Corporations Are Not Your Friends - Blog Posts

I'm in tech and I agree that there are some things that LLMs can do better (and certainly faster) than I can.

1. Provide workable solutions to well-described (but fairly straightforward) problems. For example "using jq (a json query language tool) take two json files and combine them in this manner...."

2. Identify and fix format issues: "what changes are required to make this string valid json?"

3. Doing boring chores. "Using this sample data, suggest a well normalised database structure. Write a script that creates a Postgres database, and creates the tables decided above. Write a second script that accepts json objects that look like EXAMPLE and adds them into the database."

However, while there is a risk my employer will decide that LLMs can reduce the workforce significantly, 99% of what I do can't be done by LLMs yet and I can't see how that would change.

LLMs have the ability to draw on the expertise and documentation created by millions of people. They can synthesise that knowledge to provide answers to fairly casually askef questions. But they have no *understanding* of the content they're synthesising, which is why they can't give correct answers to questions like "what is 2+2?" or "how many times does the letter r appear in strawberry?" Those questions require *understanding* of the premise of the question. "Infer, based on hundreds of millions of pages of documentation and examples, how to use this tool to do that thing" is a much easier ask.

The other thing about having no understanding is that they can't create anything truly new. They can create new art in the style of the grand masters, compose music, write stories... But only in a derivative sense. LLMs possess no mind, so they can't *imagine* anything. Users who use LLMs to realise their own art are missing out on the value of learning how to create their art themselves. Just as I am missing out on the value of learning how to use the tool jq to manipulate json files which would enable me to answer my own question.

LLMs have such a large environmental footprint, that they're morally dubious at best. It should be alarming that LLM proponents are telling us to just use these tools without worrying about the environment, because we aren't doing enough to fix climate change anyway. "Leave solving the future to LLMs?!" LLMs aren't going to solve climate change, they're incapable of *understanding* and *innovating*. We already know how to save ourselves from climate change, but the wealthy and powerful don't want to because it would require them to be less rich and powerful.

The trillion dollar problem is literally "how do we change our current society such that leadership requires the ability to lead, a commitment to listen to experts and does not result in the leader getting buckets of money from bribes and lobbying?" preferably without destroying the supply chain and killing hundreds of thousands.

so like I said, I work in the tech industry, and it's been kind of fascinating watching whole new taboos develop at work around this genAI stuff. All we do is talk about genAI, everything is genAI now, "we have to win the AI race," blah blah blah, but nobody asks - you can't ask -

What's it for?

What's it for?

Why would anyone want this?

I sit in so many meetings and listen to genuinely very intelligent people talk until steam is rising off their skulls about genAI, and wonder how fast I'd get fired if I asked: do real people actually want this product, or are the only people excited about this technology the shareholders who want to see lines go up?

like you realize this is a bubble, right, guys? because nobody actually needs this? because it's not actually very good? normal people are excited by the novelty of it, and finance bro capitalists are wetting their shorts about it because they want to get rich quick off of the Next Big Thing In Tech, but the novelty will wear off and the bros will move on to something else and we'll just be left with billions and billions of dollars invested in technology that nobody wants.

and I don't say it, because I need my job. And I wonder how many other people sitting at the same table, in the same meeting, are also not saying it, because they need their jobs.

idk man it's just become a really weird environment.

'Boeing’s aircraft is considered the most prominent private aircraft in the world, used by governments and dignitaries.'

Going after Boeing (which they should) would probably be considered political suicide, because of how hard untangling the US government from Boeing would be.

First sentence borrowed from https://monarchairgroup.com/private-jet-manufacturers/