LLM Inevitabilism

This isn't about fatalism or even pessimism. The tide coming in isn't good or bad. It's more like the refrain from Game of Thrones: Winter is coming. You prepare for it. Your time might be better served finding shelter and warm clothing rather than engaging in a futile attempt to prevent it.

How come there even is anything left to solve for LLMs?

It’s just really not comparable.

And I don't see how most people are divided in two groups or appear to be.

Either it's total shit, or it's the holy cup of truth, here to solve all our problems.

It's neither. It's a tool. Like a shovel, it's good at something. And like a shovel it's bad at other things. E.g. I wouldn't use a shovel to hammer in a nail.

LLMs will NEVER become true AGI. But do they need to? No, or course not!

My biggest problem with LLMs isn't the shit code they produce from time to time, as I am paid to resolve messes, it's the environmental impact of MINDLESSLY using one.

But whatever. People like cults and anti-cults are cults too.

So in that sense we agree. Let's be like he Dutch. Let's realize the coming tide and build defenses against it.

See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44208831. Quoting myself (sorry):

> For me, one of the Beneficiaries, the hype seems totally warranted. The capability is there, the possibilities are enormous, pace of advancement is staggering, and achieving them is realistic. If it takes a few years longer than the Investor group thinks - that's fine with us; it's only a problem for them.

That is a thing that humans can do if they want it enough.

> When he was at the height of his ascendancy, he ordered his chair to be placed on the sea-shore as the tide was coming in. Then he said to the rising tide, "You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine, and no one has resisted my overlordship with impunity. I command you, therefore, not to rise on to my land, nor to presume to wet the clothing or limbs of your master." But the sea came up as usual, and disrespectfully drenched the king's feet and shins. So jumping back, the king cried, "Let all the world know that the power of kings is empty and worthless, and there is no king worthy of the name save Him by whose will heaven, earth and the sea obey eternal laws."

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnut#The_story_of_Cnut_and_the...

Do the calculations for how much LLM use is required to equal one hamburger worth of CO2 — or the CO2 of commuting to work in a car.

If my daily LLM environmental impact is comparable to my lunch or going to work, it’s really hard to fault, IMO. They aren’t building data centers in the rainforest.

> LLMs will NEVER become true AGI. But do they need to? No, or course not!

Everyone disagrees about the meaning of each of the three letters of the initialism "AGI", and also disagree about the compound whole and often argue it means something different than the simple meaning of those words separately.

Even on this website, "AGI" means anything from "InstructGPT" (the precursor to ChatGPT) to "Biblical God" — or, even worse than "God" given this is a tech forum, "can solve provably impossible task such as the halting problem".

No we don't. Quite the opposite. Several dams have been made into movable mechanic contraptions precisely to NOT stop the tide coming in.

A lot of the water management is living with the water, not fighting it. Shore replenishment and strengthening is done by dropping sand in strategic locations and letting the water take care of dumping it in the right spot. Before big dredgers, the tide was used to flush sand out of harbours using big flushing basins. Big canals have been dug for better shipping. Big and small ships sailed and still sail on the waters to trade with the world. A lot of our riches come from the sea and the rivers.

The water is a danger and a tool. It's not stopped, only redirected and often put to good use. Throughout Dutch history, those who worked with the water generally have done well. And similarly, some places really suffered after the water was redirected away from them. Fisher folk lost their livelihoods, cities lost access to trade, some land literally evaporated when it got too dry, a lot of land shrunk when water was removed, biodiversity dropped...

Anyway, if you want to use the Dutch waters as a metaphor for technological innovations, the lesson will not be that the obvious answer is to block it. The lesson will be to accept it, to use it, to gain riches through it: to live with it.

But let me offer you a false dichotomy for the purposes of argument:

1. You spend your efforts preventing the emergence of AI

2. You spend your efforts creating conditions for the harmonious co-existence of AI and humanity

It's your choice.

Isn't much of that environmental impact currently from the training of the model rather than the usage? Something you could arguably one day just stop doing if you're satisfied with the progress on that front (People won't be any time soon admittedly)

I'm no expert on this front. It's a genuine question based on what i've heard and read.

Of course I don't go around posting everything I am concerned about when we are talking about a specific topic.

You're aware tho, that because of the AI hype sustainability programs were cut at all major tech firms?

A true AGI is basically Skynet or the Basilisk ;-)

Environmental impacts of GenAI/LLM ecosystem are highly overrated.

edit As an aside, you might want to read Don Quixote [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

If carbon credits were viewed as valid, I’m pretty sure they would have kept the programs.

This chart is extremely damning: https://metr.org/blog/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-o...

The industry consistently predicts people will do the task quicker with AI. The people who are doing the task predict they'll do it quicker if they can use AI. After doing the task with AI, they predict they did it quicker because they used AI. People who did it without AI predict they could have done it quicker with AI. But they actually measured how long it takes. It turns out, they do it slower if they use AI. This is damning.

It's a dopamine machine. It makes you feel good, but with no reality behind it and no work to achieve it. It's no different in this regard from (some) hard drugs. A rat with a lever wired to the pleasure center in its brain keeps pressing that lever until it dies of starvation.

(Yes, it's very surprising that you can create this effect without putting chemicals or electrodes in your brain. Social media achieved it first, though.)

Please understand. We're not in a position where we have sophisticated infrastructure to carefully control AI development. We have nothing, and the waves are getting bigger every few months.

You're in a position where you're safe enough (after centuries of labor!) that you can decide to not block some amount of incoming water. That is not where we are at with AI. There is no dike.