Debunking the Tech Hype Cycle with Dan Olson
Debunking the Tech Hype Cycle with Dan Olson
This interview is 2 months old, but I haven't seen it discussed so far and given the news about reddit's new cryptobeaniebabies, here it goes. This is a critique of the tech hype cycle, LLMs, VR, the metaverse failure, NFTs and cryptocurrencies with a refreshing historical awareness of past attempts that failed, like second life and VR games. Adam Conover's interviewee is Dan Olson https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7v5qq/meet-the-guy-who-went-viral-on-youtube-for-explaining-how-nfts-crypto-are-a-poverty-trap
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=4aU-QkJfgGw
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Namaste :)
Does nobody remember how utterly uninformed Conover's previous takes on ai were? And I still know whole communities of people who basically live in vr. They are doing just fine.
Look here if you just want to hate on tech and tech enthusiasts. Don't look here for a reasoned and thoughtful conversation.
Also can we stop trying to paint AI enthusiasts in a bad light by acting like everyone into AI is an NFT grifter?
It's intellectually dishonest.
The way it's usually presented would make you think we have Yann LeCun and Melanie Mitchell in full fratboy drip promoting their NFTs.
Tech enthusiast here! If you say AI in any context of current technology you're either severely uninformed or grifting. There is no AI, it's all machine learning. Adam may have been in the uninformed group, but he's still been more right about "AI" than anyone else recently. Machine learning ≠ Artificial Intelligence, and if you think otherwise, you don't know what you're talking about. Read some of the white papers, and don't use the term AI, please.
Most companies making the more consumer facing applications are barely publishing papers these days, and when they do they're often lacking important information/materials which would be required to recreate them (datasets, models, training parameters, etc.). Somehow Facebook has become the gold standard of open development.
note that my snarky tone in this response is due to befuddlement and not an intent to insult or argue with you.
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what a weirdly strict semantic requirement that you are emphasising as law. it's a good thing you are emphasising it so strongly, or we might see people use it while interviewing the guy who wrote the book on generative deep learning
or see it used in silly places like MIT or stanford.
what kind of grifter institutions would be so unprofessional?
oh no, melanie mitchell is using a header saying that she "writes about AI." are you really suggesting melanie mitchell is uninformed?
or.. yann lecun? "Researcher in AI."
do you know who yann lecun is? do you know what back-propagation is?
these are some of the most respectable and well known names in the field. these were the first few darts i threw, and i'm unsurprised that i'm hitting bullseyes. i'm sure i could find many more examples if i kept going.
maybe you're assuming any use of AI means AGI, but most people i know of in the field just say "AGI" when talking about AGI.
if you don't like how non-specific it is in definition and use, that's fine, and there's an argument to be made there, but you're stating your opinion and preference as consensus in the field that the term should just never be used.
i think your enthusiasm needs to run a little deeper before being so critical. the intense yet uninformed nature of your opinion would also explain how you find that adam has "still been more right about “AI” than anyone else recently."
what white papers am i missing that emphasise this rule so vehemently?
Yes, he probably does not have the right technical background for this, but he has a broader view of the impact of technology on society (e.g. Lex Friedman does have the technical backgound, but he never seems to challenge the process in which innovation seems to herd people into bandwagons), but the discussion is meta enough to cover common trends in tech and the hype cycle that overlay legitimate research.
It's a flawed interview (they spend too long venting about Zuckerberg) but they make some good points. My other complaint is that I would have preferred to have read about the main points in a page in 10 minutes instead of 1h, but if you're doing dishes it's enjoyable :)
You've provided no links or references to any of your rebuttal here.
oh shiiiit, didnt know about this thanks for the headup
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