i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
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@cap_ybarra @davidgerard There's a wide swath of techies that succumb to the allure of "usefulness". Crypto is easy for them to see through, because it has no fundamental use case that justifies its expense.
LLMs, on the other hand, have many apparent uses. Not only that, but techies love using tech to solve non-tech problems--often because they don't understand those problems, so assume the solution can be easily solved with tech. LLMs present themselves as the "anything solution", and it can badly do so many things (but: it does do them) that many techies just point at all the things it can do and go, "See how useful it is!"
LLMs are Dunning-Kruger wet dreams.
And what I'm learning is, so, so, SO many professional programmers are actually shitty programmers that can't even tell the difference between error-ridden slop and maintainable code.
@Azuaron @cap_ybarra @davidgerard
"LLMs are Dunning-Kruger wet dreams."
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i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
@davidgerard @cstross because crypto was tech. AI is “magic”.
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i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
Money-motivation vs Laziness. Fewer of the former, more of the latter.
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i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
@davidgerard Both are about throwing insane amounts of hardware at crappy code, financed by rubes who understand neither?
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i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
@davidgerard
I think, a "cultural" aspect plays into this. Before Bitcoin (and probably still, tbh) almost nobody had any idea what a "cryptocurrency" is even supposed to be.
AI otoh has been a significant part of very popular stories for decades. When people hear "AI" they have an instant idea what they imagine that to be. An idea that has been culturally reinforced so strongly, that the idea itself disguises the reality of what the so-called "AI" before them actually is and does. -
@davidgerard building a grift around a product that will tell you literally anything you want to hear is inevitably going to be way more broadly persuasive than crypto's "get rich doing nothing (actually you have to work a shitty and obviously evil telemarketing job)" pitch. so it's not too surprising that the crypto venn circle is mostly nesting inside the llm circle.
The amount of damage done by techbros convincing themselves that they are very smart, while being the dumbest and most credible people alive for any sort of buzz that vaguely promises to tell them they're special, has been catastrophic for society as a whole.
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@davidgerard it’s not really the same comparison though is it because crypto you had to invest in it you had to go out of your way to use it but with AI it’s kind of just sprinkled and everything so I don’t really see your point
@scottytrees @davidgerard "AI is sprinkled everywhere"
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@catch56 @passenger ~100% of the guys saying "LOCAL MODELS LOCAL MODELS" are on the $200/mo Claude subscription
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i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
@davidgerard
With "AI", there is the perception that it sort-of works at the moment and they just need to fix a few bugs and everything will be perfect. Trying to challenge that argument is what I find most difficult. -
@davidgerard
With "AI", there is the perception that it sort-of works at the moment and they just need to fix a few bugs and everything will be perfect. Trying to challenge that argument is what I find most difficult.@katrinatransfem my usual answer is "you've been saying 'next model bro' for three years"
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@catch56 @passenger ~100% of the guys saying "LOCAL MODELS LOCAL MODELS" are on the $200/mo Claude subscription
@davidgerard
No “100% local «AI»” guy has shown me his model. -
The amount of damage done by techbros convincing themselves that they are very smart, while being the dumbest and most credible people alive for any sort of buzz that vaguely promises to tell them they're special, has been catastrophic for society as a whole.
@TheEntity @jplebreton @davidgerard the west has a very bad history with tech bros and the far right - no one wants to look at the lessons learned but every important powerful committe org or board without women on it is like a dead canary in a coalmine. On a screen near you at the moment bros making decisions as the women, children and powerless are pulled from the rubble..
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i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
@davidgerard There was a buy in at the crypto casino table that was always a stumbling block, while AI is provided for 'free', and most of the people that suffer first are those they look down their noses at, like artists and writers who should have gotten 'real' STEM jobs.
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i am disconcerted by how many techies who saw through crypto *immediately* have fallen for AI krokodil
@davidgerard There is a there there. That wasn’t the case for crypto.
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@davidgerard There was a buy in at the crypto casino table that was always a stumbling block, while AI is provided for 'free', and most of the people that suffer first are those they look down their noses at, like artists and writers who should have gotten 'real' STEM jobs.
@Rycochet @davidgerard LLMs hack your system 1 thinking.
Techies, being people who are highly likely to both consider themselves to be intelligent but also people who are likely to be less self aware or emotionally intelligent, are some of the most vulnerable people you could think of to this sort of trap.
System 1 and System 2 Thinking - The Decision Lab
System 1 thinking is a near-instantaneous thinking process while System 2 thinking is slower and requires more effort.
The Decision Lab (thedecisionlab.com)
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@Rycochet @davidgerard LLMs hack your system 1 thinking.
Techies, being people who are highly likely to both consider themselves to be intelligent but also people who are likely to be less self aware or emotionally intelligent, are some of the most vulnerable people you could think of to this sort of trap.
System 1 and System 2 Thinking - The Decision Lab
System 1 thinking is a near-instantaneous thinking process while System 2 thinking is slower and requires more effort.
The Decision Lab (thedecisionlab.com)
@Rycochet @davidgerard Hence the old joke about taking each class of computer science undergrads, locking them in a lecture theatre with a bag of mushrooms and not opening the door until they’ve all had an ego death experience.
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@Rycochet @davidgerard Hence the old joke about taking each class of computer science undergrads, locking them in a lecture theatre with a bag of mushrooms and not opening the door until they’ve all had an ego death experience.
@Rycochet @davidgerard a full critique of LLMs also requires a spattering of class consciousness, which tech people as a class have always struggled with
AKA “y’all can see how piping literally everything we do through a single company is going to end badly right? No? Oh. Oh dear.”
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@Rycochet @davidgerard Hence the old joke about taking each class of computer science undergrads, locking them in a lecture theatre with a bag of mushrooms and not opening the door until they’ve all had an ego death experience.
@FayeDrake @Rycochet these are the guys who take ayahuasca and turn into Jack Dorsey, so
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@Rycochet @davidgerard a full critique of LLMs also requires a spattering of class consciousness, which tech people as a class have always struggled with
AKA “y’all can see how piping literally everything we do through a single company is going to end badly right? No? Oh. Oh dear.”
@FayeDrake @davidgerard AI has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that all STEM and business degrees should come wit mandatory ethics and humanities lessons, actual ethics, not the Effective Altrism culy tinged drivel, or the 'ethics with an app done purely for marketing' style faux ethics of Anthropic.
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@katrinatransfem my usual answer is "you've been saying 'next model bro' for three years"
@davidgerard @katrinatransfem It's just like the "self-driving cars are X months away" pushers who won't admit they were wrong. The reality that not all tech is viable seems to escape them.
