> The top comment is indeed baseless hype without a hint of skepticism.

and he wonders why people call him a shill

accepting everything some shit company tells you as gospel is not the default position of a "researcher"

he better hope he's on the right side of history here, as otherwise he will have burnt his reputation

I certainly don’t think Simon is a shill. He’s obviously a highly talented person, who in my opinion just doesn’t exercise appropriate discernment in some cases.

Edit: Of course, this isn’t a trait unique to Simon either. Everybody has blind spots, and it’s reasonable to be excited when new tech is released. On an unrelated note, my intent is to push back against some of the people here who try to shut down skepticism. Obviously, this doesn’t describe Simon, but I’ve seen others here who try to silence skeptical voices. This comes across as highly controlling and insecure.

See comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46646777#46650837

I do not think you are reacting to what I said in good faith.

> he better hope he's on the right side of history here, as otherwise he will have burnt his reputation

That's something I've actually given quite a lot of thought to. My reputation and credibility matters a great deal to me. If it turns out this entire LLM thing was an over-hyped scam I'll take a very big hit to that reputation, and I'll deserve it.

(If AI rises up and tries to kill or enslave us all I'll be too busy fighting back to care.)