Comment by NBJack
6 months ago
Ironically, this is exactly the technique for arguing that the blog mentions.
Remember the revolutionary, seemingly inevitable tech that was poised to rewrite how humans thought about transportation? The incredible amounts of hype, the secretive meetings disclosing the device, etc.? That turned out to be the self-balancing scooter known as a Segway?
> Remember ...
No, I don't remember it like that. Do you have any serious sources from history showing that Segway hype is even remotely comparable to today's AI hype and the half a trillion a year the world is spending on it?
You don't. I love the argument ad absurdum more than most but you've taken it a teensy bit too far.
People genuinely did suggest that we were going to redesign our cities because of the Segway. The volume and duration of the hype were smaller (especially once people saw how ugly the thing was) but it was similarly breathless.
We now have electric kickbikes… they aren't any better looking.
Yes, people say all kinds of things.
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> Do you have any serious sources from history showing that Segway hype is even remotely comparable to today's AI hype and the half a trillion a year the world is spending on it?
LLM are more useful than Segway, but it can still be overhyped because the hype is so much larger. So its comparable, as you say LLM is so much more hyped doesn't mean it can't be overhyped.
I get immense value out of LLMs already, so it's hard for me to see them as overhyped. But I get how some people feel that way when others start talking about AGI or claiming we're close to becoming the inferior species.
1. The Segway had very low market penetration but a lot of PR. LLMs and diffusion models have had massive organic growth.
2. Segways were just ahead of their time: portable lithium-ion powered urban personal transportation is getting pretty big now.
Massive, organic, and unprofitable. And as soon as it's no longer free, as soon as the VC funding can no longer sustain it, an enormous fraction of usage and users will all evaporate.
The Segway always had a high barrier to entry. Currently for ChatGPT you don't even need an account, and everyone already has a Google account.
This is wrong because LLMs are cheap enough to run profitably on ads alone (search style or banner ad style) for over 2 years now. And they are getting cheaper over time for the same quality.
It is even cheaper to serve an LLM answer than call a web search API!
Zero chance all the users evaporate unless something much better comes along, or the tech is banned, etc...
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The free tiers might be tough to sustain, but it’s hard to imagine that they are that problematic for OpenAI et al. GPUs will become cheaper, and smaller/faster models will reach the same level of capability.
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> LLMs and diffusion models have had massive organic growth.
I haven't seen that at all. I've seen a whole lot of top-down AI usage mandates, and every time what sounds like a sensible positive take comes along, it turns out to have been written by someone who works for an AI company.
That's funny, I remember seeing "IT" penetrate Mr. Garrison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK362RLHXGY
Hey, it still beats what you go through at the airports.
I think about the Segway a lot. It's a good example. Man, what a wild time. Everyone was so excited and it was held in mystery for so long. People had tried it in secret and raved about it on television. Then... they showed it... and... well...
I got to try one once. It was very underwhelming...
Problem with Segway was that it was made in USA and thus was absurdly, laughably expensive, it cost the same as a good used car and top versions, as a basic new car. Once a small bunch of rich people all bought one, it was over. China simply wasn't in position at a time yet to copycat and mass-produce it cheaply, and hype cycles usually don't repeat so by the time it could, it was too late. If it was invented 10 years later we'd all ride $1000-$2000 Segways today.
> If it was invented 10 years later we'd all ride $1000-$2000 Segways today.
I chat with the guy who works nights at my local convenience store about our $1000-2000 e-scooters. We both use them more than we use our cars.
I'm going to hold onto the Segway as an actual instance of hype the next time someone calls LLMs "hype".
LLMs have hundreds of millions of users. I just can't stress how insane this was. This wasn't built on the back of Facebook or Instagram's distribution like Threads. The internet consumer has never so readily embraced something so fast.
Calling LLMs "hype" is an example of cope, judging facts based on what is hoped to be true even in the face of overwhelming evidence or even self-evident imminence to the contrary.
I know people calling "hype" are motivated by something. Maybe it is a desire to contain the inevitable harm of any huge rollout or to slow down the disruption. Maybe it's simply the egotistical instinct to be contrarian and harvest karma while we can still feign to be debating shadows on the wall. I just want to be up front. It's not hype. Few people calling "hype" can believe that this is hype and anyone who does believes it simply isn't credible. That won't stop people from jockeying to protect their interests, hoping that some intersubjective truth we manufacture together will work in their favor, but my lord is the "hype" bandwagon being dishonest these days.
