No doubt! I err on the side of "most things are over-hyped" (see: room temp superconductor hype that lasted a week), but I try to remind myself there's a yin and yang thing going on.

Yin: "this tech will change the future"

Yang: "this is over-hyped and the promises are hot air"

It's easy to default to "yang" because it is true most of the time (especially with tech). But you gotta acknowledge that "yin" is actually right some times too.

Nuance, man, it'll get you every time.

Right now, as stated, the "Yang" side as applied to AI is clearly true. Even if the tech will "change the future" it will be no less correct for us to say that current AI products are overhyped/vaporware and that AI salesmen and researchers are passing off sci-fi stories and business strategies as wise prognostication. Even if what they're saying turns out to be true, it's completely correct to say that they're just (sometimes unbeknownst to themselves) wildly guessing.

I don't really intend to bicker, but I'm a little curious about the thinking here..

Maybe it's getting too philosophical, but if you're correct because of "wildly guessing".. you're still correct. Maybe you've only been correct 2% of the time with your predictions, but that doesn't change being right or wrong in any given instance.

If someone says "it will do A" and you say "no it won't, you're passing off sci-fi as prognostication", and then it does end up doing "A", you were wrong? No? If someone's AI tech does end up "changing the future" then how would you not be incorrect if you had previously said it was vaporware?

> If someone's AI tech does end up "changing the future" then how would you not be incorrect if you had previously said it was vaporware?

"This product is vaporware" doesn't mean "This product is impossible and can never come to fruition." Vaporware is "software or hardware that has been advertised but is not yet available to buy, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written or designed."

It doesn't matter even slightly if Altman and Huffington's app will materialize and change the universe; it's still vaporware. It's just what the word means.

I often like to use an analogy involving a local volcano.

The odds are incredibly strong will not explode today, but the granularity/time-periods matter, and there's a fundamental asymmetry in how we value the false-positive rate versus the false-negative rate. :P

___

"Look, I've made daily predictions for 30 years now, and they're all perfectly 100% accurate, go on your hike, it'll be fine."

<Volcano suddenly erupts in background>

"Did I say 100%? OK, fine, after today it's 99.99%, which is still awesome."

Don't forget the time crystal: It was overhyped in the past, as well. But there are endless details to how things could turn out, few of them expected in advance.