I love computers too, but it doesn't resonate with me when people call AI "snake oil." The comparison suggests that the thing doesn't do what it's marketed to do. AI does more or less what it's marketed to do, sometimes badly.
I still write code by hand. But LLMs have been a legitimately useful tool when I've wanted to dig into a new field like computer graphics, theoretical physics, or numerical analysis. Or even just asking the LLM to write a piece of code and learning from its output. I think it makes me a better programmer because I can bootstrap the knowledge needed for a new project much faster and spend more time programming.
> The comparison suggests that the thing doesn't do what it's marketed to do
In my opinion you should interpret the usage of "AI" here to mean "the entire business/management/financial/bubble ecosystem surrounding LLMs". The snake oil is much more how LLMs are being weaponized and utilized rather than a specific technical assessment (although that often is an issue too)
My prediction is that it will go the same way as the dot com bubble. The hypesters and fraudsters will eventually collide with objective reality, but the technology will persist and society at large will benefit from the infrastructure and the increased access to knowledge.
Assuming that we recover from the damage being done now. As one example, a friend of mine has remarked that large corporations will benefit from the current AI-induced reality of no one being able to afford their own hardware, and keep prices that way to enforce a renters model on computers.
LLMs remind me of being a kid again being in wonder of all the possible things that could be done with a computer that haven't been figured out yet. The internet was relatively new and everyone had their own ideas of what that would enable. Fast forward to a few years ago and it was easy to believe that a lot of the low-hanging fruit of things an individual could do with the internet, apps, 3d graphics, etc, had been decently picked over and that things were stabilizing. Now I have no idea again what computing will look like in 5 years and it's exciting.
The fats in Chinese Water Snakes are rich in omega 3s and do have genuine benefits to consumption. The problem with snake oil wasn't that it was useless. The problem was with hucksters selling it as a cure-all for everything from cancer to syphilis. The metaphor is pretty apt IMO.
This is less an anti-AI post and more a post against the greed of the industry:
> But things feel different now. I can relate to what Chris Person said when he expressed his frustrations about how these slick conmen are using the technology I adore as tools for exploitation and disempowerment. The Internet, built by idealists on a foundation of openness and community, has become a mire of dark patterns and gardens with ever thicker walls, desperate to keep people within an ecosystem where their attention is the prized commodity. I’ve witnessed a nerdy space full of nerds be invaded by marketers, callous capitalists, and “brogrammers”—exaggerating the worst, most toxic, aspects of geek culture in their pursuit of money and power. I’ve poured hundreds of hours of work into open source projects only to have it all be scraped into a plagiarism machine and then aggressively sold back to me. It feels that the hope I had for the future technology could give us, the naïve and starry-eyed fantasies I fostered in my youth, has been eroded when faced with a reality where the thing I love can make a lot of money for people who don’t care for any of it.
You can simultaneously believe that AI is really cool and also that also a lot of companies are degrading the internet, society, and private ownership at large.
I love the computer too. Never more than while writing 6502 assembler for a decades-defunct home computer for literally no purpose at all.
Meanwhile, the economy needs software to be written and I need employment, and I'm lucky enough to have a job that hews somewhat close to my interests, whether that be learning the latest JS framework or to prompt Claude. It's all pretty decent and better than chiselling coal out of a pit for 10 hours a day.
Mr. Enger echos a lot of thoughts that I (and a lot of people on these forums) seem to have. We can still make an attempt to remake what we love, with personal websites and self-hosting. However modern architecture kills even that with DDoS attacks and IP blacklists on everything. It is no wonder that people are starting to promote alternate protocols like Gemini (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48297467) that explicitly make it impossible for many of the evils of the World Wide Web to be repeated.
This post resonates with me. I remember in Kindergarten getting my very first life experience with computing tech: grounding myself by touching the bottom screws of a Apple IIe. I've loved them in nearly the same way as OP.
I get the way he feels. I remember how special this stuff used to be because of how niche it was. It does feel a bit like the normies co-opted it but that is my personal and selfish view.
I remember when I was around 10 and we got out first PC - Compaq Presario - that we shared among us 4 siblings. And I was instantly hooked to. And then about a year later, we got internet connected and the first website we visited was Pokemon.
