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by randall 135 days ago
The last 3 years of LLM progress, to me, feel like 1994-1998.
4 comments

I don't know. The novelty of LLMs faded very quickly for me.
I think they're scaling down in novelty quicker than they're scaling up in capability.

Still easy to be surprised if you stop paying attention for a while though.

Agree! I've been computering for 50 years and for me the significant milestones have been:

- rdbms

- PC

- Internet and email

- SaaS

- Mobile

- social media

- LLMs

I doubt that LLMs will be anything like as significant to our futures as social media though. And not in an entirely good way.

Except this time there isn’t a strong hacker counter culture.

Where are the greybeards in their flip flops? Where are the teen prodigies?

Everyone is sucking corporate dick, myself included

To me, the current AI boom is more like when McDonald's became available in my neck of the woods after '89. Amazing at first, but then you realize it's mostly sloppy grease that has its uses.

The wild technology race of the 90s, on the other hand, felt like a magical new dimension opening up. Maybe just because it took much longer to get thoroughly turned into a vector for BS.