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Comment by altcognito | Hacker News Reader

"The idea of AI is fundamentally tainted"

What does this even mean? You don't like machine learning? You don't like the letters AI? There's no coming back to what?

Do you work in the tech industry?

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"AI" to most laypeople means LLMs and imagegen. They have no clue that anyone with an iPhone has been using "AI" since iOS 15(?) when it got stuff like photo object selection, instant OCR and voice isolation.

AI is a terrible name anyway and I am glad people have stopped calling stuff like supervised learning, or Markov Chains AI. I think it is better if it just sticks to this awful technology of LLMs and imagegen and will be dropped everywhere else for a better term.

We can readopt Machine Learning for the other algorithms, which is significantly better, but still not without flaws. I hope we go further down and just say statistical inference, and if we want to be any more specific and just say which algorithm we are using (supervised learning, Markov Chains, Kalman filter, etc.)

It would be nice but I have no illusions, it won't happen.

In my experience, people like GP will burnout on idealism right around their mid-40s.

The dark night of the soul will be sublime.

>Do you work in the tech industry?

I have for 20 years. I use AI every day. And I agree that the parent's observation is plainly true.

Your question is hideously condescending. You should examine what disconnect might be putting you in such a bitter-feeling position compared to most people on HN. This does not necessitate that you are wrong - only that you are perhaps not extending an attempt to connect with humans as much as you could.

The idea of AI is not tainted.

Public perception of a specific, limited implementation of AI that is over-marketed and overly misapplied may be tainted. Folks who work with technology should have a better estimation for its potential. Even for the grumpy ones, we are generally optimists.

I cannot argue with a true Scotsman argument. Because it's not wrong, but also missing the point. And the point is, philosophy aside, most people you ask they will say they don't like AI. Some will use it, a few not, and most don't care about potentials - they will just say "nah man I'm good"

That's the problem with conflating LLMs and image/video generation - they're all lumped into the same bucket, even when they shouldn't.

I mean the idea of AI (or at least what these companies are calling AI) is fundamentally tainted in the public's eye. People aren't suddenly going to start loving it after everything that's happened in the past ~5 years or so, even if it was somehow restarted.

> Do you work in the tech industry?

Yes, I do. Do you? Is there a point to this condescension?

The point is if you come in with imprecise, vague language, you are literally saying something like "I hate math."

You blame others -- "They're lumped into the same bucket even when they shouldn't" -- some of that is on you for lumping what is a marketing labels in with the fundamental technology.

"People aren't suddenly going to start loving it after everything that's happened in the past ~5 years or so"

That's not the way it's going to go. Tools will develop in ways beyond what is seen today, and it will fade into the background noise, just like the internet, search and other tools, but only moreso.

> they're all lumped into the same bucket, even when they shouldn't.

Why should they be separate? The same technology generates text, images, video, audio, 3D models, actuator and stepper motor control sequences, video game controller input streams, and literally everything else that can be transformed into data.

I'll let alone the question of whether or not any of the tech is "tainted", because it doesn't matter. Planck's principle tells us how this will play out in the long run.

you okay? why do u need to be so patronizing? did you read tfa? they're obviously talking about the public's perception of LLM's, especially outside of the tech industry. "the idea of AI is fundamentally tainted" is not a confusing statement in reference to that.

Condescending, I was condescending, and I cut back on it some.

I read the op and authors text as hope and cope that AI is held back by popular sentiment because they have some sort of personal fears about it. Computers are tools, and LLMs are a tool. Is it wrong to have issues about the way tech companies are abusing the system?

Where were these people when other industries were being "disrupted" and breaking the law?

I have a lot of issues with tech companies and their CEOs, but very little problems with the technology.

No, it's not wrong to have issues about the way tech companies abuse the system, and people have complained in the past about it, people have been complaining for years about Facebook, AirBnb, Uber disrupting and breaking the law, but their voices are powerless against their supporters and politicians that are in the pocket of these companies or their major investors.

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