unreliable your judgements all are. They weren't wrong though. It objectively is just a next turn predictor and doesn't understand code. That is how the thing works.
- threethirtytwo 7mo ago
  Not true. You’re a next token predictor and clearly the tokens you predict indicate that the way you predict the next token is much much more then simply a probabilistic detection. You’re a black box and so is the LLM and the evidence is pointing at emergent properties we don’t completely understand but are completely inline with what we understand as reasoning. Don’t make me cite George Hinton or other preeminent experts to show you how wrong you all are. Use your brain. It is changing the industry from the ground up. It understands.
  - qsera 7mo ago
    >Don’t make me cite George Hinton or other preeminent experts to show you how wrong you all are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg
    - threethirtytwo 7mo ago
      Yann Lecunn was vocal about his stance against LLMs very early on and claimed they were a dead end. Well he's been proven fucking wrong. Completely. George Hinton was his mentor and George is the main god father of AI while Yann is more of a malfunctioning student still holding onto the stochastic parrot monicker. Here's George saying what you need to know: https://www.reddit.com/r/agi/comments/1qwoee7/godfather_of_ai_geoffrey_hinton_says_people_who/ https://www.reddit.com/r/agi/comments/1qwoee7/godfather_of_a...
      - qsera 7mo ago
        > Well he's been proven fucking wrong. Completely. How was he "proven" wrong? > Yann is more of a malfunctioning student... lol what?
        threethirtytwo 7mo ago
        He’s proven wrong by reality. Look at what LLMs are doing right now. It’s utterly obvious now that hallucinations are getting reduced, AI is extremely effective now… Yann is malfunctioning because he cant reconcile his past statements with reality. He can’t admit he’s wrong. As time goes on his past statements will look even more and more absurd as progress on AI keeps moving forward. At the same time we have Terence Tao using ai to develop new math and Hinton saying the opposite with actual evidence and the entire industry. Yann is a clown: https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1piro45/people_dont_understand_yann_lecun/ https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1piro45/people... and his opinions are not mainstream at all.
        qsera 7mo ago
        >now that hallucinations are getting reduced.. Actually that is done by bolting more "fact checking" layers on top. Even that does not fix it very well.. So at a fundamental level, LLMs have not really progressed. On a superficial level, they have, but that is only because marketing wanted to show the "progress" over a short amount of time, so that the "uninitiated" will extrapolate that to mean some god like AI in near future, raking in all the investor money... Smart move though. It is working very well....
qsera 7mo ago
It doesn't actually understand anything...let alone code. And I think you are the one who is in denial.
- threethirtytwo 7mo ago
  If it doesn’t understand anything why the fuck are we letting it write all our code when it doesn’t understand code at all? Does that make any sense to you? Does that align with common sense? You’re still in denial. You gonna give some predictable answer about next token prediction and probability or some useless exposition on transformers while completely avoiding the fact that we don’t understand the black box emergent properties that make a next token predicted have properties indistinguishable from intelligence?
  - qsera 7mo ago
    This is not an appeal to authority, but this video probably contains the answers to your questions if you are open minded about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg
    - threethirtytwo 7mo ago
      What questions do I have? I didn’t even mention a single question and you hallucinated an assumption that I have questions. I don’t have any questions about LLMs. At least not any more than say an LLM researcher at anthropic working on model interpretability.
      - qsera 7mo ago
        Can't you count? Are you an LLM?
        threethirtytwo 7mo ago
        No. I'm not an LLM, but you have intellectual issues. Counting? What does that have to do with anything?
charlie90 7mo ago
Yes, I do find it a little funny how the developer community got it all wrong and the non technical people who were thinking AI is going to change everything in 2023 were the right ones. Maybe they know more than developers think.
- threethirtytwo 7mo ago
  They don't know more. Humanity mostly doesn't know how LLMs work because most of the properties just emerged from the soup of billions of weights whose sheer complexity is so high that understanding any of it holistically is impossible. The difference is the arrogance. Developers think they know more. Developers think they're smart. And also there's an existential crisis where the LLM are poised to take over developer jobs first. So the developer calls every other layman an idiot and deludes himself into thinking his skills will always be superior to AI.

