[coeneedell]

I attended this talk in person and some context is needed. He was invited for the “test of time” talk series. This explains the historical part of the talk. I think his general persona and association with ai led to the fluffy speculation at the end.

I notice with Ilya he wants to talk about these out there speculative topics but defends himself with statements like “I’m not saying when or how just that it will happen” which makes his arguments impossible to address. Stuff like this openly invites the crazies to to interact with him, as seen with the cryptocurrency question at the end.

Right before this was a talk reviewing the impact of GANs that stayed on topic for the conference session throughout.

[mrbungie]

I mean he repeateadly gave some hints (even if just for the lulz and not seriously) that the audience is at least partially composed of people with little technical background or AI bros. An example is when he mentioned LSTMs and said "many of you may never seen before". Even if he didn't mean it, ironically it ended being spot on when the crypto question came.

[Der_Einzige]

As someone who is at NeurIPS right now with a main conference paper, I was shocked at how many NeurIPS attendees had no paper. At ACL conferences, almost every person attending has a paper (even if it's only at a workshop)

NeurIPS is "ruined" by the money and thus attracts huge amounts of people who are all trying to get rich. It's a bloody academic conference people!

[moneywoes]

how was the conference overall, did you learn anything?

[Der_Einzige]

A lot and I will write up a huge response to this after I’ve processed it all…

[throwaway2037]

    > the audience is at least partially composed of people with little technical background or AI bros.

I have never seen the term "AI bros". What does it mean?

[c0redump]

A person with little or no technical background, that neither knows nor cares about AI (or other scientific/mathematical advancements) other than their potential to make the AI bro rich. There is a big overlap with crypto bros, and in fact many AI bros are just grifters who moved on after crypto tanked with the recent fed funds rate hikes.

[eddsolves]

> after crypto tanked with the recent fed funds rate hikes

When? It's at an all time high right now

[paulddraper]

Recent as in 18 months ago.

Not recent as in the last 3 months.

[Veedrac]

It's just someone who involves themselves in AI but as a slur.

[dboreham]

Parent presumably coined the term but it's pretty clear what it means from similarly to techbro, brogrammer, cryptobro etc.

[mrbungie]

Kinda, pretty sure I've read it somewhere else before. Plus, it has entries in Urban Dictionary from early 2023.

[paulddraper]

Analogous to tech bro, crypto bro.

I.e. someone who has shallow technical understanding or independent thought, but is following trends in hopes of turning a profit.

[ITjournalist]

"a talk reviewing the impact of GANs"

Is that available online?