The current system we have are as good as they get? You’re just making this statement out of thin air?
Did you not notice a trendline of technological improvement of AI?
> Sure, I probably could make something more effective, using non-LLM technologies (given a large enough budget), but… why would I, or anyone else, do that when it'd be obviously harmful, with no benefit?
Technology will improve. The likelihood of you being part of that progress is nearly zero. So what you say here is categorically wrong. You are not able to make anything better. Humanity collectively will make something better and we don’t know who will be the one to do it.
People are willing to pay for companionship so there’s huge profitability in this area. Profit and self interest often at the expense of everything else is what drives progress.
> Did you not notice a trendline of technological improvement of AI?
No, in fact I noticed a series of AI winters. In all things, progress is famously _not_ a straight line.
Also I find it interesting that your argument seems to boil down to “I’m smart because line goes up, you’re dumb because you think line goes down.” Everyone Clearly can see what would happen if line went up, I just; looking at the broad history and totality of factors(that I’m aware of) don’t think it’s inevitable.
“You can’t stop progress”
We literally stop progress all the time, every time we choose not to invest in something, crypto progress slowed from its height, Vr progress, green energy, I’d argue it’s relatively few technologies that progress forever.
>No, in fact I noticed a series of AI winters. In all things, progress is famously _not_ a straight line.
A series of winters? There's only one winter. Then after Geoffrey Hinton you can bullshit every 6 month lull into a "winter" if you want but everyone knows what the "actual" winter was. In general over a span of 10 years the line is UP.
>Also I find it interesting that your argument seems to boil down to “I’m smart because line goes up, you’re dumb because you think line goes down.” Everyone Clearly can see what would happen if line went up, I just; looking at the broad history and totality of factors(that I’m aware of) don’t think it’s inevitable.
The crazy thing is it's true. I never said that the line going up is inevitable. I said that's the most probable outcome. And you are dumb if you don't acknowledge the most probable outcome. like there's no logical way around this. You can sort of twist my argument into something that looks strange or stupid or whatever but there's no logical counter to what I said because it is factually the best answer.
>We literally stop progress all the time, every time we choose not to invest in something, crypto progress slowed from its height, Vr progress, green energy, I’d argue it’s relatively few technologies that progress forever.
You can't stop it. It can stop but you can't actually put your hand in front of it to stop it. That's what I mean. Nobody is choosing to stop progress and nobody really has this choice.
That being said you're right. No technology can progress forever. There is an upper bound. But AI. What's the upper bound? Do we have examples of the upper bound of intelligence? Do these things physically exist in reality that we can use these physical examples of Intelligence to measure how far in physical actuality and reality that we can go with AI?
No. No such examples exist. LLMs are the forefront of intelligence. There is nothing in reality more intelligent then LLMs and LLMs represent the physical limit in terms of evidence. Or is there something I'm missing here?
Yeah for certain things like space travel. It's possible we're hitting upper bounds, because we don't have physical examples of certain technologies.
But Again, intelligence? Do we have examples? What is the upper bound? Why don't you kick that brain (hint) into gear and think about it? One of the most realistic predictions of a continued upward trend in technology is in AI BECAUSE a PHYSICAL ACTUALITY of what we want to achieve both EXISTS and is reading this comment right now.
So we have a trendline that points up. And the actuality of what we want to achieve ALREADY exists. What is the most probable bet that you cannot just not acknowledge? The logic is inescapable. You must consider the outcome that AI continues to progress as that is the most likely outcome.
I'll grant you that AI not progressing and hitting another winter IS not at such a lower probability that we cannot consider it. But most of HN is just claiming we 100% hit a wall when all evidence is saying otherwise. In actuality another AI winter is the lower probability bet. Wait 10 years and come back to this comment and we'll see if you're right.
I think VR is a great example of a technology we are currently choosing to stop, very similarly to AI, all evidence suggests we’ll hit a cost/benefit wall before we get to superintelligent AI similar to the abandonment of VR progress currently in the works.
