Comment by bambax
1 year ago
It's more like they're saying they have invented the screwdriver, but they haven't invented screws yet.
But it doesn't feel right. It's unlikely the screwdriver would come first, and then people would go around looking for things to use it with, no?
It's more like they have invented a computer, an extremely versatile and powerful tool that can be used in many ways, but is not a solution to every problem.
Now they need people to write software that uses this capability to perform useful tasks, such as text processing, working with spreadsheets and providing new ways of communication.
While I find value in LLMs they still overall seem unreasonably not that useful.
It might be like trying to train a neural net in 1993 on a 60mhz Pentium. It is the right idea but fundamental parts of the system are so lacking.
On the other hand, I worry we have gone down the support vector machine path again. A huge amount of brain power spent on a somewhat dead end that just fits the current hardware better than what we will actually use in the long run.
The big difference though from SVM is this has captured the popular imagination and if the tide goes out, the AI winter will the most brutal winter by an order of magnitude.
AGI or bust.
I’d say the biggest difference between LLMs and SVMs is that a lot of people find LLMs useful on a daily basis.
I’ve been using them almost daily for over two years now, and I keep on finding new things they can do that are useful to me.
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