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AlphaFold is real.

To the extent you care about chess and Go as human activities, progress there is real.

there are some other scientific computing problems where AI or neural-network-based methods do appear to be at least part of the actual state-of-the-art (weather forecasting, certain single-molecule quantum chemistry simulations).

i would like the hype of the kind described in the article to be punctured, but this is hard to do if critics make strong absolute claims ("aren't useful in any field whatsoever") which are easily disproven. it hurts credibility.



I've never seen an AI critic say AI isn't "useful in any field whatsoever". Especially one that is known as an expert in and a critic of the field. There may be names that aren't coming to mind because that stance would reduce their specific credibility. Do you have some in mind?


the post that I replied to?


The post you replied to was asking for examples based on the general critical discussions they have seen.

And no offense to the GP, but they clearly aren't an expert in the field or they wouldn't be asking.

Probably should have replied directly to the post you replied to as much as yours. Was just pointing out that "not useful in any field whatsoever" is not something I've seen from anyone in the field. Even the article doesn't say that.


Even more relvant, AlphaEvolve is real.

Could easily be brick 1 of self-improvement and the start of the banana zone.


> "the start of the banana zone"

What does this mean? Is it some slang for exponential growth, or is it a reference to something like the "paperclip maximizer"?


It's slang for the J part of the exponential curve. Didn't expect that to be a problem here, sorry.


There is a bunch of new phrases people have been using around AI topics, so it can be hard to tell what exactly is being talked about, like "Roko's Basilisk", the "lottery card hypothesis?"(not quite remembering the phrasing on this one), "the bitter lesson", "paperclip maximizing", "stochastic parrot", etc.. Thank you for clarifying. I was kind of hoping there was a fun blog or story with a "banana zone".


I’m with gthompson512

Sounds like a routine Bill Hicks might have come up with if he was still with us.

He hated obfuscation.




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