encyclopedism

If revenue continues to increase like this we can expect Anthropic to make up 110% of the world's GDP very very soon (Rubs hand together).

I've commented elsewhere about this but so many are flippant towards your feelings and it's quite sad.

Comments such as "now that economically 'traditional coding' no longer works" get over it. Or a recent one "get over your anthropocentric view of intelligence, AI is here now".

These views (and many more besides) are short sighted, I do think anthropocentrically. The economy is a proxy for the lives of real people, the economy matters only because it deals with real people. People who feel, have agency, who live and die.

Two super AI's talking to each other maybe the most intelligent things in the universe but they don't matter.

Humans matter, human lives matter, human feelings matter.

> AIs are not conscious.

This is a completely reasonable and intuitive conclusion. The burden of proof rests on proving AI's are indeed conscious, the default is that they aren't.

Like AI/LLMS my desktop calculator is also not conscious, even as it is far better than me at computation.

An LLM is an algorithm. You can obtain the same result as a SOTA LLM via pen and paper it will take a lot of long laborious effort.

I really do find it puzzling so many on HN are convinced LLM's reason or think and continue to entertain this line of reasoning. At the same time also somehow knowing what precisely the brain/mind does and constantly using CS language to provide correspondences where there are none.

The simplest example being that LLM's somehow function in a similar fashion to human brains. They categorically do not. I do not have most all of human literary output in my head and yet I can coherently write this sentence.

I am surprised so many in the HN community have so quickly taken to assuming as fact that LLM's think or reason. Even anthropomorphising LLM's to this end.

> but doesn't it also make sense for the government to create the regulations that will make this easier to do in a trustless way?

That's a premise, which is the point. Many (I) think the government should NOT enact regulations. For example regulatory capture to reducing competition is one reason it may not be a good idea to do what is being asked.

I'll leave this here:

https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2098973625252708460

I'll leave this here:

https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2098973625252708460

He doesn't need anyones permission to do so, go ahead no one is stopping you! If you feel so strongly about it, lead by example. Perhaps others will follow, maybe even China. Regardless, backup your sentiment with actions.

Also everyone, collectively, stop thinking about neural networks too 'hard'. Whilst you're at it stop doing maths too!

Exactly

He doesn't need anyones permission to do so, go ahead no one is stopping you! If you feel so strongly about it, lead by example. Perhaps others will follow, maybe even China. Regardless backup your sentiment with actions!

Everyone, collectively, stop thinking about neural networks too 'hard'. Whilst you're at it stop doing maths too!

Your point is a tautology. The actual point being made is about changing circumstances affecting large swathes of society which may mean an increased possibility of worsening circumstances for said humans. Not that it will mean humans are no longer able to do programming.

The core issue is that AI is taking away, or will take away, or threatens to take away, experiences and activities that humans would WANT to do. Things that give them meaning and many of these are tied to earning money and producing value for doing just that thing. Software/coding is once of these activities. One can do coding for fun but doing the same coding whilst at the same it providing value to others/society and financial upkeep for you and your family is far more meaningful.

For those who have swallowed the AI panacea hook line and sinker. Those that say it's made me more productive or that I no longer have to do the boring bits and can focus on the interesting parts of coding. I say follow your own line of reasoning through. It demonstrates that AI is not yet powerful enough to NOT need to empower you, to NOT need to make you more productive. You're only ALLOWED to do the 'interesting' parts presently because the AI is deficient. Ultimately AI aims to remove the need for any human intermediary altogether (or for humans to provide intent only). Everything in between is just a stop along the way and so for those it empowers stop and think a little about the long term implications. It may be that for you right now, it is a comfortable position financially or socially but the future you in just a few short months from now may be dramatically impacted.

As someone said "I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes".

AI is different.

The exception that proves the rule.

Do what makes you happy? Comment's like these ignore the reality of life for the vast majority of people. Being 'free' enough to say that is a very privileged position to be in. But do take a care and consider others less fortunate.

People have to earn a living, most people can't do what makes them happy and earn a living. In fact ones free time where one lives the very rhythms and patterns of life are dictated most often by your job or your ability to obtain one.

The core issue is that AI is taking away, or will take away, or threatens to take away, experiences and activities that humans would WANT to do. Things that give them meaning AND are tied to earning money at the SAME time.

One can do math for fun but doing the same math where it provides value to others/society and financial upkeep for you and your family is meaningful too and often sought after.

Alarming normalisation. Issues I see off the top of my head:

- Governments can now learn even more about you when they confiscate your device.

- Devices confiscated at airports provide a full history of you.

- Privacy issues: will my conversation with someone using this tech truly be private? Do I have to be careful what I say around everyone by default? Always have clear thought out opinions?

- Personal relations: spouses, friends, relatives demanding to see your history to check up on you and what you've been 'thinking'?

- Society where nothing can be assumed to be private by default

- Slippery slope to a future where you have always on location, cameras, mics for everyone with a mobile device. A complete reshaping of society. Therefore being unable to count on previous societal norms

Anyone got any other issues they can think of?

He is lamenting the tech in a similar manner to lamenting social media. Social media is also 'tech', and yet I don't think we could poor quite enough scorn on it, it deserves more!

I understand the qualities of LLM's but I do fear that we might lose much which once lost may be gone forever. That gives me pause for thought.

> I mean, how many more times do you need to repeat them?

Exactly! It's not as if humans are special (though LLM's certainly are). Humans, they've been the same for thousands of years, same old stories (there's like only 7 archetypal stories they've ever come up with). Same old poems, love this, romance that blah blah blah!

We certainly don't need yet another anti-AI article, same as all the others. Though as it's written entirely by a human who must have thought about every word, certainly poles apart from an LLM generated article one, I'll give him credit for making the effort.

I agree with your sentiment. Simply saying 'AI' is not the reason, clouds what is actually happening. To illustrate I suggest playing the word swapping game. Swap AI in the sentence "AI isn't the problem" with, guns, drugs, gambling, or dare I say social media!

Human behaviour is complex. Patterns of behaviour that occur in general (there are always outliers of course) dictate so much in society, culture, politics and inter-human relations. Changing these behavioural patterns will affect meaningful real world change.

Social media has affected change in human behaviour. I suspect AI will too. We are starting to see the first shoots of the changes AI will bring.

Human behaviour on the average will choose convenience over effort. It is very difficult to buck this trend societally. To be clear, AI provides an immense amount of convenience.

Imagine a multi-modal model with 1000's of tokens per second. Realtime inference for a host of applications. This is a BIG deal and will change the landscape in unfathomable ways.

The https://chatjimmy.ai demo was impressive.

Once models settle down this makes sense. Imagine a cartridge with a physical model on it. You purchase a cartridge and stick it in your computer/phone/server. Want to upgrade? By a new 'cartridge'.

This should bring inference cost down dramatically, I wonder how OpenAI/Anthropic feel about that.

It's worse, HN seems to suffer from a higher than average pedant count. The analogies are missed completely!

I agree the bottom line ROI largely isn't there and won't be in the future either. The upside for companies is not the bottom line but the potential savings from hiring fewer developers or cutting jobs.

As AI based development processes continue to improve, the confidence level employers will have in safely cutting jobs will increase. The longer term impact of AI is HR savings rather than introducing new capabilities into business.