Comment by emp17344
1 day ago
This is why AI skeptics exist. We’re now at the point where you can make entirely unsubstantiated claims about AI capability, and even many folks on HN will accept it with a complete lack of discernment. The hype is out of control.
> folks on HN will accept it with a complete lack of discernment
Well, I'm a heavy LLM user, I "believe" LLM helps me a lot for some tasks, but I'm also a developer with decades of experience, so I'm not gonna claim it'll help non-programmers to build software, or whatever. They're tools, not solutions in themselves.
But even us "folks on HN" who generally keep up with where the ecosystem is going, have a limit I suppose. You need to substantiate what you're saying, and if you're saying you've managed to create a browser, better let others verify that somehow.
Take a look at this thread regarding the original claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624541
The top comment is indeed baseless hype without a hint of skepticism.
The second top comment is my own (skeptical) comment, with 20 points at this moment. Thanks to those 20 people, I felt compelled to write the blog-post in this submission, and try to ask a bit clearer "what is going on?", since apparently we're at least 20 people who is wondering about this.
There is also clearly a lot of other skeptical people in that submission too. Also, simonw (from that top comment) told me themselves "it's not clear that what they built even runs": https://bsky.app/profile/simonwillison.net/post/3mckgw4mxoc2...
As usual, I was careful with my words:
> This project from Cursor is the second attempt I've seen at this now!
I used the word "attempt" very deliberately, to avoid suggesting that either of these two projects had achieved the goal.
I don't see how you can get to "baseless hype without a hint of skepticism" there unless you've already decided to take anything I say in bad faith.
2 replies →
> The top comment is indeed baseless hype without a hint of skepticism.
and he wonders why people call him a shill
accepting everything some shit company tells you as gospel is not the default position of a "researcher"
he better hope he's on the right side of history here, as otherwise he will have burnt his reputation
2 replies →
[dead]
> but I'm also a developer with decades of experience, so I'm not gonna claim it'll help non-programmers to build software, or whatever. They're tools, not solutions in themselves.
Also with decades experience, I'd say that it depends how big the non-programmer is dreaming:
To agree with you: A well-meaning friend sent an entrepreneur my direction, whose idea was "Uber for aircraft". I tried to figure out exactly what they meant, ending the conversation when I realised all answers were rephrasing of that vague three words pitch, that they didn't really know what they wanted to do in any specific enumerable sense.
LLMs can't solve the problem when even the person asking doesn't know what they want.
But on the other end the scale, I've been asked to give an estimate for an app which, in its entirety, would've been one day's work even with the QA and acceptance testing and going through the Apple App Store upload process. Like, I kept asking if there was any other hidden complexity, and nope, the entire pitch was what you'd give as a pre-interview code-challenge.
An LLM would've spat out the solution to that in less time than I spent with the people who'd asked me to estimate it.