Chat gpt wasn't considered a toy... Not sure where you got that. We were interested in what openai was going from very early given the founders' history.

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MontyCarloHall 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

It absolutely was considered a toy by most people when it debuted in late 2022. This was the era when memes abounded about how ChatGPT would dutifully answer the query "what's the world record for crossing the English Channel on foot?" [0] or "what weighs more, a pound of feathers or a kilogram of bricks?" [1]

Most people didn't start taking ChatGPT/gen-AI seriously until mid-2023, when GPT-4 became widely used.

[0] https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/format:webp/1*yJs...

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fpl09fAakAE1cFW?format=jpg&name=...

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runarberg 6 days ago | parent [-]

You can see for your self how seriously HN users took ChatGPT in late 2022 https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1672444800&dateRange=custom&...

Some of the highlights include:

* Building a Virtual Machine Inside ChatGPT https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33847479 (Dec 3, 2022; 2029 points; 919 comments)

* Disputing a Parking Fine with ChatGPT https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33937753 (Dec 10, 2022; 606 points; 348 comments)

* ChatGPT passes the 2022 AP Computer Science A free response section https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33858844 (420 points; Dec 4, 2022; 455 comments)

* ChatGPT is a ‘code red’ for Google’s search business https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34086462 (396 points; Dec 23, 2022; 636 comments)

* Build your front end in React, then let ChatGPT be your Redux reducer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34166193 (395 points; Dec 28, 2022; 142 comments)

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leoedin 6 days ago | parent [-]

Hacker News is not most people. Even today most non-tech people I speak to have barely touched AI. Perhaps a bit of gimmicky “ooh that’s cool” image generation or chatGPT, but nothing serious.

	▲	torginus 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Warren Buffet is also not most people, yet people like him have far more to do with what actually happens on the stock market than the tens millions of retail investors.
	▲	raincole 6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		...so? It seems that you forgot what this thread is about.

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tick_tock_tick 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean very good job staying on-top of new tech but you're not actually trying to imply your not the anomaly in that regard right?

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lovich 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

He was certainly on top of new technology movement but signs were there the whole time.

I wasn’t aware of ChatGPT in 2022 but I was aware that we could not keep data scientists hired long term because several faangs like meta were just dropping 100% increases in salary as the opener to our people for some mega project related to machine learning based on the skill set of the people being hired

	▲	deelowe 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Correct. We didn't know chatgpt would be huge but we knew big data and ai were the next big thing and we're investing heavily in that space. The funding for this came from sre teams, pms, etc.

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bongodongobob 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Not for people paying attention to the entire AI space. GPT wasn't the only thing going on at the time. AlphaGo was a big deal for anyone paying attention.