I find it understandable, it is common to evaluate human intelligence vs AI as a zero-sum competition, because that is how employers typically understand it and LM providers market it. AI proving itself moves the needle in an uncomfortable direction for all of us without very robust job security.
> I wonder if we’ll still be doing this two years hence.
It is going to take some time for people to recognize that AI has a very different set of competencies that compliments human intelligence rather well. It is unlikely to eclipse human intelligence at scale, and the companies betting on that will fall behind. That is when the conversation will start to shift.
Another wishful/hopeful thought is that the human experience itself is valuable, that competing for resources and living within a social network and having physical needs somehow creates value that is essential for companies to operate.
But is it really the case? I don't think we know that, and I don't know if the economy that results when all the white collar and much of the blue collar workers no longer understand how to participate in whatever the economy is becoming. Because it is starting to look like old money is coming around, and soon we will all be serfs to the creature comforts of those who have money now, upward mobility will be a thing of the past, and a small ruling elite over the vast subservient majority will form, reorganizing societies to more resemble middle ages lordship rather than what emerged in the 50's and 60's following WWII.
We haven't seen a significant increase in the quality of LMM output since 2023 that hasn't been the result of throwing even more energy and compute at it. AI "reasoning" is just recursive iteration on their output, with diminishing improvement on each pass. It seems to be the reason why Mythos is not generally available, maybe a canary of sorts.
If LLMs were improving significantly independent of scaling up compute resources, I would be a lot more worried. The economic instability (on several levels) of the current trajectory cannot last. Countries and companies that don't take a more sustainable approach will eventually find themselves outclassed by those that do. Unfortunately that is not a guarantee against some sort of dark age in the short term.
> We haven't seen a significant increase in the quality of LMM output since 2023 that hasn't been the result of throwing even more energy and compute at it.
This is completely false. Most of the dramatic improvements in LLM quality in the last two years were due to the application of new post-training methods, especially RLVR. It’s really interesting to read about (you should!) and it is the whole secret to why LLMs did not plateau in 2024 or 2025 like many people confidently predicted. Sure, RLVR requires compute to do, but this is not just throwing more compute at 2023 LLMs.
That's interesting. If you have a source that shows that RLVR was primarily responsible for model improvement, I'd be interested to see it. In any case, it sounds like it has its own set of limitations and there are applications where it does not help at all.
> because that is how employers typically understand it and LM providers market it.
Every few months you get an article of some executive bragging that he fire an entire department of people because of AI.
It was adversarial from the start. The idle rich who don’t have to work for a living and their sycophants who somehow believe they won’t be replaced vs … everyone else.
I used to think that the common tale of AI rebelling in Hollywood movies was unlikely. Turns out we don’t even need rogue AI, our fellow men are quite willing to wipe the rest of us out.
1. AI is developed to be smart enough to actual replace people, destroying the labor force and immensely concentrating power.
This seems like bs hyperbole but I am not an expert.
2. AI turns out to be a bubble of false promises and hype, bursts, and takes the stock market and economy with it.
I thought this was the most likely but I keep not hearing popping, so maybe the it's:
3. AI continues to be a tool that can substantially increase productivity in some areas and cause huge societal changes in others. The AI companies keep the hype train going or maybe it tapers off over time until talk meets reality but "real" AI never shows up and the bubble never pops because it's not one. Eventually there is 0-3 new FAANG companies with untouchable control of a tech we increasingly have to use to stay relevant.
Even if we avoid option 1 and 2, 3 doesn't exactly bode well either.
> I wonder if we’ll still be doing this two years hence.
It is going to take some time for people to recognize that AI has a very different set of competencies that compliments human intelligence rather well. It is unlikely to eclipse human intelligence at scale, and the companies betting on that will fall behind. That is when the conversation will start to shift.