Contradictorally though - I am near certain we will declare victory on AGI much sooner than 10 years from now. OpenAI’s contract with Microsoft nearly requires it, and Sam Altman recently said that by reasonable measures of 5 years ago, ChatGPT 4 is AGI. In some sense that may best evidence things are stalling.
But really 10 years from now, either one of us could declare victory, and we’d probably be right.
So you agree. And your conclusion looks like it's coming from the fact that the trendline goes up. Clearly Sam altman saying garbage and some contract with microsoft doesn't mean shit unless there were trendlines behind them to back it up.
Then define it as what has already happened. If the trendline continues the upward progress in the next decade will be as meaningful as we consider the last decade to be.
I think as more and more people offload their thinking into LLMs we are going to hit a plateau. Innovation will stall and maybe even stop because LLMs need constant new input to improve and we will no longer be producing humans that create high quality things for LLMs to use as high quality inputs
Do you think constant growth is more or less likely than the situation that I outline?
The Stack Overflow Developer Survey suggests we're going to reach peak "offloading their thinking" sometime before the majority of people. It's going to be disastrous for those so afflicted, but it's not going to eliminate the production of training data.
I believe there's still ways to engage in conversation/debate on good faith and match and rank things based off of qualitative evidence. We may not be able to measure it but most people can see a rough line of overall progress.
“but most people can see a rough line of overall progress.”
This idea is the core to my argument. That the bias of what can you see is creating a false sense of progress. I think my core argument would be progress is an asymptote, so you might say loosely I agree with you (yes of course there are always optimizations you can eke out) but at what cost, and is the asymptote approaching something that looks more like a thing that can solve all problems in theory but not in practice, getting better and better at solving problems in a laboratory, or getting better and better at solving problems we know the answer to, but never gets serious traction at solving novel problems or working in the real world(outside its core skill set; generating text)
We can never know when an asymptote will occur or if we're in one. There's simply not enough information as noise often makes it look like we're on an asymptote when in reality we are not. Asymptotes only exist in hindsight. By probability almost all time on a curve is spent NOT approaching an asymptote. So the bet with the highest probability of being true is that we are not approaching one.
>but never gets serious traction at solving novel problems or working in the real world(outside its core skill set; generating text)
This isn't true. Transformers now power self driving. I already stopped using Uber in SF. All my taxi rides are driven by AI.
You'd be a fucking idiot if you bet on zero or negative growth for the SP500 in the next decade. The market is utterly the perfect example of a predictable trendline. The key is that you need to look at it over the long term.
Warren buffet called out every idiot investor because they all did short term bets based on short term gains and he said the way forward was long term investments. Now tell me. What does the long term trendline for the past decade say about machine learning? What does the short term LLM "training wall" say about it? Are you an idiot investor or are you not? Most investors are idiots.
>Xerox PARC. Bell Labs. Academia. Wikipedia. You must have a rather narrow and useless definition of "progress".
No i have a realistic definition of progress in capitalism. You must have a rather narrow brain and are unable to comprehend the difference between a realistic and practical application of "progress" versus an ideal that is unrealistic.
Bell labs, Xerox PARC are done. These labs existed because capitalist businesses were successful in their profitable endeavors AND could AFFORD side quests that were unprofitable. In the end these places were shuttered because they were unprofitable.
Now take a look at academia. Where does all that money come from? Taxes. Where do Taxes come from? Business and profit. Academic progress comes from business.
In fact all progress comes from business and profit. That's the general actuality. Of course there are exceptions, but that's just pedantism.
> Now take a look at academia. Where does all that money come from? Taxes. Where do Taxes come from? Business and profit. Academic progress comes from business.
Where does the common education system and legal system system underpins the business world come from? Government. Who puts dollar bills into the hands of people and tells them "come next tax season, we're going to ask you for a bunch of dollars at gunpoint, which will make them valuable, so you better have some", which creates the demand for dollars which stimulates the economy? Government.
