[PeterStuer]

I have been involved with AI for over 40 years. I assure you anyone being shown a current frontier model in operation 10 years ago would have been blown off their socks.

Yet here we are. Rather than exploring this fantastic new tool, so many here are obsessed with pointing out flaws and shortcomings.

I get the angst of a world facing dramatic change. I don't get the denial and deliberate ignorance flaunted as somehow deep insight.

[lazide]

Sure. There is also still a massive chasm between those frontier models and what the hype is pushing too.

[PeterStuer]

Yes. There is also massive denial about what the societal impact will be of even current SoTA.

[lazide]

Agreed.

[zzzeek]

This thread is not about flaws and shortcomings. I use Claude code all the time, it's great, it's fun. But "the most incredible technology ever created by this point in our history" (OP quote, we assume "our history" means "human history", as opposed to "history of the past couple of years in the Valley-scape, sure), please. This is a delusional and dangerous point of view.

[latexr]

> Yet here we are. Rather than exploring this fantastic new tool, so many here are obsessed with pointing out flaws and shortcomings.

Now think about any technology you disapprove of, and imagine that defence: “We have just invented bombs and killer drones, yet rather than exploring these fantastic new tools, so many here are obsessed with pointing out flaws and shortcomings.”

> I get the angst of a world facing dramatic change.

Respectfully, I think you’re being too reductive. There are legitimate arguments and worries being exposed, it is not people being frightened simpletons afraid of change.

> I don't get the denial and deliberate ignorance flaunted as somehow deep insight.

Some of that always happens. But if that and fear of change are how you see the main tenets of the argument, I ask you to look at them more attentively and try to understand what you’re missing.

[PeterStuer]

I don't think I explained it well if that is what you get from it.

When I say 'I get the angst', I do not mean ungrounded fears. e.g. Captured regulation killing off open model creation and use and locking AI behind a few aligned actors making sure the tech's advantages go to the select few and their serves being one of them. When I say 'dramatic change' I do not mean dramatic as in a comedy play, but real deep societal impact with a significant chance of total turmoil.

What I tried to address is the dismissive 'reactionary' response of belittling and denying the technology itself, not just in some 'tech' circles, but almost endemic in academia. "It's nothing new", "just a 'stochastic parrot'", "just lossy compression", "just a parlor trick", "a useless hallucination merry-go-round", "another round of anthropomorphism for the gullible" etc. etc.

[latexr]

Thank you for the clarification. That did help to understand your specific complaints better.