Comment by Joel_Mckay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Joel_Mckay | Hacker News Reader

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Every model is deprecated in time if evidenced Science is done well, and hopefully replaced by something more accurate in time. There is no absolute right/correctness unless you are a naive child under 25 cheating on structured homework.

The point was there is nothing intelligent (or AI) about LLMs except the person fooling themselves.

In general, most template libraries already implement the best possible algorithms from the 1960s, and tuned for architecture specific optimizations. Knowing when each finite option is appropriate takes a bit of understanding/study, but does give results far quicker than fitting a statistically salient nonsense answer. Several study datum from senior developers is already available, and it proves LLMs provide zero benefit to people that know what they are doing.

Note, I am driven by having fun, rather than some bizarre irrational competitiveness. Prove your position, or I will assume you are just a silly person or chat bot. =3

I have no position on whether or not CamperBob is a chat-bot, but they are definitely not being silly. Their point, as I take it, is that it's dangerous to look at the state of "AI" as it is today and then ignore the rate of change. To their stated point from above:

> Otherwise, you're going to spend the rest of your career saying things like, "Well, OK, so the last model couldn't count the number of Rs in 'Strawberry' and the new one can, but..."

That's a very important point. I mean, it's not guaranteed that any form of AI is going to advance to the point that it starts taking jobs from people like us, but when you fail to look forward and project a little bit and imagine what they could do with another year of progress... or two years of progress... or 5 years, etc? I posit that that kind of myopia could leave one very under-prepared for the world one lands in.

> The point was there is nothing intelligent (or AI) about LLMs except the person fooling themselves.

Sure. The "AI Effect". Irrelevant. It doesn't matter how the machine can do your job, or whether or not it's "really intelligent". It just matters that if it can create more value, more cheaply, than you or I, we are going to wind up like John Henry. Who, btw, for anybody not familiar with that particular bit of folklore "[won the race against the machine] only to die in victory with a hammer in hand as his heart gave out from stress."

Both you and this chatbot Bob seem to be overly excited by the newfound LLM ability of correctly counting R's in "strawberry".

For many, this is not a very exciting development.

Mind you, we do follow the progress but your argument of "wait and see" is not deserving serious discussion as your stance has turned into faith.

The limitations of tokenization does not stop with LLMs it seems for bob.

Please don't down-vote the kids karma, as for me it is more important people feel comfortable having conversations (especially when they are almost 99% sure I'm a turnip connected to a USB port.) =3

Where do you see anything about "excitement" about anything? Quit making up bullshit strawman arguments and deal with the issue in a realistic way already. Sheesh.

I'm not arguing for any specific outcome mind you. But a refusal to acknowledge "rate of change" effects and to assume that the future will be like today is incredibly short-sighted and myopic.

"rate of change" effects on speculative fiction is meaningless.

Try to remember to be kind, as we are still waiting to see bob's data =3

Speculative fiction is entertaining, but not based in reality...

"they are definitely not being silly", that sounds like something a silly person would say. =)

" I posit that that kind of myopia could leave one very under-prepared for the world one lands in." The numerous study data analysis results says otherwise... Thus, still speculative hype until proven otherwise.

Not worried... initially suckered into it as a kid too... then left the world of ML years later because it was always boring, lame, and slow to change. lol =3

"they are definitely not being silly", that sounds like something a silly person would say. =)

Ya know, it's fine to disagree with something. But hand-wavy, shallow dismissals of what someone has to say, with no willingness to even attempt to engage with the content on a rational basis, is unbecoming.

I can’t help but have the thought that the Joel_McKay in this conversation is itself an LLM having been prompted to flippantly disregard and downplay mentions of a.i., and LLMs specifically.

I’m not saying it is true , but I am saying it made the tone and content of his messages in this thread seem a lot more self-consistent and explainable when I re-read them with that context in mind. :-)

(@Joel_McKay: apologies for downplaying your sapience - human, LLM or otherwise.)

I assure you I am 100% turnip. =3

It hasn't said anything intelligent yet, so there is that...

I asked for bobs proof, and was given marketing.

Then provided instructions on how to present facts, and still await the data.

Then immature folks showed up to try to cow people with troll content.

I don't have to prove anything, as the evidence was already collected and reported in peer-reviewed journals. People just prefer to ignore the cited evidence that proves they are full of steaming piles of fictional hype. =3

Proof of what exactly are you asking for?

Certainly there is zero question that today's "AI" systems are making progress on a wide array of benchmarks. You can see that here:

https://aiindex.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/HAI_...

Look in the section starting on page 73. Or just examine this image:

https://aiindex.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/fig_...

There's your "speculative fiction" you seem so fond of.

Now, if your argument is no more than "who cares about benchmarks, 'AI' still isn't 'Real AI'" then all you're doing is repeating the 'AI Effect'[1] thing over and over again and refusing to acknowledge the obvious reality around you.

The AI's we have today, whether "real AI" or not, are highly capable in many important areas (and yes, far from perfect in others). But there is a starting point to talk about, and yes there is reason to think in terms of "rate of change" unless you have some evidence to support a belief that AI progress has reached a maximum and will progress no further.

I don't have to prove anything, as the evidence was already collected and reported in peer-reviewed journals.

Again, evidence for what exactly? What are you even claiming? All I see Bob claiming, and what I support him(?) in is the idea that there is legit reason to worry about the economic impact of AI in the near('ish?) future.

[1]; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect

Indeed, I gather you did not comprehend the threads topics, and instead introduced a straw-man arguing at some point in the future LLM proponents will be less full of steaming piles of fictional hype.

Assertion:

1.) LLMs mislabeled “AI” is dangerous to students due to biasing them with subtle nonsense, and a VR girlfriend convincing a kid to kill themselves. Again the self referential nature of arguing the trends will continue toward AGI is nonscientific reasoning (a.k.a. moving the goal post because the “AI” buzzword lost its meaning due to marketing hype), but this is economically reasonable nonsense rhetoric.

2.) Software developers can be improved or replaced with LLMs. This was proven to be demonstrably false for experienced people.

3.) LLMs are intelligent or will become intelligent. This set of arguments show a fundamental misunderstanding of what LLMs are, and how they function.

4.) Joel may be a USB connected turnip. While I can’t disprove this self presented insight, it may be true at some point in the future.

I still like you, even if at some point you were reprogrammed to fear your imagination. =3

Failure to back up the assertion about "AI" existing in LLMs means there is no meaningful conversation to be had, but I offered to wait for a coherent argument in a time-bound manner. =3

> it's dangerous to look at the state of "AI" as it is today and then ignore the rate of change.

It's self driving all over again!

Self-driving cars are a social and political problem, not a technical one. If it were a technical problem, it would have been considered largely solved even in the pre-2017 era of ML.

Imagine a tramway train car that branched its rail-line at every intersection, person, animal, lane, or obstacle it detected.

1. What would that rail system look like?

2. How reliable would that service become after (6^(4+p+a+l)) per km branches?

3. Given #2, how much computing power is needed to evaluate that state always-mutating SLAM environment?

4. Ok... now throw out GPS (don't work in cities), Lidar (don't work in direct sunlight), and Machine vision cameras (fooled by weather and environment surfaces)...

5. Peoples wishful thinking tends to hijack common sense when someone else pays the price.

Easier to redefine what "autonomous vehicle" means with "levels", rather than to recognize how difficult the problem actually is inside an unconstrained system.

I would never claim to know anything about the subject, but I did help build working platforms when I was more interested in robotics for a time.

Making them "safe" is a whole different problem domain, =3

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