Technology

As a fervent AI enthusiast, I disagree.

...I'd say it's 97% hype and marketing.

It's crazy how much fud is flying around, and legitimately buries good open research. It's also crazy what these giant corporations are explicitly saying what they're going to do, and that anyone buys it. TSMC's allegedly calling Sam Altman a 'podcast bro' is spot on, and I'd add "manipulative vampire" to that.

Talk to any long-time resident of localllama and similar "local" AI communities who actually dig into this stuff, and you'll find immense skepticism, not the crypto-like AI bros like you find on linkedin, twitter and such and blot everything out.

I had a professor in college that said when an AI problem is solved, it is no longer AI.

Computers do all sorts of things today that 30 years ago were the stuff of science fiction. Back then many of those things were considered to be in the realm of AI. Now they're just tools we use without thinking about them.

I'm sitting here using gesture typing on my phone to enter these words. The computer is analyzing my motions and predicting what words I want to type based on a statistical likelihood of what comes next from the group of possible words that my gesture could be. This would have been the realm of AI once, but now it's just the keyboard app on my phone.

Yup.

I don't know why. The people marketing it have absolutely no understanding of what they're selling.

Best part is that I get paid if it works as they expect it to and I get paid if I have to decommission or replace it. I'm not the one developing the AI that they're wasting money on, they just demanded I use it.

That's true software engineering folks. Decoupling doesn't just make it easier to program and reuse, it saves your job when you need to retire something later too.

Sounds about right. There are some valid and good use cases for "AI", but the majority is just buzzword marketing.

I make DNNs (deep neural networks), the current trend in artificial intelligence modeling, for a living.

Much of my ancillary work consists of deflating/tempering the C-suite's hype and expectations of what "AI" solutions can solve or completely automate.

DNN algorithms can be powerful tools and muses in scientific endeavors, engineering, creativity and innovation. They aren't full replacements for the power of the human mind.

I can safely say that many, if not most, of my peers in DNN programming and data science are humble in our approach to developing these systems for deployment.

If anything, studying this field has given me an even more profound respect for the billions of years of evolution required to display the power and subtleties of intelligence as we narrowly understand it in an anthropological, neuro-scientific, and/or historical framework(s).

That's about right. I've been using LLMs to automate a lot of cruft work from my dev job daily, it's like having a knowledgeable intern who sometimes impresses you with their knowledge but need a lot of guidance.

AI as we know it does have its uses, but I would definitely agree that 90% of it is just marketing hype

I think when the hype dies down in a few years, we'll settle into a couple of useful applications for ML/AI, and a lot will be just thrown out.

I have no idea what will be kept and what will be tossed but I'm betting there will be more tossed than kept.

What happened to Linus? He looks so old now...

I am thinking of deploying a RAG system to ingest all of Linus's emails, commit messages and pull request comments, and we will have a Linus chatbot.

The only time I've seen AI work well are for things like game development, mainly the upscaling of textures and filling in missing frames of older games so they can run at higher frames without being choppy. Maybe even have applications for getting more voice acting done... If the SAG and Silicon Valley can find an arrangement for that that works out well for both parties..

If not for that I'd say 10% reality was being.... incredibly favorable to the tech bros

he isn't wrong

Like with any new technology. Remember the blockchain hype a few years back? Give it a few years and we will have a handful of areas where it makes sense and the rest of the hype will die off.

Everyone sane probably realizes this. No one knows for sure exactly where it will succeed so a lot of money and time is being spent on a 10% chance for a huge payout in case they guessed right.

I play around with the paid version of chatgpt and I still don't have any practical use for it. it's just a toy at this point.

Oh please. Wait until they release double-sided, double-density 128bit AI quantum blockchain that runs on premises/in the cloud edge hybrid.

I'm waiting for the part that it gets used for things that are not lazy, manipulative and dishonest. Until then, I'm sitting it out like Linus.

Just chiming in as another guy who works in AI who agrees with this assessment.

But it's a little bit worrisome that we all seem to think we're in the 10%.

Copilot by Microsoft is completely and utterly shit but they're already putting it into new PCs. Why?

Linus is known for his generosity.