• brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    As a fervent AI enthusiast, I disagree.

    …I’d say it’s 97% hype and marketing.

    It’s crazy how much fud is flying around, and legitimately buries good open research. It’s also crazy what these giant corporations are explicitly saying what they’re going to do, and that anyone buys it. TSMC’s allegedly calling Sam Altman a ‘podcast bro’ is spot on, and I’d add “manipulative vampire” to that.

    Talk to any long-time resident of localllama and similar “local” AI communities who actually dig into this stuff, and you’ll find immense skepticism, not the crypto-like AI bros like you find on linkedin, twitter and such and blot everything out.

    • falkerie71@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      For real. Being a software engineer with basic knowledge in ML, I’m just sick of companies from every industry being so desperate to cling onto the hype train they’re willing to label anything with AI, even if it has little or nothing to do with it, just to boost their stock value. I would be so uncomfortable being an employee having to do this.

    • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      After getting my head around the basics of the way LLMs work I thought “people rely on this for information?”, the model seems ok for tasks like summarisation though

      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        the model seems ok for tasks like summarisation though

        That and retrieval and the business use cases so far, but even then only if the results can be wrong somewhat frequently.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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        30 days ago

        I don’t love it for summarization. If I read a summary, my takeaway may be inaccurate.

        Brainstorming is incredible. And revision suggestions. And drafting tedious responses, reformatting, parsing.

        In all cases, nothing gets attributed to me unless I read every word and am in a position to verify the output. And I internalize nothing directly, besides philosophy or something. Sure can be an amazing starting point especially compared to a blank page.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      1 month ago

      TSMC are probably making more money than anyone in this goldrush by selling the shovels and picks, so if that’s their opinion, I feel people should listen…

      There’s little in the AI business plan other than hurling money at it and hoping job losses ensue.

    • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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      30 days ago

      I think we should indict Sam Altman on two sets of charges:

      1. A set of securities fraud charges.

      2. 8 billion counts of criminal reckless endangerment.

      He’s out on podcasts constantly saying the OpenAI is near superintelligent AGI and that there’s a good chance that they won’t be able to control it, and that human survival is at risk. How is gambling with human extinction not a massive act of planetary-scale criminal reckless endangerment?

      So either he is putting the entire planet at risk, or he is lying through his teeth about how far along OpenAI is. If he’s telling the truth, he’s endangering us all. If he’s lying, then he’s committing securities fraud in an attempt to defraud shareholders. Either way, he should be in prison. I say we indict him for both simultaneously and let the courts sort it out.

    • just_an_average_joe@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      30 days ago

      The saddest part is, this is going to cause yet another AI winter. The first few ones were caused by genuine over-enthusiasm but this one is purely fuelled by greed.

    • tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Agreed that’s why it’s so dangerous. These tech bros are going to do damage with their shitty products. It seems like it’s Altman’s goal, honestly.

    • billwashere@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Yep the current iteration is. But should we cross the threshold to full AGI… that’s either gonna be awesome or world ending. Not sure which.

      • Naz@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        Based on what I’ve witnessed so far, people will play with their AGI units for a bit and then put them down to continue scrolling memes.

        Which means it is neither awesome, nor world-ending, but just boring/business as usual.

    • Damage@feddit.it
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      1 month ago

      TSMC’s allegedly calling Sam Altman a ‘podcast bro’ is spot on, and I’d add “manipulative vampire” to that.

      What’s the source for that? It sounds hilarious

      • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        https://web.archive.org/web/20240930204245/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/25/business/openai-plan-electricity.html

        When Mr. Altman visited TSMC’s headquarters in Taiwan shortly after he started his fund-raising effort, he told its executives that it would take $7 trillion and many years to build 36 semiconductor plants and additional data centers to fulfill his vision, two people briefed on the conversation said. It was his first visit to one of the multibillion-dollar plants.

        TSMC’s executives found the idea so absurd that they took to calling Mr. Altman a “podcasting bro,” one of these people said. Adding just a few more chip-making plants, much less 36, was incredibly risky because of the money involved.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Ya, it’s like machine learning but better. That’s about it IMO.

      Edit: As I have to spell it out: as opposed to (machine learning with) neural networks.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          It’s also neural networks, and probably some other CS structures.

          AI is a category, and even specific implementations tend to use multiple techniques.

          • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Well there is a very specific architecture “rut” the LLMs people use have fallen into, and even small attempts to break out (like with Jamba) don’t seem to get much interest, unfortunately.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              1 month ago

              Sure, but LLMs aren’t the only AI being used, nor will they eliminate the other forms of AI. As people see issues with the big LLMs, development focus will change to adopt other approaches.

              • commandar@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                There is real risk that the hype cycle around LLMs will smother other research in the cradle when the bubble pops.

                The hyperscalers are dumping tens of billions of dollars into infrastructure investment every single quarter right now on the promise of LLMs. If LLMs don’t turn into something with a tangible ROI, the term AI will become every bit as radioactive to investors in the future as it is lucrative right now.

                Viable paths of research will become much harder to fund if investors get burned because the business model they’re funding right now doesn’t solidify beyond “trust us bro.”