I very much agree with this and the rest of the piece: "Looking at LLM usage and promotion as a cultural phenomenon, it has all of the markings of a status game. The material gains from the LLM (which are usually quite marginal) really aren't why people are doing it: they're doing it because in many spaces, using ChatGPT and being very optimistic about AI being the "future" raises their social status. It's important not only to be using it, but to be seen using it and be seen supporting it and telling people who don't use it that they're stupid luddites who'll inevitably be left behind by technology. [...] [T]he only reason that LLMs took root in the first place was because our societies in the anglosphere have already developed cultures solely devoted to gaining status and keeping up the appearance of doing things rather than actually doing them." https://lnkd.in/dut2bq_z
Dave Lewis
6mo
100% agree. One of the things that's wild about the current AI moment is that we get two diametrically opposing messages. First, generative AI is about to cause massive unemployment right before it gains sentience and wipes out humanity. Second, that any failings in generative AI results are because you didn't have the skill and intelligence to follow the poster's 47 key strategies for crafting exactly the right prompt.
David Hsing
6mo
Culture of Stupidity
Joey DeFrancesco
5mo
Hype pretty much drives the entire world now unfortunately.. Attention is the new currency.
Steve Chandler
6mo
It's the narcissism economy.
I've written about this phenomenon before, but I don't think it's so much about status as it is performance. I can't see it having much of a life as a status symbol, if anything the use of LLMs will likely reduce over time precisely because there is a status to doing things "manually". https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wm-scates_what-if-most-of-the-tasks-that-ai-automates-activity-7311636233422610432-uUH2?utm_source=social_share_send&utm_medium=android_app&rcm=ACoAACxdN8ABifEFHJpf1dr9nnU-OxBcI5desME&utm_campaign=copy_link
Hristo Georgiev
6mo
I see this LLM fashionable obsession as part of human evolution. Those who know history, will know that advanced civilizations were conquered by barbarians.
Jacob Sanders
6mo
that last line.....woof!
Noah Gift
6mo
I prefer skeptics personally, and recursive skepticism, even being skeptical of what you are skeptical.
Very good take!