"Business and profit" are not possible without government, which will do stuff like "fund research into the internet so we don't lose the Cold War if the Russians nuke us", which leads to Google and Meta having great "business and profit", "spend billions on aircraft carriers patrolling the oceans to make sure that shipment of shoes Nike spend 3 dollars per pair to make in Cambodia gets to California where it will be resold for 100 dollars a pair", and "fund a school system and research institutions to ensure a steady stream of educated workers to build the miracle of modern capitalism".
So if you believe all progress comes from business and profit, you believe all progress comes from the government, because business and profit is a side effect of governement.
I encourage you to read Debt and Dawn of Everything by Graeber for more information on this subject :)
No it doesn't. Money has many times evolved naturally from circumstance. Government controlled money also evolves from circumstance usually in the form of a banking system.
>So if you believe all progress comes from business and profit, you believe all progress comes from the government, because business and profit is a side effect of governement.
Your logic is truly out of this world. Just because government is involved with progress DOES not mean it's the origin of all progress. Everything you listed is government aiding and facilitating in progress. Nothing of what you said necessarily means the government is a requirement for progress.
You remember that the american economy existed BEFORE money was minted by the government right? You read history right? So how the heck does your argument fit in the world of common sense? Like your incredible logic is Government makes money, therefore government is responsible for progress.
You realize that "money" aka gold, aka other forms of currency have existed without governments right?
I don't need to read a book to know about the anthropological origins of debt or money. Like clearly either you're an idiot, or you're just treating me like one coming up with completely misguided logic to point out what? To read some book? Please.
> You remember that the american economy existed BEFORE money was minted by the government right? You read history right? So how the heck does your argument fit in the world of common sense? Like your incredible logic is Government makes money, therefore government is responsible for progress.
er... you mean when it was using money minted by the English/British government?
> You realize that "money" aka gold, aka other forms of currency have existed without governments right?
The use of precious metals as currency happened after the creation of debt-based paper money, and was tightly linked to what you'd at least call proto-governmental bureaucratic institutions - the temples of Sumerian cities would decree that one talent of silver was worth a bushel of barley (so roughly a day's wages), and people would do accounting using the silver talent as a unit of value, but that only worked because there was a large temple, with plentiful talent reserves, to act a a starting point for stuff like "laborer A promises laborer B half a talent tomorrow if laborer B gives laborer A a hand on task X today", or "farmer 1 gives farmer 2 one talent's worth of barley today, with a promise that a year from now, farmer 2 will give the holder of this promissory note two talent's worth of barley or silver".
So... my suggestion that perhaps you may be drawing your conclusions based on imperfect understandings of history may not be completely out there.
> Like clearly either you're an idiot,
yeah you got me, I'm an idiot :D
> you're just treating me like one coming up with completely misguided logic to point out what? To read some book?
I apologize if you feel like I'm condescending. That's not my intention, I'm just pointing out you seem to be repeating a falsehood, albeit one that is very popular in American political discourse, that money/business/commerce can somehow happen without government.
Like this Reagan-era meme is patently false, maybe in the fucking 80s no one had internet to verify that it was false, but in 2025 I think people should realize it was bullshit made up by the neocons to cut social services, and has about as much bearing on the truth as the whole "God made earth exactly as it is 6000 years ago" myth that creationists say is just as true as the geological theories which help us find oil.
Like with all due respect, you're saying "money happens without government", I'm saying "bro, Graeber has a several thousand page book explaining exactly why that's bullshit". I do feel justified.
Funny you should say that: business and profit are actually way undertaxed in the US, compared to (for instance) salaries and pensions. But, you're still talking about the on-paper accounting (and choosing an arbitrary point in a cyclic economy as the "original source", but let's ignore that for now).
Let's consider how progress actually occurs, on the ground. People learn how things work, whether through study, experience, original thought, or (more often) a mix of the three. They then attempt to find improvements: new methods, new machines, new buildings. They then verify these improvements, through experiment, theory, or a mix of the three. We call this "innovation". They then put these into practice: building, manufacturing, distributing, teaching, or performing; which improves the efficiency of some resource manipulation activity, or enables people to accomplish or experience things they couldn't otherwise. We call this "progress".