I remember at my high school, the computer room in the library was fitted out with the new colored iMacs. I was shocked! How could a computer look like this. You had to register to use it each day during lunch breaks because so many people wanted to use them.
I remember the first time I came across an Apple magazine, and it was showing screenshots of the new OS X. The Aqua interface got me hooked. I'd read, and re-read, every page, drooling over the screenshots. It wasn't until ~10 years later I got my first Mac and I was obsessed with it!
I think the author simply grew up. It's easy to ignore all of the business stuff and just have fun when you are kid. Nothing is stopping the author from generating all sorts of crazy stuff with AI if he wants to live on the bleeding edge of technology.
My first computer was a pentium II. After one year learning about computing in my school lab and friends’ computers, it was amazing to have something to tinker with. And it and its successors brought me plenty of delight over the year. First discovering Linux (with Linux Mint and Gnome 2 as I couldn’t install Debian), learning assembly and C, learning Blender, learning how windows internals worked,… It has been a tool that has shaped my life. And yes, the current trend of presenting it as a mere source of entertainment and a very small sets of features is sickening.
But this day, I dabble with OpenBSD and Linux (Alpine) and it’s a bit of fresh air. There’s some convenience lost, but you get the freedom of computing back.
I still write code by hand. But LLMs have been a legitimately useful tool when I've wanted to dig into a new field like computer graphics, theoretical physics, or numerical analysis. Or even just asking the LLM to write a piece of code and learning from its output. I think it makes me a better programmer because I can bootstrap the knowledge needed for a new project much faster and spend more time programming.
Oh, not using it right? Not the right model? Insert coin to continue.
Snake oil, total snake oil.
In my opinion you should interpret the usage of "AI" here to mean "the entire business/management/financial/bubble ecosystem surrounding LLMs". The snake oil is much more how LLMs are being weaponized and utilized rather than a specific technical assessment (although that often is an issue too)
> But things feel different now. I can relate to what Chris Person said when he expressed his frustrations about how these slick conmen are using the technology I adore as tools for exploitation and disempowerment. The Internet, built by idealists on a foundation of openness and community, has become a mire of dark patterns and gardens with ever thicker walls, desperate to keep people within an ecosystem where their attention is the prized commodity. I’ve witnessed a nerdy space full of nerds be invaded by marketers, callous capitalists, and “brogrammers”—exaggerating the worst, most toxic, aspects of geek culture in their pursuit of money and power. I’ve poured hundreds of hours of work into open source projects only to have it all be scraped into a plagiarism machine and then aggressively sold back to me. It feels that the hope I had for the future technology could give us, the naïve and starry-eyed fantasies I fostered in my youth, has been eroded when faced with a reality where the thing I love can make a lot of money for people who don’t care for any of it.
You can simultaneously believe that AI is really cool and also that also a lot of companies are degrading the internet, society, and private ownership at large.
Meanwhile, the economy needs software to be written and I need employment, and I'm lucky enough to have a job that hews somewhat close to my interests, whether that be learning the latest JS framework or to prompt Claude. It's all pretty decent and better than chiselling coal out of a pit for 10 hours a day.
I get the way he feels. I remember how special this stuff used to be because of how niche it was. It does feel a bit like the normies co-opted it but that is my personal and selfish view.
I remember when I was around 10 and we got out first PC - Compaq Presario - that we shared among us 4 siblings. And I was instantly hooked to. And then about a year later, we got internet connected and the first website we visited was Pokemon.
I remember at my high school, the computer room in the library was fitted out with the new colored iMacs. I was shocked! How could a computer look like this. You had to register to use it each day during lunch breaks because so many people wanted to use them.
I remember the first time I came across an Apple magazine, and it was showing screenshots of the new OS X. The Aqua interface got me hooked. I'd read, and re-read, every page, drooling over the screenshots. It wasn't until ~10 years later I got my first Mac and I was obsessed with it!
But this day, I dabble with OpenBSD and Linux (Alpine) and it’s a bit of fresh air. There’s some convenience lost, but you get the freedom of computing back.