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Comment by andrepd | Hacker News Reader

The internet predates the Web; people were playing Muds and chatting on message boards before the first browser was made at CERN.

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Of course, but does it mean that my argument is flawed? You're just shifting the discourse, without disproving anything. Do you claim that the web was useful for everyone on day one, or as useful as it is today for everyone?

I could just do the same as GP, and qualify MUDs and BBS as poor proxies for social interactions that are much more elaborate and vibrant in person.

As I pointed out in a different comment, the Internet at least was (and is) a promise of many wondrous things: video call your loved ones, talk in message boards, read an encyclopedia, download any book, watch any concert, find any scientific paper, etc etc; even though it has been for the last 15 years cannibalised by the cancerous mix of surveillance capitalism and algorithmic social media.

But LLMs are from the get-go a bad idea, a bullshit generating machine.

> [...] LLMs are from the get-go a bad idea, a bullshit generating machine.

Is that a matter of opinion, or a fact (in which case you should be able to back it up)?

For real? x) Of course it's my opinion, what are your own comments about "silly gifs" and "useless early internet" if not an opinion?Seriously...

That might be a lack of understanding from my part. I had the impression from your comment that you were implying that there was (and is) hope in internet development (ie. many people hold a positive opinion about it), but there cannot be any hope in LLMs (ie. nobody can build a positive opinion about it, because presumably some hard fact prevents it).

As for what I said, I was just mimicking the comment of GP, which I'll quote here:

> The internet actually enabled us to do new things. AI is nothing of that sort. It just generates mediocre statistically-plausible text.

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