LLM Inevitabilism

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/

> 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.

The best part about this issue is that it's a self correcting problem. Those who don't are risking being pushed out of the job market, whereas those who do will fare better odds.

I'm sure luddites also argued no one needed a damn machine to weave a rug, and machine-weaved rugs didn't had any soul.

Every time pro-AI people bring up the Luddites I have to laugh, because they've clearly not had their magic little boxes actually tell them anything about the Luddites.

They argued the exact opposite, they wanted proper training on how to use the "damn machines" as people were literally dying because of being untrained in their usage. They were also then beset upon by hired thugs and mercenaries that proceeded to beat and even kill the Luddites for daring to speak out against horrible worker conditions in the factories.

It's pretty funny, the anti-luddites being exactly like the anti-luddites of yore.

> They argued the exact opposite, they wanted proper training on how to use the "damn machines" as people were literally dying because of being untrained in their usage.

That's very interesting to hear, and also very unfortunate due to the loneliness your personal belief reflects. For example, your personal belief contrasts with what's clearly stated and supported in Wikipedia's article on Luddites. Is that because the whole world around you is wrong and you are the only lonely chap who is burdened by the truth?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

The interesting detail you are either unaware or chose to omit is that "training" only registered as a concern as industrialization completely eliminated the competitiveness and consequently need to what at the time represented high-skilled albeit manual labor. Luddite's arguments regarding training was not that industrial mills didn't had training, buy that "produced textiles faster and cheaper because they could be operated by less-skilled, low-wage labourers." This is a direct citation, not something that "magic little boxes" spit out. That's what motivated uprisings against these "magic little boxes": the threat that automaton posed to their livelihood for their once irreplaceable skillet being suddenly rendered useless overnight.

So, people like you who are uninformed and ignorant of history should spend some time trying to gather insights onto the problem to have a chance if understanding what's right in front of your nose. As Mark Twain said , history doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. Luddites represent those who failed to understand the impact that automation had on humanity, refused to understand what changes were placed upon them, and misplaced their energy and ultimate frustration and anger onto futile targets. The key factor is ignorance and unpreparedness. Fooling yourself with creative exercised covering up militant levels of ignorance does not change this one bit.

But you do you. The universe has this tendency to self correct.