> Witness any HN comment thread with "pro-AI" vibes (which is almost all of them
I feel like we’re reading two different versions of HN. Any thread about AI gets filled up with so many useless anti-AI comments from people who haven’t read the article that it’s hard to even discuss the topic here. I don’t even bother trying to get good AI or LLM related information out of HN right now because it’s such an openly hostile forum where cheap anti-AI comments will get upvoted more than actual discussion about articles.
I'm not aware of any doubt or questioning of AI being silenced on HN. Almost every thread about AI seems to be pretty loud with voices saying "bubble", "hype", "stochastic parrot".
Being impressed with the capabilities of an emerging technology doesn't make the person a religious zealot, and dismissing every proponent of LLMs and AI generally that way is weak and tribal.
I really don't understand how this topic has become such a badge of identity.
Just look at this submission. It's highly critical of AI and made it algorithmically to the HN front page, but was censored within minutes by our HN moderators and downranked into oblivion. This happens regularly with articles that are highly critical of AI. The moderators have the final say here. HN is not a fully egalitarian platform.
And now "flagged", because apparently, an informed interview with a 19-years veteran who worked on AI is problematic (whereas Sam Altman's or Elon Musk's PR and bullshitting never is).
The way I see it, the identity that, dare I say most people so engaged with the debate here, is that of our programming ability, and naturally, we mostly believe that we're above average at it. Some people have found AI to be useful, others have not. In calling LLMs mere stoichastic parrots, the implication is that someone who could possibly find them as useful is an idiot, and a bad programmer. Conversely, people see the people who call them soichastic parrots as bad programmers who are full of themselves and are too stupid to know a useful tool because they're too blinded by... whatever. When you have two tribes trying to exchange comments with that underlying implication from both sides, there's not really room for productive discussion
There's a their group of people who see these things as tools, and want to learn about them. How to use them well; their shortcomings, but as usual, the reasonable voices get drowned out by loud rants and diatribes.
The underlying engine: you buy something, you make everyone believe it’s very valuable, you sell for more than you originally paid. Or you continually sell for less unless you have earned more than originally spent. The rest is details/stories made up to sell.
OpenAI have 700 million weekly users and an ARR of $12bn. Lots of people - myself included - are very happy to pay for a service that they find useful. How is that not a real business with a real product?
Lots of people were very happy to pay for 3D TVs / VR headsets.
Lots of people were very happy to pay for "full self-driving[0]".
[0] you need to have your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road at all times
Also, OpenAI is not cash-flow-positive and is not expected to be until 2029 (!). Which means tthat, like AirBnB, like Uber, at their beginnings, you are not paying the real cost yet, it is heavily subsidized by investors - who expect double-digits returns on investment one day.
Now, in many places, AirBnB prices are close to hotels and Uber to taxis - if not higher.
VR continue to grow at a fairly linear rate, its now a $10 billion annual industry. Plenty of people stopped caring about VR news but its got many happy customers using it every month. It is not a fake industry that failed, its never been bigger and its growth trajectory is solid.
Hm. It seems as though the author is misrepresenting their interviewee here, in the title of the article, no less! Shame.
Obviously, claiming that "hype" is _the_ product of AI is categorically inane. No, "hype" is instead obviously a _byproduct_ of our current era. The "true product" will only be clear in hindsight, but at the moment the two contenders are: a) A buoyant and burgeoning industry of AI companies that only accelerates in growth -- unlikely, just like the theory of dark energy, or b) a bubbling industry which creates a the grounding framework and infrastructure for the next wave(s) of AI progress.
Whichever one of those it is, it won't be "just hype". That sort of thing is reserved for NFT markets.
Has anyone really been saying that we're going to replace doctors or teachers? Or is it more that we're saying that new tools will offer potentially engaging new applications for things like personalized learning and or assists for doctors and others.
As an example the United States has a cap on the number of doctors to keep doctors' salarys high... In many cases nurses are in a great position to provide more real care. If tools can help nurses do so isn't that a good thing? I don't view that as replacing doctors so much as delivering more personalized medicine and human care.
While I find the interviewee's personal story, particularly their upbringing in Kolkata (one of my favorite cities -- terracota cha, collegee street) humanizing I'm not sure how relevant it is to the discussion. However it does remind you that there's so much more than simply shaping text. Absolutely.
Our real physical lives are the core of our meaning and AI has no real impact on most of that. Don't we all know that though?
Big Tech simply sees business models around search and ads in Search and AI -- at least for consumers -- is the new search and hence opportunity for ads in search... We can criticize that all we want but this guy was getting that salary for 20 years.
Anyway, to blame Kolkata's challenges on colonialism when it's got some of the best sidewalks in India.. when its very existence in many ways is related to colonialism.. is a myopic perspective in my view. Compare and contrast with Kerala (the other Communist state in India). Kerala has some of the highest economic and quality of life output in the country. Kolkata can and should too. Blaming colonialism and bringing up Gaza strike me as simply trying to make sure that this is relevant to a particular Community to get clicks... aka sell ads. Sigh.
Got it, you're right some of the hype is certainly out of control.. not surprised that two of the three come from microsoft, the evil empire.
I guess I see hype all the time and have something of a filter to recognize that our roles will evolve not be replaced that's always how things go. Maybe decades hence the roles are so different that they're named differently.
> Any form of doubt or questioning is quieted.
Witness any HN comment thread with "pro-AI" vibes (which is almost all of them). It's almost as though AI has become a religion.
More re hype as the product: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44737346
Open any HN thread on the topic of AI and you'll find plenty of anti-AI comments.
