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LLM Inevitabilism

(tomrenner.com)
1612 points SwoopsFromAbove | 3 comments | 15 Jul 25 04:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.911s | source
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JimmaDaRustla ◴[15 Jul 25 13:50 UTC] No.44571157[source]▶
The author seems to imply that the "framing" of an argument is done so in bad faith in order to win an argument but only provides one-line quotes where there is no contextual argument.

This tactic by the author is a straw-man argument - he's framing the position of tech leaders and our acceptance of it as the reason AI exists, instead of being honest, which is that they were simply right in their predictions: AI was inevitable.

The IT industry is full of pride and arrogance. We deny the power of AI and LLMs. I think that's fair, I welcome the pushback. But the real word the IT crowd needs to learn is "denialism" - if you still don't see how LLMs is changing our entire industry, you haven't been paying attention.

Edit: Lots of denialists using false dichotomy arguments that my opinion is invalid because I'm not producing examples and proof. I guess I'll just leave this: https://tools.simonwillison.net/

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1. lupusreal ◴[15 Jul 25 15:40 UTC] No.44572307[source]▶
Reading between the lines of the OP, the author seems to think that the future of LLMs will be determined by debate and that he can win that debate by choosing the framing of the debate.

The whole meat of his article is about this debate technique, ostensibly saying that's what the other guys are doing, but really he's only described what he himself is doing.

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2. charles_f ◴[15 Jul 25 16:27 UTC] No.44572888[source]▶
I didn't read that. I understood it as the fact that tech companies are currently framing the narrative as "inevitable", and that you should ask yourself the other questions, such as do I want it
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3. lupusreal ◴[15 Jul 25 17:26 UTC] No.44573642[source]▶
The question of whether any individual wants it ultimately won't matter. Now that the technology exists and has found traction, it continuing to exist and have traction until eventually being superseded by something even more useful is inevitable.

The author seems to think that the existence of the technology can be decided by debate to sway people one way or the other, but that's not how it works. Real life doesn't work like a debate club. The people who are saying that the technology is inevitable aren't trying to do a debate persuasion thing to make it inevitable, that's just the way the author wants to see it because that framing makes it negotiable. But there's no negotiating with the course of technological development.