I have been asking myself the question of how useful an LLM would be that has perfect intelligence. Meaning that for any question you give it that can possibly be answered with the given information, you will get the right answer.
Obviously, it would be very useful, but still limited by it's context and prompt. For many tasks, coding models are getting close. It will do everything I ask generally correctly the first time. Around half the re-dos are because I under-specified the prompt. Soon that will be 100% of re-dos, and the programming aspect of my job will be mostly focused on writing good prompts, yet I will still be here identifying and translating real-world requirements into prompts.
We are quickly approaching a situation where LLMs can ace all benchmarks, and yet still not see the insane ROI that the frontier labs are predicting because humans are a bottleneck, and so is experiment.
For example that perfect LLM may be able to find the cure to cancer, but all the research in the world isn't enough information to answer that question, so we need to conduct experiments and learn more. Maybe that can speed up humanity's cancer discoveries by 10X, but not 1000X, purely because of the experiment bottleneck.
There was an interesting take on it on youtube today, Bill Gurley (VC) talking to Tim Ferris (interviewer) on if it's a bubble, based on some research:
> ...every time there's been a technology wave that leads to wealth
creation, especially fast wealth creation, that will inherently invite
speculators, carpetbaggers, interlopers
that want to come take advantage of it.
Think of the gold rush, you know, and so
people want to make it a debate. Do you
believe in AI or is it a bubble? And if
you say you think it's a bubble, they
say, "Oh, you don't believe in AI." Like
this gotcha kind of thing. And if you
study Perez, and I I think this is
absolutely correct. If the wave is real,
then you're going to have bubble-like
behavior. like they come together as a
pair precisely because anytime there's
very quick wealth creation, you're going
to get a lot of people that want to come
try and take advantage of that.
Still the same flaw in his analysis. Humans are unreliable too and the entire damn economy runs on them. You just need good enough, and AI is getting better daily.
What analysis? There is no analysis. "The economics don't make sense to me and therefore it'll crash and burn", and "here's two articles from mainstream media that are worried about AI spending". That's the extent of the article's content. That's the extent of the analysis. He himself offers absolutely zero argument, data, or facts.
Even with current abilities if they're just rolled out it's still trillions of the economy.
A bit like OK Waymo isn't perfect but it works in SF...we don't need a giant breakthrough to bring it to another 1000 cities.
Everyone is focused on how to make the models better (rightly), but impact and economic viability is in implementation and there is a lot of low hanging fruit there.
>another company will yet again fail to integrate agentic workflows.
> Whether it all falls apart suddenly, or gradually, I do not know. And LLMs will continue to exist.
This is one thing I don't get. Why will LLMs still exist if AI companies go bust? Will we have stagnant models that can't be improved anymore as a service? Isn't each query still a monumental computing task that they lose money on?
If I use an LLM for programming why would it need to update constantly. As soon as you could run a SOTA class model on let’s say the surely upcoming 1TB RAM MacStudio it is out there and can never be taken back. If that was my only venue to get access I would shell out those 10k in a heartbeat
The task is not so monumental that it could not be provided at a reasonable price or financed through advertising, but as long as major players are willing to operate at a loss, you face little choice but to operate at a loss yourself.
I have been asking myself the question of how useful an LLM would be that has perfect intelligence. Meaning that for any question you give it that can possibly be answered with the given information, you will get the right answer.
Obviously, it would be very useful, but still limited by it's context and prompt. For many tasks, coding models are getting close. It will do everything I ask generally correctly the first time. Around half the re-dos are because I under-specified the prompt. Soon that will be 100% of re-dos, and the programming aspect of my job will be mostly focused on writing good prompts, yet I will still be here identifying and translating real-world requirements into prompts.
We are quickly approaching a situation where LLMs can ace all benchmarks, and yet still not see the insane ROI that the frontier labs are predicting because humans are a bottleneck, and so is experiment.
For example that perfect LLM may be able to find the cure to cancer, but all the research in the world isn't enough information to answer that question, so we need to conduct experiments and learn more. Maybe that can speed up humanity's cancer discoveries by 10X, but not 1000X, purely because of the experiment bottleneck.
There was an interesting take on it on youtube today, Bill Gurley (VC) talking to Tim Ferris (interviewer) on if it's a bubble, based on some research:
> ...every time there's been a technology wave that leads to wealth creation, especially fast wealth creation, that will inherently invite speculators, carpetbaggers, interlopers that want to come take advantage of it. Think of the gold rush, you know, and so people want to make it a debate. Do you believe in AI or is it a bubble? And if you say you think it's a bubble, they say, "Oh, you don't believe in AI." Like this gotcha kind of thing. And if you study Perez, and I I think this is absolutely correct. If the wave is real, then you're going to have bubble-like behavior. like they come together as a pair precisely because anytime there's very quick wealth creation, you're going to get a lot of people that want to come try and take advantage of that.
Seems about right to me. https://youtu.be/D0230eZsRFw
Still the same flaw in his analysis. Humans are unreliable too and the entire damn economy runs on them. You just need good enough, and AI is getting better daily.
What analysis? There is no analysis. "The economics don't make sense to me and therefore it'll crash and burn", and "here's two articles from mainstream media that are worried about AI spending". That's the extent of the article's content. That's the extent of the analysis. He himself offers absolutely zero argument, data, or facts.
It only gets better daily at stuff it already kinda could do.
It can write my code a bit less shitty tomorrow, but that doesn't sound like the fulfillment of the promises given.
Tomorrow, another company will yet again fail to integrate agentic workflows.
That seems true.
Even with current abilities if they're just rolled out it's still trillions of the economy.
A bit like OK Waymo isn't perfect but it works in SF...we don't need a giant breakthrough to bring it to another 1000 cities.
Everyone is focused on how to make the models better (rightly), but impact and economic viability is in implementation and there is a lot of low hanging fruit there.
>another company will yet again fail to integrate agentic workflows.
'tis true
> Without world models. you cannot achieve reliability. And without reliability, profits are limited.
Surprising to simultaneously announce the end of the road yet point to the road ahead
It is not a road, it is a runway.
It is a bit silly calling a top at this point.
“Have you met Gary Marcus?”
> Whether it all falls apart suddenly, or gradually, I do not know. And LLMs will continue to exist.
This is one thing I don't get. Why will LLMs still exist if AI companies go bust? Will we have stagnant models that can't be improved anymore as a service? Isn't each query still a monumental computing task that they lose money on?
Inference is probably okay priced, at least at API prices.
The salaries, training and especially data center build out might be a little crazy right now.
If I use an LLM for programming why would it need to update constantly. As soon as you could run a SOTA class model on let’s say the surely upcoming 1TB RAM MacStudio it is out there and can never be taken back. If that was my only venue to get access I would shell out those 10k in a heartbeat
The task is not so monumental that it could not be provided at a reasonable price or financed through advertising, but as long as major players are willing to operate at a loss, you face little choice but to operate at a loss yourself.