> As someone who desperately needs this technology to work out, I can honestly say it is the most essential tool ever created in all of human history.

For those having trouble finding the humor, it lies in the vast gulf between grand assertions that LLMs will fundamentally transform every aspect of human life, and plaintive requests to stop saying mean things about it.

As a contrast: truly successful products obviate complaints. Success speaks for itself. In TV, software, e-commerce, statins, ED pills, modern smartphones, social media, etc… winning products went into the black quickly and made their companies shitloads of money (profits). No need to adjust vibes, they could just flip everyone the bird from atop their mountains of cash. (Which can also be pretty funny.)

There are mountains of cash in LLMs today too, but so far they’re mostly on the investment side of the ledger. And industry-wide nervousness about that is pretty easy to discern. Like the loud guy with a nervous smile and a drop of sweat on his brow.

https://youtu.be/wni4_n-Cmj4

So much of the current discourse around AI is the tech-builders begging the rest of the world to find a commercially valuable application. Like the AgentForce commercials that have to stoop to showing Matthew McConaughey suffering the stupidest problems imaginable. Or the OpenAI CFO saying maybe they’ll make money by taking a cut of valuable things their customers come up with. “Maybe someone else will change the world with this, if you’ll all just chill out” is a funny thing to say repeatedly while also asking for $billions and regulatory forbearance.

> As a contrast: truly successful products obviate complaints. Success speaks for itself.

Makes me consider: Dotcom domains, Bitcoin, Blockchain, NFTs, the metaverse, generative AI…

Varying degrees of utility. But the common thread is people absolutely begging you to buy in, preying on FOMO.

Or maybe McSweeney’s hasn’t been consistently funny for years and years?