[Gareth321]

I’m kind of amazed when I read comments like this, but I have to remind myself that I work in an industry which use these tools at the cutting edge and see what they can really do. In the space of 18 months I changed from skeptic to the belief that our world is going to RAPIDLY change, and soon.

I sense that statistics and benchmarks and research and statements from the world’s greatest academics won’t sway you, so maybe I’ll give you a personal anecdote. I have suffered from a condition my whole life called bile acid malabsorption. It caused chronic diarrhoea, pain, arthritis, dehydration, insomnia, and more. I spent decades searching for an answer. Dozens of different tests. Eventually doctors just said I was depressed and prescribed me antidepressants. They didn’t help. On the bad days I considered ending my life.

In desperation I turned to ChatGPT. Over months I described my symptoms, triggers, diet, timing, etc. We “sparred” with each other over assumptions and ideas. I gave it all my medical history. All the tests. Eventually it concluded that BAM was likely (plus another few options). So I pushed my doctor for a specialist referral. The specialist agreed to a scan based on the symptoms. It was confirmed. I’ve been taking some cheap medication each day now and it has changed my life.

I know others for whom ChatGPT has changed their lives in similar ways. Research shows LLMs are better than doctors already in many cases at diagnosis. They are improving at an exponential rate.

[spaceisballer]

I have no doubt there are similar stories to yours or to a lesser extent. And while I’m glad you have gotten some relief, what price are we paying as a society? I’m not just talking about the environmental impact alone, what about the societal impact? Social media has not been around too long but it seems to be a net negative for society. I’m sure there are plenty of anecdotes to the contrary, but the studies are showing more and more of the detrimental impact to kids/teens. The stories and testimonies of how it was engineered to be addictive. Yet we’ve mostly moved on and allowed money more social media to get owned (and now traditional media) and controlled by the rich. But your statement is right, I doubt I’ll get swayed easily. Anecdotes and proclamations work when thinking short term. But taking the long view or looking at recent history I don’t see a positive. We have the hype being brought to us by the people that gave us the dot com bubble, crypto and NFTs. But hey, go fast, break things and never ever think about if what you are doing is really beneficial to society (after us, they are not us.)

[layla5alive]

I think most of the nuance in your first argument was undermined and overshadowed by your fairly categorical assertion that LLMs are bullshit generators and not actually useful.

When you got a reply illustrating how incorrect that claim from your first argument was, you shifted to focusing on the other argument (the one I actually happen to agree with - the cost to society of hitching increasing dependency on big tech will make the social media harms look like childs play).

I think your argument will be better received if you focus on the very valid concerns of societal harms, and acknowledge the ways LLMs are tremendously capable, without downplaying that.

I'm with the person you replied to in seeing how capable LLMs can be when you spar with them appropriately. They confabulate, but that's your job to catch as a sparring partner. But they do bring useful knowledge of thousands of PhDs into conversations - and even if you're among the most erudite humans on the planet, this is still an asset in intellectual search for truth on many topics.

Back to the genuine problems, and they are many: this power, concentrated in the hands of big tech, is a multiplier on the power already concentrated there, with many new capabilities - especially scary being the capabilities for subtly influencing and manipulating both individual and group behavior - for profit or otherwise - by the companies or their customers, or governments, or... The possibility space of harm and abuse is large..

On net, I think we should all be pushing to educate everyone around us on the pros, the nuances, the risks, and the big cons, and working to try to build a future of offline models rather than subscription service dependency..

[spaceisballer]

I actually didn’t say that aren’t that useful. I would argue that I don’t think the payoff is worth the cost. The areas investing unholy amounts of money and passing it among the largest companies are seeing plenty of cash, me and in general the public will only experience the squeeze when the huge profits aren’t realized to offset the immeasurable amount of money “invested”.