3 ms·

Aka - it’s a stochastic parrot with a good memory, for anyone still struggling to understand this. It should be obvious, imo, but some people seem to have trou

Aka - it’s a stochastic parrot with a good memory, for anyone still struggling to understand this. It should be obvious, imo, but some people seem to have trouble with the concept.

Eufrat 2mo ago
I don’t understand why this is such big news. OpenAI has essentially made a bunch of marketing copy by gussying up an algorithm being given a near unlimited budget to stochastically permute through its lossy memory. I think the real scandal is that we are almost 3-4 years into this (I think the release of GPT 3.5 is a good marker of when this public frenzy started) and all we’ve seen is OpenAI and the other major AI frontier companies constantly retracting their preposterous claims every time. We appear to have reach a local maxima in that it has some value in places that tend to be a little easier to scope and limit (computer programming, mathematical proofs). So, given the actual useful economic value this has provided, does this justify the investments? I think we are approaching 1 trillion in CapEx for AI [0]. For context, I believe the annual GDP of Norway is $600 billion. [0] https://www.fool.com/research/ai-companies-spending-on-data-centers/ https://www.fool.com/research/ai-companies-spending-on-data-...
- solid_fuel 2mo ago
  It's crazy, you see someone spin up 50 instances of chatGPT or gemini or whatever to tackle a math problem, it succeeds by brute forcing through a ton of existing theories to find one that extends the problem, and the takeaway is that this technology is magic and going to solve all of our problems. Whereas I see that and say - if we properly funded the sciences we could have had a bunch of grad students tackling that problem and found this application 20-30 years ago. Sure it's 'nice' that LLMs can fill in for people in brute force work like that but people are perfectly capable of doing that work and if we focused on properly staffing our research institutions we would achieve a lot more a lot faster. Instead this is obviously going to be used to replace staff and further reduce headcounts.
- focxle 2mo ago
  [flagged]
senordevnyc 2mo ago
lol, it’s so funny to see people in mid 2026 still insisting they’re nothing more than stochastic parrots. I guess some people have allowed their fear to completely take over their reasoning abilities.
- solid_fuel 2mo ago
  Man, it’s pathetic watching you crawl through my comments like this. You really seem upset that LLMs can’t think. Is the issue that you have no human friends? I can understand the appeal of the yes-machine when no one else will tolerate you, but that’s no real substitute.
  - senordevnyc 2mo ago
    Yawn, petty insults. How predictable. I took a look at your comments because I was curious to see what particular brand of AI hater would be willing to give up all AI for a single almond lol. I imagine you’re in for a really rough next few years with this level of blind rage that leads to these kinds of crash-outs. I hope you find some peace.
    - solid_fuel 2mo ago
      Bud, you can't even handle someone saying LLMs aren't sentient. Take that fake concern, roll it up real tight, and shove it way up your ass. You'll need it, as all your hopes and dreams fall apart. But hey, maybe you'll be able to buy something you can pretend is a friend in a few years. You certainly won't have any human ones, with the way you approach disagreements.
      - senordevnyc 2mo ago
        Not even a new petty insult? Is this seriously the best you can do? You’re hardly being the poster child for why human connection or intelligence is better lol. Ironically, LLMs could write much better insults. Might want to try that, just to spice it up.

Aka - it’s a stochastic parrot with a good memory, for anyone still struggling to understand this. It should be obvious, imo, but some people seem to have trouble with the concept.

Eufrat 2mo ago

I don’t understand why this is such big news. OpenAI has essentially made a bunch of marketing copy by gussying up an algorithm being given a near unlimited budget to stochastically permute through its lossy memory. I think the real scandal is that we are almost 3-4 years into this (I think the release of GPT 3.5 is a good marker of when this public frenzy started) and all we’ve seen is OpenAI and the other major AI frontier companies constantly retracting their preposterous claims every time. We appear to have reach a local maxima in that it has some value in places that tend to be a little easier to scope and limit (computer programming, mathematical proofs). So, given the actual useful economic value this has provided, does this justify the investments? I think we are approaching 1 trillion in CapEx for AI [0]. For context, I believe the annual GDP of Norway is $600 billion. [0] https://www.fool.com/research/ai-companies-spending-on-data-centers/ https://www.fool.com/research/ai-companies-spending-on-data-...

solid_fuel 2mo ago
It's crazy, you see someone spin up 50 instances of chatGPT or gemini or whatever to tackle a math problem, it succeeds by brute forcing through a ton of existing theories to find one that extends the problem, and the takeaway is that this technology is magic and going to solve all of our problems. Whereas I see that and say - if we properly funded the sciences we could have had a bunch of grad students tackling that problem and found this application 20-30 years ago. Sure it's 'nice' that LLMs can fill in for people in brute force work like that but people are perfectly capable of doing that work and if we focused on properly staffing our research institutions we would achieve a lot more a lot faster. Instead this is obviously going to be used to replace staff and further reduce headcounts.
focxle 2mo ago
[flagged]

senordevnyc 2mo ago

lol, it’s so funny to see people in mid 2026 still insisting they’re nothing more than stochastic parrots. I guess some people have allowed their fear to completely take over their reasoning abilities.

solid_fuel 2mo ago
Man, it’s pathetic watching you crawl through my comments like this. You really seem upset that LLMs can’t think. Is the issue that you have no human friends? I can understand the appeal of the yes-machine when no one else will tolerate you, but that’s no real substitute.
- senordevnyc 2mo ago
  Yawn, petty insults. How predictable. I took a look at your comments because I was curious to see what particular brand of AI hater would be willing to give up all AI for a single almond lol. I imagine you’re in for a really rough next few years with this level of blind rage that leads to these kinds of crash-outs. I hope you find some peace.
  - solid_fuel 2mo ago
    Bud, you can't even handle someone saying LLMs aren't sentient. Take that fake concern, roll it up real tight, and shove it way up your ass. You'll need it, as all your hopes and dreams fall apart. But hey, maybe you'll be able to buy something you can pretend is a friend in a few years. You certainly won't have any human ones, with the way you approach disagreements.
    - senordevnyc 2mo ago
      Not even a new petty insult? Is this seriously the best you can do? You’re hardly being the poster child for why human connection or intelligence is better lol. Ironically, LLMs could write much better insults. Might want to try that, just to spice it up.