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LLM Inevitabilism

(tomrenner.com)
1616 points SwoopsFromAbove | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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delichon ◴[] No.44567913[source]
If in 2009 you claimed that the dominance of the smartphone was inevitable, it would have been because you were using one and understood its power, not because you were reframing away our free choice for some agenda. In 2025 I don't think you can really be taking advantage of AI to do real work and still see its mass adaptation as evitable. It's coming faster and harder than any tech in history. As scary as that is we can't wish it away.
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rafaelmn ◴[] No.44568029[source]
If you claimed that AI was inevitable in the 80s and invested, or claimed people would be inevitably moving to VR 10 years ago - you would be shit out of luck. Zuck is still burning billions on it with nothing to show for it and a bad outlook. Even Apple tried it and hilariously missed the demand estimate. The only potential bailout for this tech is AR, but thats still years away from consumer market and widespread adoption, and probably will have very little to do with shit that is getting built for VR, because its a completely different experience. But I am sure some of the tech/UX will carry over.

Tesla stock has been riding on the self driving robo-taxies meme for a decade now ? How many Teslas are earning passive income while the owner is at work ?

Cherrypicking the stuff that worked in retrospect is stupid, plenty of people swore in the inevitability of some tech with billions in investment, and industry bubbles that look mistimed in hindsight.

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gbalduzzi ◴[] No.44568330[source]
None of the "failed" innovations you cited were even near the adoption rate of current LLMs.

As much as I don't like it, this is the actual difference. LLMs are already good enough to be a very useful and widely spread technology. They can become even better, but even if they don't there are plenty of use cases for them.

VR/AR, AI in the 80s and Tesla at the beginning were technology that someone believe could become widespread, but still weren't at all.

That's a big difference

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1. rafaelmn ◴[] No.44573465{4}[source]
OK but what does adoption rate vs. real world impact tell here ?

With all the insane exposure and downloads how many people cant even be convinced to pay 20$/month for it ? The value proposition to most people is that low. So you are basically betting on LLMs making a leap in performance to pay for the investments.