Don't Be Fooled by this Summer of AI Hype(www.technologyreview.com)
34 pointsby jacquesm3 hours ago9 comments
  • quicklywilliaman hour ago
    Lots of anti-AI takes seem to fall prey to the moralistic fallacy (ie because something shouldn’t be, thinking it isn’t). I’m very skeptical of the claims AI companies make, their motives, and whether their impact will be anything positive. But I am pretty tired of takes like this that are so reflexively skeptical of anything AI that they carelessly dismiss claims about the dangers and real impacts of AI that are happening.

    (And to be clear: I’m not talking about being skeptical of fantastic claims about things that have not happened- ie an AI takeover, runaway super-intelligence, etc.)

    • autoexecan hour ago
      What kind of real evidence about the dangers of AI that are happening do you have that didn't come from an AI company, wasn't about some internal test that conveniently can't be replicated or independently verified, where nobody disabled guardrails that would be in place for typical users, or where they didn't instruct the AI to roleplay as someone doing something evil? What danger are we seeing right now in the real world that people aren't taking seriously?
      • quicklywilliaman hour ago
        The article is very dismissive of recent mathematical proofs. It mixes together ethical problems (plagiarism, "strip mining" proofs) with capability problems (proofs not being novel, overstating capabilities). Again, it's fair to be skeptical of what the companies themselves are saying (and why). But from what I've read, many mathematicians are taking AI quite seriously. I've recently read several thoughtful essays from credible folks who are calling for dramatic changes to the field in response. For example: https://www.daniellitt.com/blog/2026/9/13/a-beginning-for-ma...

        The article is also dismissive of the Hugging Face incident and other hacking incidents. This one is trickier, because we are more reliant on what the companies have released to piece together what happened. The METR report is probably the closest thing we have right now. Here again, I think the issue is that a lot of coverage blends the ethical issues (holding AI companies responsible for what their bots do) with capability issues (whether AI is or will be capable of developing novel and dangerous attacks).

      • scarmig33 minutes ago
        That's not what happened, in any of the many incidents. But even if it were, if you can make AI do dangerous things by telling it to roleplay doing dangerous things, then that... Makes the AI dangerous.
      • pizza23429 minutes ago
        The vast majority of the AI-doomerism (if one wants to call it like that) actually doesn't come from AI companies, rather, from a few (high-profile) individuals.

        (I intentionally ignore the tsunami of trash journalism and the likes)

  • nater50002 hours ago
    If you're interested in an anti-AI article which isn't just the same trite takes you've already read a million times before, just move along. Go read a HN thread about any recent AI news and you'll get the same takes.
  • square_usual2 hours ago
    Why should anyone listen to Timnit Gebru or Emily Blender after how consistently they've been wrong about everything? What insight or value do they bring to this?
    • tylerhouan hour ago
      You’re absolutely right! In 2019, Timnit and Emily published a paper criticizing LLMs because of water usage / environmental impact, deception, and propagation of bias. They were completely wrong, and thankfully none of those criticisms apply to LLMs today!
    • dgellow2 hours ago
      What have they been wrong about? What is wrong in the article?
      • bitpush2 hours ago
        I believe the objection is because they are constantly negative, even before LLMs were a fraction of its usefulness today.

        Every technology has its negative parts, but breathlessly pointing out the negatives gets really old.

        • dgellow2 hours ago
          Do you mean critical? They are expert in AI ethics, it’s pretty much their job to look for problems in the field. I’m not familiar with them but the posted article covers facts that are undeniable
  • akanet23 minutes ago
    This is such a bad article, which I suppose to be expected from Gebru/Bender. It is so strange to claim that AI capabilities are "hype" and useless, and simultaneously that we should censure these companies for the damage that rogue AIs have done.

    We can't have both! The models are both insanely powerful, AND very dangerous! Anyone who's used a frontier model for an hour should understand this.

  • andirk33 minutes ago
    The ethical angles of AI are debatable, but how a company frames their own product as so superior that it went rogue and successfully attacked all the things should be critiqued and not believed until otherwise proven.

    It's a race, and a speculative one, so flexing _constantly_ to stay seemingly ahead is expected.

    • pizza23431 minutes ago
      > so superior that it went rogue and successfully attacked all the things should be critiqued and not believed until otherwise proven.

      Your statement is very vague, but if you refer to the HuggingFace incident, a third party (METR) has been called to analyze it, and their report is public.

  • Animats2 hours ago
    If you go there, you get a popup: "Click to claim AI offer".
    • autoexecan hour ago
      Not me, but I'm using an adblocker and have JS disabled by default to avoid exactly that kind of thing. I probably miss out on a lot of ironic or inappropriate advertising like banner ads for guns on a news article about a school shooting, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.
  • dgellow2 hours ago
    One of the author has a pretty impressive Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru
  • mrobotan hour ago
    “racing straight towards self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.” sounds like a line from a bad TV show about AI written by i guess tech bros

    Are they really paying people to be fired and deliver stupid lines to justify the data center overcommitment I want a new timeline the Mayan calendar was never meant to be stretched this long past $30/plate food trucks in Haight Ashbury

  • metalmanan hour ago
    summer of ai hype, the fall of ai fear(reverse psycological antihype, hype) but the simple fact is that it is getting harder and harder to sell ANY of it, and the best thing people have found to do with all the technology, is to have sex in robotaxis, cheaper than a room,and it gets both of you together and then wherever you want to go after