Going from “the human brain might use similar language techniques” to “human output is driven by autocomplete” - and implying that LLMs and the brain are therefore similar - is a very long road.
Prove to me that autocomplete contributes even 2% of what we write here, if you are so trigger-happy to assign the burden of proof to someone else.
There is a difference between historical institutions failing people, and monkey A getting to a wrench quicker than monkey B (exactly what that email points to)
Many large modern corporations are third-hand cars. The original owner had a purpose and an emotional investment in owning the car; for the second-hand owner, it became a practical thing; for the third-hand owner, it is often a liability.
If you are lucky, your third-hand owner still checks the oil and puts quality tires on it. If you are not, your third-hand owner pours customer relationships down the drain and doubles down on indiscriminate cost-cutting, alienating good people from the organization.
There was an emergent and surprising phenomena in collaboratively writing Linux kernel and low level backbone of modern operating systems, or developing mobile apps, or scaling Internet to broader population.
What is different about LLMs? Is it their social aspect and influence? All three examples above were also social to a different extent.
I find this a very engineering/technology focused point of view. Most business related functions run on this “human in the loop” with zero hints from industry this will change anytime soon - quite the opposite.
Even if we take purely engineering, support and operations functions, there is still plenty of “human glue” in the organizations that allow for them to function - the larger the org, the more often you need to interface people between each other, and corner cases become more complex.
Big Tech which is the most vocal about their technological savviness is a great example: pretty much nothing has changed on business and cross-functional side since the 90th and earlier, all key decisions are made via Powerpoint, memos and personal contacts. Jeff’s innovation of preparing and reading a one page of problem statement and proposal at the beginning of a meeting was considered breakthrough in this field. No LLM in sight that can magically fix this [semi-ironically] beautiful mess.
And don’t get me started on B2B Sales and Partnerships.
Out of all my time in HN I wouldn’t expect to reply with this, but I would most definitely 100 percent use this as a bed time clock, especially with my current room set up
Modern LLM services are engineer's pipe dream that was heavily shaped by the shadiest product management dark patterns you can find: applying gambling-style engagement tactics, exploiting cognitive biases, exploiting users' lack of technical understanding to inflate product expectations, using fear mongering in external and investor communications. And that's not even a complete list.
Prove to me that autocomplete contributes even 2% of what we write here, if you are so trigger-happy to assign the burden of proof to someone else.
reply