Ignore the “AI Guy”

Remember how self-driving cars were "imminent" (even in 2018) to the point that some companies (starts with a T, doesn't end with witter) were effectively selling it for a pretty steep premium to users? However there were ppl even back then saying it won't happen overnight and it will be really really hard.. if my memory serves me well they were mostly ignored or actively ridiculed.

Well, true self-driving is still isn't here as it turned out to be waaaaay harder than ppl (i.e. the optimistic experts working on it) ever thought. That is not to say progress in this space isn't amazing and ongoing. And it's not to say true self driving will never arrive.

Nonetheless.. Do you see any resemblance with today's generative AI craze? People pivoting their careers to become professional doom sayers envisioning mass unemployment and civilisational collapse (even extinction)? Ppl becoming AI experts and "AI guys" to tell us about this brave new world we are all about to face where Everything will be different. And they really mean Everything!!! With a capital E! Are you scared already?

While some genuine experts in this field think that LLMs are THE thing that will take us to AGI plenty of them think they are just stochastic parrots. Ppl in the latter camp don't make it to mainstream news and don't shout as loud as the doomsayers but they are there (as they were 5 or so years ago with self driving) and they might be right again..

Generally speaking, if you see a product or marketing person (or basically anyone without a PhD in ML) change roles to become an "AI guru" tweeting and posting every single day about the latest GPT tools and how you'll be replaced by a bot in a year, then maybe just ignore them..

Who knows.. Maybe displacing billions of workers will end up being pretty hard and it will take some time..