[MostlyStable]

Isn't that always the case in the early stages of new technology adoption? It becomes less and less true as the new technology becomes more and more integrated.

In the first few years after electric motors became a thing, one could have said the same thing. We would have just gone back to steam. If you tried to "do without them" now, society would collapse.

So the question is not if we can do without them now, it's if we can do without them in 5 to 10 years (or however long it takes for them to be fully integrated)

[48terry]

The current LLM hype started, what, 5 years ago? It's an industry throwing billions of dollars (and teasing at the word trillions) around. It's had super bowl ads. It's a technology that's being mandated in corporate offices. It's basically the only thing the tech world ever talks about anymore. It's sucked all the air out of the room and occupies the whole stage.

Just how "early stage" is that, and how much more integration does this "new technology" need to be?

[MostlyStable]

The first electric motors in factories just replaced the previously existing steam engine. Power was still distributed throughout the factory through a central shaft and pullies to all the places that needed it. It took decades for the possibilities to get figured out and, more importantly, entirely new factories designed from the ground up around the idea that every machine could have it's own motor and power could be distributed via wires.

AI won't be "integrated" until something similar happens, and new businesses etc. are formed that take advantage of it in a way that can't simply be reversed to the old, pre-AI paradigm. I don't know what that will look like, but someone is going to figure it out and make successful companies with entirely new paradigms that are only made possible by AI.

At some point, every single factory was designed for electric motors, and going back became unthinkable.

-edit- also, the idea that a 5 year old tech that is still rapidly changing and developing deserves quotation marks around "new technology" is hilarious to me.

[new_account_100]

> Just how "early stage" is that, and how much more integration does this "new technology" need to be?

Based on the way Claude has felt the last few weeks, I'd say we're about 3-6 months away from full AGI. At that point we can start truly replacing white collar workers in earnest and begin deep integration.

[nozzlegear]

AGI is a myth that these AI companies perpetuate as a convenient marketing tactic.

> At that point we can start truly replacing white collar workers in earnest and begin deep integration.

This is why AI is so deeply unpopular. Even in the "good" scenario proselytized by true believers, you still paint a bleak near-future where everyone loses their jobs.

[erikerikson]

Not a myth inherently but definitely unlikely on that timeline. ASI gets more mythical, probabilistically.

[nozzlegear]

Yeah, I don't mean to say AGI itself is a myth; more like AGI as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google would have us believe is perpetually right around the corner is a myth.

[erikerikson]

Agreed

[kshri24]

> Isn't that always the case in the early stages of new technology adoption? It becomes less and less true as the new technology becomes more and more integrated.

Not true. Plenty go into the graveyard. At some point in time typewriters were everywhere. So were landline phones. Both were highly integrated into the system. They were replaced by much superior versions.

> In the first few years after electric motors became a thing, one could have said the same thing. We would have just gone back to steam. If you tried to "do without them" now, society would collapse.

Yes but there is nothing to state that the current version of LLMs is equivalent to electric motors. We could very well be in the typewriter/landline phones stage. You would need even more iterations to get something that is equivalent to electric motors.

Even electric motors themselves underwent multiple iterations to become economically viable. Lot of wasteful overhead needed to be eliminated and parts re-engineered to make it more efficient before it could be truly adopted.

[Exoristos]

So you're expecting humans to go extinct except for a few examples in museums?

[sumeno]

This is the same argument that the NFT bros were making a few years ago.