> I know people calling "hype" are motivated by something.
You had me until you basically said, "and for my next trick, I am going to make up stories".
Projecting is what happens when someone doesn't understand some other people, and from that somehow concludes that they do understand those other people, and feels the need to tell everyone what they now "know" about those people, that even those people don't know about themselves.
Stopping at "I don't understand those people." is always a solid move. Alternately, consciously recognizing "I don't understand those people", followed up with "so I am going to ask them to explain their point of view", is a pretty good move too.
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It's an interesting comparison, because Segway really didn't have any real users or explosive growth, so it was certainly hype. It was also hardware with a large cost. LLMs are indeed more akin to Google Search where adoption is relatively frictionless.
I think the core issue is separating the perception of value versus actual value. There have been a couple of studies to this effect, pointing to a misalignment towards overestimating value and productivity boosts.
One reason this happens imo, is because we sequester a good portion of the cognitive load of our thinking to the latter parts of the process so when we are evaluating the solution we are primed to think we have saved time when the solution is sufficiently correct, or if we have to edit or reposition it by re-rolling, we don't account for the time spent because we may feel we didn't do anything.
I feel like this type of discussion is effectively a top topic every day. To me, the hype is not in the utility it does have but in its future utility. The hype is based on the premise that these tools and their next iteration can and will make all knowledge-based work obsolete, but crucially, will yield value in areas of real need; cancer, aging, farming, climate, energy and etc.
If these tools stop short of those outcomes, then the investment all of SV has committed to it at this point will have been over invested and
> LLMs have hundreds of millions of users. I just can't stress how insane this was. This wasn't built on the back of Facebook or Instagram's distribution like Threads. The internet consumer has never so readily embraced something so fast.
Maybe it's more like Pogs.
ChatGPT has something 300 million monthly users after less than three years and I don't think has Segway sold a million scooters, even though their new product lines are sick.
I can totally go about my life pretending Segway doesn't exist, but I just can't do that with ChatGPT, hence why the author felt compelled to write the post in the first place. They're not writing about Segway, after all.
Doubting LLMs because Segway was also trendy yet failed is so funny
Genuinely
> Remember the revolutionary, seemingly inevitable tech that was poised to rewrite how humans thought about transportation? The incredible amounts of hype, the secretive meetings disclosing the device, etc.? That turned out to be the self-balancing scooter known as a Segway?
Counterpoint: That's how I feel about ebikes and escooters right now.
Over the weekend, I needed to go to my parent's place for brunch. I put on my motorcycle gear, grabbed my motorcycle keys, went to my garage, and as I was about to pull out my BMW motorcycle (MSRP ~$17k), looked at my Ariel ebike (MSRP ~$2k) and decided to ride it instead. For short trips they're a game changing mode of transport.
Even for longer trips if your city has the infrastructure. I moved to the Netherlands a few years ago, that infrastructure makes all the difference.
Flatness helps
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I remember the Segway hype well. And I think AI is to Segway as nuke is to wet firecracker.
> AI is to Segway as nuke is to wet firecracker
wet firecracker won’t kill you
That was marketing done before the nature of the device was known. The situation with LLMs is very different, really not at all comparable.
Trend vs single initiative. One company failed but overall personal electric transportation is booming is cities. AI is the future, but along the way many individual companies doing AI will fail. Cars are here to stay, but many individual car companies have and will fail, same for phones, everyone has a mobile phone, but nokia still failed…
Nobody is riding Segways around any more, but a huge percentage of people are riding e-bikes and scooters. It’s fundamentally changed transportation in cities.
I recently saw someone riding a Segway, but it was an e-bike: https://store.segway.com/ebike
Oh yeah I totally remember Segway hitting a 300B valuation after a couple of years.
> Ironically, this is exactly the technique for arguing that the blog mentions.
So? The blog notes that if something is inevitable, then the people arguing against it are lunatics, and so if you can frame something as inevitable then you win the rhetorical upper-hand. It doesn't -- however -- in any way attempt to make the argument that LLMs are _not_ inevitable. This is a subtle straw man: the blog criticizes the rhetorical technique of inevitabilism rather than engaging directly with whether LLMs are genuinely inevitable or not. Pointing out that inevitability can be rhetorically abused doesn't itself prove that LLMs aren't inevitable.
The Segway hype was before anyone knew what it was. As soon as people saw the Segway it was obvious it was BS.