Hacker News Reader

Comment by ctrl-vvvvvvvvv | Hacker News Reader

Geez another article on the AI Spookiness? How many is that this month now?

Most of these articles border on science fiction and involve a lot of projection. While I am concerned in some ways with AI, particularly in mass surveillance and public manipulation via bots, what else can we do other than be reactive to _real_ AI applications when _deployed_? Then we start to discuss proper policy towards AI.

Until we see service sector employees being replaced the way we saw self-checkouts emerge what is the point of these articles other than some form of PR campaign?

View on HN

> Most of these articles border on science fiction and involve a lot of projection

I understand the fatigue is real but this one does neither of above imo and was fairly grounded in reality. The author(who is CTO of a company) did a GPT integration and realised it could potentially replace 20% of jobs at their company. That is something to be spooked about.

> these articles other than some form of PR campaign

A lot of these are, but as an outside observer of Zerodha I can assure you this isn't. The company has spent zero dollars on marketing in last decade.

> what else can we do other than be reactive

We can be active? We can get ahead of the curve?

It is such a cliche, but the Wayne Gretzky quote is appropriate: "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been"

In order to stay ahead we have to predict what is coming. Given the rate of change that AI is likely to cause - by the time you've noticed what is happening you will be so far behind as to be completely ineffective.

Very well written article. Author talks about his own journey in this space from usual skepticism to belief and why it feels different this time. But it certainly is very well written. I doubt if a LLM can write like that.

> Most of these articles border on science fiction and involve a lot of projection.

Given that the author stuck mostly to their own experiences of the here-and-now, I'm not sure I understand how the rest of your critique (which, overall, I agree with) applies to this content.

I hate to say it, but I didn't see much science fiction in there?

It's a secular religion. The whole thing scans very much the like the man who ambushed me in a public bathhouse a few weeks ago to tell me about how skeptical he was about Jesus his whole life, right up until the moment he found Jesus. And proceeded to expound on it at great length, while I avoided eye contact, fidgeted, stared in the opposite direction, etc.. At some point you have to just get up and walk to the other side of the room from these people, because they show no sign of letting up.

I think there is a little more evidence here than a literal interpretation of the bible. The only constant in this world is change.

There are public bathhouses still around?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com