People bash trump for his momentary brainfarts, yet this is exactly same stuff. Are they really trying to imitate same behavior with similar consequences? Should be ignored by both devs and investors alike (or invested via shorts or similar reverse tools). Real progress looks differently.
At the senior levels this is not actually believed by the powers that be, since a bunch of hiring is still happening to compensate for overdone layoffs in spots, etc.
That is an extreme understatement.
The only difference is that LLMs have a deeper and wider understanding of English, no time zone barriers, and nearly instant response time. I find it hard to picture a world where AI doesn't decimate these types of low-skill software jobs.
The solution is obvious, we need to employ the best and brightest minds, put them in spaces where all their needs are met and they are protected from bureacracy, off the rails stakeholders and PMs, so that they can write the cleanest best Carmackian code there can be. Then after that generation of code is written, we use it as training data for the next generation LLM.
On a recent a16z podcast, Andreessen said:
“It's possible that [being a VC] is quite literally timeless, and when the AIs are doing everything else, that may be one of the last remaining fields that people are still doing."
Interestingly, his justification is not that VCs are measurably good at what they do, but rather that they appear to be so bad at what they do:
“Every great venture capitalist in the last 70 years has missed most of the great companies of his generation... if it was a science, you could eventually dial it in and have somebody who gets 8 out of 10 [right]. There's an intangibility to it, there's a taste aspect, the human relationship aspect, the psychology — by the way a lot of it is psychological analysis."
The podcast in question: https://youtu.be/qpBDB2NjaWY
(Personally, I’m not quite sure he actually believes this - but watching him is a certain kind of masterclass in using spicy takes to generate publicity / awareness / buzz. And by talking about him I’m participating in his clever scheme.)
"It'll screw everyone else, but we'll be okay, so..."
Tldr AI can replace labor but not capital. More news at 11.
But AI at its current level, pre ChatGPT was in itself an even MORE off the rails claim then anything in this article. Like what AI can do today is unthinkable to the point where you can be sent to the mental ward of a hospital if you made a claim for predicting what AI can do currently. The Turing test was leap frogged and everybody just complains about AI is garbage and then they moved the goal posts.
It’s not that the claims are wildly overblown. It’s only overblown a little and not by an overly bullshit amount.
It’s that the hype is pervasive. Like we see this hype everywhere and we are riding along with it. AI has infiltrated our lives so deeply that we are just no longer impressed so we get all kinds of people saying AI is overblown when really it’s not that overblown at all. AI agents that code for us? We are 50 percent of the way there. It’s the last 50 percent that’s brutally hard to make happen but it’s not completely out of this world for a company to try to jump that gap in a year. We’ve made incremental progress.
If Elon invented a space faring vehicle that had a light speed drive and was available for anyone to purchase and fly for 5$ then I guarantee you hype will blow up to the point where people get sick of it just like AI.
People will be talking about how space travel and light speed drives are overblown. I’m not impressed that it still takes 4 light years to get to Alpha Centauri are you kidding me?
It's a very natural (if not honest) situation to try and get an edge in a competitive (not cooperative) environment.
Not worried in the slightest. Just exhausted and annoyed.
fragmede•8mo ago
If you aren't actually having the LLM write short term memory files/using a feature in practice, why should I believe you to be qualified to speak on how well the feature actually works in practice?
To be clear, this isn't a comment on the feasibility of bold claims made by people with a significant financial interest in those claims.