bigstrat2003 7mo ago

> To all of you I can only say, you were utterly wrong and I hope you realize how unreliable your judgements all are. They weren't wrong though. It objectively is just a next turn predictor and doesn't understand code. That is how the thing works.

threethirtytwo 7mo ago
Not true. You’re a next token predictor and clearly the tokens you predict indicate that the way you predict the next token is much much more then simply a probabilistic detection. You’re a black box and so is the LLM and the evidence is pointing at emergent properties we don’t completely understand but are completely inline with what we understand as reasoning. Don’t make me cite George Hinton or other preeminent experts to show you how wrong you all are. Use your brain. It is changing the industry from the ground up. It understands.
- qsera 7mo ago
  >Don’t make me cite George Hinton or other preeminent experts to show you how wrong you all are. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg
  - threethirtytwo 7mo ago
    Yann Lecunn was vocal about his stance against LLMs very early on and claimed they were a dead end. Well he's been proven fucking wrong. Completely. George Hinton was his mentor and George is the main god father of AI while Yann is more of a malfunctioning student still holding onto the stochastic parrot monicker. Here's George saying what you need to know: https://www.reddit.com/r/agi/comments/1qwoee7/godfather_of_ai_geoffrey_hinton_says_people_who/ https://www.reddit.com/r/agi/comments/1qwoee7/godfather_of_a...
    - qsera 7mo ago
      > Well he's been proven fucking wrong. Completely. How was he "proven" wrong? > Yann is more of a malfunctioning student... lol what?
      - threethirtytwo 7mo ago
        He’s proven wrong by reality. Look at what LLMs are doing right now. It’s utterly obvious now that hallucinations are getting reduced, AI is extremely effective now… Yann is malfunctioning because he cant reconcile his past statements with reality. He can’t admit he’s wrong. As time goes on his past statements will look even more and more absurd as progress on AI keeps moving forward. At the same time we have Terence Tao using ai to develop new math and Hinton saying the opposite with actual evidence and the entire industry. Yann is a clown: https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1piro45/people_dont_understand_yann_lecun/ https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1piro45/people... and his opinions are not mainstream at all.
        qsera 7mo ago
        >now that hallucinations are getting reduced.. Actually that is done by bolting more "fact checking" layers on top. Even that does not fix it very well.. So at a fundamental level, LLMs have not really progressed. On a superficial level, they have, but that is only because marketing wanted to show the "progress" over a short amount of time, so that the "uninitiated" will extrapolate that to mean some god like AI in near future, raking in all the investor money... Smart move though. It is working very well....

qsera 7mo ago

It doesn't actually understand anything...let alone code. And I think you are the one who is in denial.

threethirtytwo 7mo ago
If it doesn’t understand anything why the fuck are we letting it write all our code when it doesn’t understand code at all? Does that make any sense to you? Does that align with common sense? You’re still in denial. You gonna give some predictable answer about next token prediction and probability or some useless exposition on transformers while completely avoiding the fact that we don’t understand the black box emergent properties that make a next token predicted have properties indistinguishable from intelligence?
- qsera 7mo ago
  This is not an appeal to authority, but this video probably contains the answers to your questions if you are open minded about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg
  - threethirtytwo 7mo ago
    What questions do I have? I didn’t even mention a single question and you hallucinated an assumption that I have questions. I don’t have any questions about LLMs. At least not any more than say an LLM researcher at anthropic working on model interpretability.
    - qsera 7mo ago
      Can't you count? Are you an LLM?
      - threethirtytwo 7mo ago
        No. I'm not an LLM, but you have intellectual issues. Counting? What does that have to do with anything?

charlie90 7mo ago

Yes, I do find it a little funny how the developer community got it all wrong and the non technical people who were thinking AI is going to change everything in 2023 were the right ones. Maybe they know more than developers think.

threethirtytwo 7mo ago
They don't know more. Humanity mostly doesn't know how LLMs work because most of the properties just emerged from the soup of billions of weights whose sheer complexity is so high that understanding any of it holistically is impossible. The difference is the arrogance. Developers think they know more. Developers think they're smart. And also there's an existential crisis where the LLM are poised to take over developer jobs first. So the developer calls every other layman an idiot and deludes himself into thinking his skills will always be superior to AI.