> Witness any HN comment thread with "pro-AI" vibes (which is almost all of them
I feel like we’re reading two different versions of HN. Any thread about AI gets filled up with so many useless anti-AI comments from people who haven’t read the article that it’s hard to even discuss the topic here. I don’t even bother trying to get good AI or LLM related information out of HN right now because it’s such an openly hostile forum where cheap anti-AI comments will get upvoted more than actual discussion about articles.
I'm not aware of any doubt or questioning of AI being silenced on HN. Almost every thread about AI seems to be pretty loud with voices saying "bubble", "hype", "stochastic parrot".
Being impressed with the capabilities of an emerging technology doesn't make the person a religious zealot, and dismissing every proponent of LLMs and AI generally that way is weak and tribal.
I really don't understand how this topic has become such a badge of identity.
Just look at this submission. It's highly critical of AI and made it algorithmically to the HN front page, but was censored within minutes by our HN moderators and downranked into oblivion. This happens regularly with articles that are highly critical of AI. The moderators have the final say here. HN is not a fully egalitarian platform.
And now "flagged", because apparently, an informed interview with a 19-years veteran who worked on AI is problematic (whereas Sam Altman's or Elon Musk's PR and bullshitting never is).
The way I see it, the identity that, dare I say most people so engaged with the debate here, is that of our programming ability, and naturally, we mostly believe that we're above average at it. Some people have found AI to be useful, others have not. In calling LLMs mere stoichastic parrots, the implication is that someone who could possibly find them as useful is an idiot, and a bad programmer. Conversely, people see the people who call them soichastic parrots as bad programmers who are full of themselves and are too stupid to know a useful tool because they're too blinded by... whatever. When you have two tribes trying to exchange comments with that underlying implication from both sides, there's not really room for productive discussion
There's a their group of people who see these things as tools, and want to learn about them. How to use them well; their shortcomings, but as usual, the reasonable voices get drowned out by loud rants and diatribes.
The underlying engine: you buy something, you make everyone believe it’s very valuable, you sell for more than you originally paid. Or you continually sell for less unless you have earned more than originally spent. The rest is details/stories made up to sell.
OpenAI have 700 million weekly users and an ARR of $12bn. Lots of people - myself included - are very happy to pay for a service that they find useful. How is that not a real business with a real product?
I guess the point is that to be a "real business" it needs to be at some point profitable.
Lots of people were very happy to pay for NFTs.
Lots of people were very happy to pay for 3D TVs / VR headsets.
Lots of people were very happy to pay for "full self-driving[0]".
[0] you need to have your hands on the wheel and eyes on the road at all times
Also, OpenAI is not cash-flow-positive and is not expected to be until 2029 (!). Which means tthat, like AirBnB, like Uber, at their beginnings, you are not paying the real cost yet, it is heavily subsidized by investors - who expect double-digits returns on investment one day.
Now, in many places, AirBnB prices are close to hotels and Uber to taxis - if not higher.
VR continue to grow at a fairly linear rate, its now a $10 billion annual industry. Plenty of people stopped caring about VR news but its got many happy customers using it every month. It is not a fake industry that failed, its never been bigger and its growth trajectory is solid.
Hm. It seems as though the author is misrepresenting their interviewee here, in the title of the article, no less! Shame.
Obviously, claiming that "hype" is _the_ product of AI is categorically inane. No, "hype" is instead obviously a _byproduct_ of our current era. The "true product" will only be clear in hindsight, but at the moment the two contenders are: a) A buoyant and burgeoning industry of AI companies that only accelerates in growth -- unlikely, just like the theory of dark energy, or b) a bubbling industry which creates a the grounding framework and infrastructure for the next wave(s) of AI progress.
Whichever one of those it is, it won't be "just hype". That sort of thing is reserved for NFT markets.
Has anyone really been saying that we're going to replace doctors or teachers? Or is it more that we're saying that new tools will offer potentially engaging new applications for things like personalized learning and or assists for doctors and others.
As an example the United States has a cap on the number of doctors to keep doctors' salarys high... In many cases nurses are in a great position to provide more real care. If tools can help nurses do so isn't that a good thing? I don't view that as replacing doctors so much as delivering more personalized medicine and human care.
While I find the interviewee's personal story, particularly their upbringing in Kolkata (one of my favorite cities -- terracota cha, collegee street) humanizing I'm not sure how relevant it is to the discussion. However it does remind you that there's so much more than simply shaping text. Absolutely.
Our real physical lives are the core of our meaning and AI has no real impact on most of that. Don't we all know that though?
Big Tech simply sees business models around search and ads in Search and AI -- at least for consumers -- is the new search and hence opportunity for ads in search... We can criticize that all we want but this guy was getting that salary for 20 years.
Anyway, to blame Kolkata's challenges on colonialism when it's got some of the best sidewalks in India.. when its very existence in many ways is related to colonialism.. is a myopic perspective in my view. Compare and contrast with Kerala (the other Communist state in India). Kerala has some of the highest economic and quality of life output in the country. Kolkata can and should too. Blaming colonialism and bringing up Gaza strike me as simply trying to make sure that this is relevant to a particular Community to get clicks... aka sell ads. Sigh.
>Has anyone really been saying that we're going to replace doctors or teachers?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/30/microsoft...
https://people.com/bill-gates-ai-will-replace-doctors-teache...
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/goo...
Artificial Intelligence still can't beat natural idiocy...
Got it, you're right some of the hype is certainly out of control.. not surprised that two of the three come from microsoft, the evil empire.
I guess I see hype all the time and have something of a filter to recognize that our roles will evolve not be replaced that's always how things go. Maybe decades hence the roles are so different that they're named differently.
This is true in other cases, AI is just the most obvious example.
The use case for AI is spam.