Individuals cannot efficiently acquire all resources (respectively: accomplish all tasks, experience all experiences, etc) alone. Specialised tools and skillsets allow certain people to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently than others: we call this "expertise" and "economies of scale" and "virtuoso", among other names. Working together, people can accomplish more than they can apart: we call this "collaboration" when it is direct, and "trade" when it is indirect. To make trade (locally) more efficient in large groups, we abstract large trade networks by valuing more-or-less everything along one axis, which we call "currency", or "money". Money represents resources, because it can be exchanged for goods and services. (Therefore, money is fungible.) Money also represents debt, for much the same reason. (Therefore, money is not fungible.) What money represents depends quite a lot on your metaphysics, because it is an abstract concept.
A trade where each party to the trade receives more value than they spend (according to the "money's worth" metric) is considered a "profitable trade": the "more value" is called the "profit", and trades can be profitable for all parties despite a variety of different choices of profit allocation. (Various factors constrain profit allocation in practice; we will not discuss them here.) Some trades are mediated by intermediaries (traders, employers), who take some portion of the profit: in some cases, these intermediaries are providing value (e.g. by transporting goods, or organising a team); but in other cases, they are not. One example of an intermediary that does not provide any value is a corporate person qua employer: by virtue of not actually existing, a corporation cannot by any clever argument be said to actually contribute to boots-on-the-ground labour activity.
So we see that profit is, except on the balance sheets of a sole trader / worker-owned coöp, actually the removal of resources from the people doing the actual work, making the actual progress. If the removed resources are pooled and used for R&D – as in the cases you describe as "side quests" – and we further propose that this R&D would not have been performed by those the resources were removed from, we can say that profit contributes towards progress. (Certain investment schemes provide another example.) However, in many cases, profit goes towards things like "build us a moat to keep the competitors out!" or "bribe the regulators" or "outspend our competitors' advertising budget" or "buy the C-suite even bigger yachts": we cannot say this contributes towards progress, unless we define the ultimate end of human progress narrowly: in the field of yacht manufacturing, or perhaps the field of cheating at sports.
Business, likewise, is sometimes related to progress, but sometimes unrelated to it, and in any case not in any way essential to progress (except in the field of business studies). Saying the word "actuality" doesn't make what you say true.
I notice you didn't address the example of Wikipedia.
>Let's consider how progress actually occurs, on the ground. People learn how things work, whether through study, experience, original thought, or (more often) a mix of the three. They then attempt to find improvements: new methods, new machines, new buildings. They then verify these improvements, through experiment, theory, or a mix of the three. We call this "innovation". They then put these into practice: building, manufacturing, distributing, teaching, or performing; which improves the efficiency of some resource manipulation activity, or enables people to accomplish or experience things they couldn't otherwise. We call this "progress".
And all of this is primarily driven by business and desire for profit. It's less driven by charity or just hobbyiest interest. That is IN actuality how it occurs.
>Individuals cannot efficiently acquire all resources (respectively: accomplish all tasks, experience all experiences, etc) alone. Specialised tools and skillsets allow certain people to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently than others: we call this "expertise" and "economies of scale" and "virtuoso", among other names. Working together, people can accomplish more than they can apart: we call this "collaboration" when it is direct, and "trade" when it is indirect. To make trade (locally) more efficient in large groups, we abstract large trade networks by valuing more-or-less everything along one axis, which we call "currency", or "money". Money represents resources, because it can be exchanged for goods and services. (Therefore, money is fungible.) Money also represents debt, for much the same reason. (Therefore, money is not fungible.) What money represents depends quite a lot on your metaphysics, because it is an abstract concept.
This is just pedantism. At the basic level money represents status and power. It is a materialistic concept at it's core. While there are other ways to look at it primarily what I'm saying is that status and power is what drives people more than anything else. You can get into the bs hand wavy metaphysics of it, sure, any ass hole can do that. We're talking about the core common sense colloquilal nature of what it means to do it for money rather then altruism. OF course altruism can involve money too right? But it would be a rather deceptive move to shift the conversation in that direction to make things even more muddled.
