Comment by yunwal
2 months ago
"Boring but right" generally means that this prediction is already priced in to our current understanding of the world though. Anyone can reliably predict "the sun will rise tomorrow", but I'm not giving them high marks for that.
I'm giving them higher marks than the people who say it won't.
LLMs have seen huge improvements over the last 3 years. Are you going to make the bet that they will continue to make similarly huge improvements, taking them well past human ability, or do you think they'll plateau?
The former is the boring, linear prediction.
>The former is the boring, linear prediction.
right, because if there is one thing that history shows us again and again is that things that have a period of huge improvements never plateau but instead continue improving to infinity.
Improvement to infinity, that is the sober and wise bet!
The prediction that a new technology that is being heavily researched plateaus after just 5 years of development is certainly a daring one. I can’t think of an example from history where that happened.
5 replies →
Tiger: humans will never beat tigers because tigers are purpose built killing machines and they are just generalist --40,000BC
2 replies →
LaunchHN: Announcing Twoday, our new YC backed startup coming out of stealth mode.
We’re launching a breakthrough platform that leverages frontier scale artificial intelligence to model, predict, and dynamically orchestrate solar luminance cycles, unlocking the world’s first synthetic second sunrise by Q2 2026. By combining physics informed multimodal models with real time atmospheric optimisation, we’re redefining what’s possible in climate scale AI and opening a new era of programmable daylight.
You joke, but, alas, there is a _real_ company kinda trying to do this. Reflect Orbital[1] wants to set up space mirrors, so you can have daytime at night for your solar panels! (Various issues, like around light pollution and the fact that looking up at the proposed satellites with binoculars could cause eye damage... don't seem to be on their roadmap.) This is one idea that's going to age badly whether or not they actually launch anything, I suspect.
Battery tech is too boring, but seems more likely to manage long-term effectiveness.
[1] https://www.reflectorbital.com
1 reply →
> Are you going to make the bet that they will continue to make similarly huge improvements
Sure yeah why not
> taking them well past human ability,
At what? They're already better than me at reciting historical facts. You'd need some actual prediction here for me to give you "prescience".
“At what?” is really the key question here.
A lot of the press likes to paint “AI” as a uniform field that continues to improve together. But really it’s a bunch of related subfields. Once in a blue moon a technique from one subfield crosses over into another.
“AI” can play chess at superhuman skill. “AI” can also drive a car. That doesn’t mean Waymo gets safer when we increase Stockfish’s elo by 10 points.
I imagine "better" in this case depends on how one scores "I don't know" or confident-sounding falsehoods.
Failures aren't just a ratio, they're a multi-dimensional shape.
At every intellectual task.
They're already better than you at reciting historical facts. I'd guess they're probably better at composing poems (they're not great but far better than the average person).
Or you agree with me? I'm not looking for prescience marks, I'm just less convinced that people really make the more boring and obvious predictions.
8 replies →
> At what? They're already better than me at reciting historical facts.
I wonder what happens if you ask deepseek about Tiananmen Square…
Edit: my “subtle” point was, we already know LLMs censor history. Trusting them to honestly recite historical facts is how history dies. “The victor writes history” has never been more true. Terrifying.
1 reply →
LLMs aren't getting better that fast. I think a linear prediction says they'd need quite a while to maybe get "well past human ability", and if you incorporate the increases in training difficulty the timescale stretches wide.
> The former is the boring, linear prediction.
Surely you meant the latter? The boring option follows previous experience. No technology has ever not reached a plateau, except for evolution itself I suppose, till we nuke the planet.
Perhaps a new category, 'highest risk guess but right the most often'. Those is the high impact predictions.
Prediction markets have pretty much obviated the need for these things. Rather than rely on "was that really a hot take?" you have a market system that rewards those with accurate hot takes. The massive fees and lock-up period discourage low-return bets.
FWIW Polymarket (which is one of the big markets) has no lock-up period and, for now while they're burning VC coins, no fees. Otherwise agree with your point though.
Can’t wait for the brave new world of individuals “match fixing” outcomes on Polymarket.
1 reply →
something like correctness^2 x novel information content rank?
Actually now thinking about it, incorrect information has negative value so the metric should probably reflect that.