Most active commenters
  • HaZeust(4)

←back to thread

I don't think AGI is right around the corner

(www.dwarkesh.com)
333 points mooreds | 15 comments | 06 Jul 25 20:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
Show context
raspasov ◴[06 Jul 25 23:54 UTC] No.44485275[source]▶
Anyone who claims that a poorly definined concept, AGI, is right around the corner is most likely:

- trying to sell something

- high on their own stories

- high on exogenous compounds

- all of the above

LLMs are good at language. They are OK summarizers of text by design but not good at logic. Very poor at spatial reasoning and as a result poor at connecting concepts together.

Just ask any of the crown jewel LLM models "What's the biggest unsolved problem in the [insert any] field".

The usual result is a pop-science-level article but with ton of subtle yet critical mistakes! Even worse, the answer sounds profound on the surface. In reality, it's just crap.

replies(12): >>44485480 #>>44485483 #>>44485524 #>>44485758 #>>44485846 #>>44485900 #>>44485998 #>>44486105 #>>44486138 #>>44486182 #>>44486682 #>>44493526 #
0x20cowboy ◴[07 Jul 25 04:10 UTC] No.44486682[source]▶
LLM are a compressed version of their training dataset with a text based interactive search function.
replies(4): >>44486893 #>>44487019 #>>44487057 #>>44488479 #
lexandstuff ◴[07 Jul 25 05:23 UTC] No.44487019[source]▶
Yes, but you're missing their ability to interpolate across that dataset at retrieval time, which is what makes them extremely useful. Also, people are willing to invest a lot of money to keep building those datasets, until nearly everything of economic value is in there.
replies(2): >>44487043 #>>44488706 #
beeflet ◴[07 Jul 25 05:28 UTC] No.44487043[source]▶
not everything of economic value is data retrieval
replies(1): >>44487118 #
1. bluefirebrand ◴[07 Jul 25 05:40 UTC] No.44487118[source]▶
Most economic value is not data retrieval
replies(1): >>44487265 #
2. HaZeust ◴[07 Jul 25 06:18 UTC] No.44487265[source]▶
The stock market is the root for the majority of all the world's economic value, and has almost-exclusively been data retrieval since 2001.
replies(2): >>44487419 #>>44491711 #
3. andsoitis ◴[07 Jul 25 06:53 UTC] No.44487419[source]▶
Come on. The stock market is not just data retrieval. The statement doesn’t even make sense.
replies(2): >>44487602 #>>44487630 #
4. HaZeust ◴[07 Jul 25 07:27 UTC] No.44487602{3}[source]▶
It makes perfect sense, and I meant what I said.

60% of all US equity volume is pure high-frequency trading, and ETFs add roughly another 20% that’s literally just bots responding to market activity and bearish-bullish sentiment analysis on public(?) press releases. 2/3 of trading funds also rely on external data to price in decisions, and I think it was around 90% in 2021 use trading algorithms as their determining factor for their high-frequency trade strategies.

At its core, the movements that make up the market really IS data retrieval.

replies(4): >>44487793 #>>44487933 #>>44488465 #>>44489971 #
5. ◴[07 Jul 25 07:33 UTC] No.44487630{3}[source]▶
6. raspasov ◴[07 Jul 25 08:00 UTC] No.44487793{4}[source]▶
Sure, the market, but HFT is relatively tiny as a market and the profit it brings. Not to mention, it's essentially a zero-sum game.

Brought to you by your favorite Google LLM search result:

"The global high-frequency trading (HFT) market was valued at USD 10.36 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 16.03 billion by 2030"

(unverified by a human, use at your own risk).

replies(1): >>44487842 #
7. HaZeust ◴[07 Jul 25 08:07 UTC] No.44487842{5}[source]▶
>"The global high-frequency trading (HFT) market was valued at USD 10.36 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 16.03 billion by 2030"

>

> (unverified by a human, use at your own risk).

Honorable for mentioning the lack of verification; doing so would have dissolved the AI's statement, but jury's out on how much EXACTLY:

Per https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03784...:

"While estimates vary due to the difficulty in ascertaining whether each trade is an HFT, recent estimates suggest HFT accounts for 50–70% of equity trades and around 50% of the futures market in the U.S., 40% in Canada, and 35% in London (Zhang, 2010, Grant, 2011, O’Reilly, 2012, Easley et al., 2012, Scholtus et al., 2014)"

In my original reply, I used the literal median of that spectrum @ 60%

Jane Street - who has recently found themselves in hot water from the India ban - disputes that AI summary ALONE. Per https://www.globaltrading.net/jane-street-took-10-of-of-us-e... , Jane Street booked 20.5B in trading revenue, primarily though HFT's, just in 2024.

Brought to you by someone who takes these market movements too seriously for their own good.

replies(2): >>44488435 #>>44491736 #
8. exe34 ◴[07 Jul 25 08:21 UTC] No.44487933{4}[source]▶
The stock market does not grow potatoes.
replies(1): >>44487951 #
9. HaZeust ◴[07 Jul 25 08:23 UTC] No.44487951{5}[source]▶
And potatoes don't grow nearly as much economic value within industrial societies - as they do in, say, agrarian ones. All to say, I don't understand your point.
replies(1): >>44487970 #
10. exe34 ◴[07 Jul 25 08:26 UTC] No.44487970{6}[source]▶
The stock market does not make movies either.
11. bdelmas ◴[07 Jul 25 09:37 UTC] No.44488435{6}[source]▶
Revenue is not profit
12. bdelmas ◴[07 Jul 25 09:40 UTC] No.44488465{4}[source]▶
The percentage is irrelevant without knowing how they really work and how much profit they make. They could be at 95% with 0.1% of margin it wouldn’t mean much for the market.

At the end of the day talking about HFT this way is to not know what they do and what service they offer to the market. Overall they are not trending makers but trend followers.

13. semiquaver ◴[07 Jul 25 13:04 UTC] No.44489971{4}[source]▶

  > 60% of all US equity volume
Volume is not value.
14. rcxdude ◴[07 Jul 25 16:01 UTC] No.44491711[source]▶
The stock market is not the root of the value, it's where the value (and plans for generating more) is put to a popularity contest.
15. rcxdude ◴[07 Jul 25 16:04 UTC] No.44491736{6}[source]▶
20 billion is a tiny fraction of the value represented in the stock exchange (and a tiny fraction of the profits made on it). HFT by its nature makes for a lot of volume but that's just a lot of shuffling of things around to peel a tiny fraction of value off the top, it's far from driving the market and the market isn't what makes the value in the first place.