[awahab92]

there were probably people who doubted electricity, vaccines and indoor plumbing.

[ryandrake]

There were also people who doubted the Segway, Magic Leap, Theranos, 3D TVs, Windows Phone, and Google Glass.

I think doubt is OK, at least it is before any particular technology or product has actually proven itself.

[fragmede]

the gap between participants in this conversation is that some have had it proven itself for themselves and others around them, and others have not seen that same proof.

[rsynnott]

Thing is, that comment would have worked in a thread three years ago about ‘metaverses’. Sometimes, the early adopters are the only adopters. Not saying that’s definitely the case here, but it is looking like it’s going in that direction - huge hype, absurd levels of VC spending, a bunch of ultra-enthusiastic early adopters, but real mainstream application still absent.

[rurp]

The ration of hyped technologies that turned out to be overhyped, versus ones that turned out to be as impactful as electricity is... I don't even know how many orders of magnitude different, but it's a lot.

[glitchc]

This is false equivalence and you know better. Electricity is foundational technology. What we call AI are LLMs, which are great and useful, but not in the same league as something foundational like electricity.

[pixl97]

Now, the question of "Are LLMs intelligent" is debatable, but intelligence is foundational itself.