Hacker News Reader

Comment by otikik | Hacker News Reader

I'm slightly scared that they'll succeed. But not in the usual "robots will kill us" way.

What I am afraid of is that they succeed, but it turns out similar to VR: as an inconsequential gimmick. That they use their AGIs to serve more customized ads to people, and that's where it ends.

View on HN

If a different person were doing it, I think that'd be fair, but Carmack has a track record of quality engineering and quality product. I don't think you can blame Quest on him given the way he chose to exit.

whether or not something is or is not an inconsequential gimmick doesn't have much to do with quality engineering.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and I would even say your opinion can come across as offensive, and easily said by someone who spends a lot of time on HN instead of building things.

A poorly-engineered system has a longer iteration cycle and shorter technical shelf life. Being able to rapidly address customer feedback IS the gold standard of a good product. Yeesh.

> easily said by someone who spends a lot of time on HN instead of building things.

Heh. My "life's work": https://ardour.org ... My "previous life's work": http://amazon.com/

Being an inconsequential gimmick isn't about implementation, it's about semantics, relevance and utility. Only the last of these is really impacted at all by engineering, and even then, the engineering component doesn't matter if the thing just isn't useful.

My great short-term hope for "AGI" is truly open-world video games, where you can weave your own story and the world will react in kind. I played AI Dungeon a few times, and the results were hilariously fun though pretty rough around the edges.

>What I am afraid of is that they succeed, but it turns out similar to VR: as an inconsequential gimmick. That they use their AGIs to serve more customized ads to people, and that's where it ends.

If an AGI were set free to serve ads to people it would essentially initiate mass brainwashing. You would see an ad and be completely defenseless against it and you could be compelled to do anything.

AGI is in a completely different universe to "Smart AI"

If AGI can be created that has less scope that what is considered "human" then you might be right. But AGI is a fuzzy term, and it really depends on what they make. Some people may not agree that it's an AGI if it doesn't have creativity or a will or emotions or whatever.

The upshot is that the AGI might realise that companies are wasting money making annoying ads.

Yeah the whole ads industry has been getting better and better at hiding the fact that they are ads. It's come to the point where ads are everywhere hidden and almost subliminal. The next step is to just use mind control on people to just get them to buy your stuff.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com