Tired of your pedantic bs. You know what I mean I know what you mean and you're just trying to defend yourself. Why can't people be rational and just admit their wrong. You're wrong. EOS.
> And all of this is primarily driven by business and desire for profit.
When construction is driven by a desire for profit, you get shoddy buildings that, if you're unlucky, kill people. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse – the latter is twice relevant, since the response also challenges your thesis. When buildings are built well, it's because they're built by people who care about their work. Cutting corners (a directly profitable activity, in many situations – and repeatedly profitable, if you play your cards right) is not what I call "progress".
I'm not certain you know what profit is. What do you mean, when you use that word?
> what I'm saying is that status and power is what drives people more than anything else.
Thank you for stating your thesis so clearly. While these things are a major driver of war, they are not a significant driver of human progress.
> the core common sense colloquilal nature of
I've noticed a lot of unjustified assertions from you, which are presumably also appeals to "common sense". How does your "common sense" explain Wikipedia?
>When construction is driven by a desire for profit, you get shoddy buildings that, if you're unlucky, kill people. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire, or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse – the latter is twice relevant, since the response also challenges your thesis. When buildings are built well, it's because they're built by people who care about their work. Cutting corners (a directly profitable activity, in many situations – and repeatedly profitable, if you play your cards right) is not what I call "progress".
You get this everywhere. All corruption all corporations suffer from this problem. Shortcuts are everywhere and corporations are abstracted to the point where morality is diluted through shareholder division and all you get is a machine that cares about making more capital. The reason why we don't get shoddy buildings everywhere is because that still affects profits. When a plane crashes that affects things and companies will still think in terms of long term consequences as well as short term.
A better example is global warming or microplastics. The negative consequences aren't clear and the long term result is so far away it doesn't affect profits.
But to your point. All of society is driven by profit, and the negative consequences of it are everywhere.
>I'm not certain you know what profit is. What do you mean, when you use that word?
Look it up in the dictionary. Revenue minus costs = profit. Please don't go into a pedantic diatribe over this like you did for the "abstract concept of money".
>Thank you for stating your thesis so clearly. While these things are a major driver of war, they are not a significant driver of human progress.
It's the major drive for civilization itself. Are you blind? In fact opposite of what you say War in modern times actually destroys progress and business. In modern times society is less prone to go to war than in the past because of this. While the news frequently implies that the world is a dangerous place, the statistics show we've never been more capitalist and at peace.
>I've noticed a lot of unjustified assertions from you, which are presumably also appeals to "common sense". How does your "common sense" explain Wikipedia?
I missed what you meant by this. You mean "Why does wikipedia exist if society is driven by profit".
Yeah why does open source exist?
Good question. because a extremely small minority aspect of society is driven by altruism but this minority aspect is so small one can confidently say that society Is driven by money and profit and this statement is generally true.
There's another factor at play here which makes the generality even more true. It's the fact that only people who have a lot of money "aka profit" and leisure time (because they have money) can afford to spend their time doing charity work. Like how can you just spend your life giving away shit and expect to be alive? At the end of the day you need beneficial utility coming in. Profit is not just something we desire in excess. We desire money to SURVIVE.
This crazy stuff like altruism and charity ONLY exists when people have an excess amount of money and are able to spend those extra dollars on other things. However EVEN when this is the case it's still rare. People with money just want to make more money and most people don't want to give that shit away, that's why this country is loaded with billionaires that rarely give away their money.
Did you not notice a trendline of technological improvement of AI?
> Sure, I probably could make something more effective, using non-LLM technologies (given a large enough budget), but… why would I, or anyone else, do that when it'd be obviously harmful, with no benefit?
Technology will improve. The likelihood of you being part of that progress is nearly zero. So what you say here is categorically wrong. You are not able to make anything better. Humanity collectively will make something better and we don’t know who will be the one to do it.
People are willing to pay for companionship so there’s huge profitability in this area. Profit and self interest often at the expense of everything else is what drives progress.