Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   BrianKrebs (briankrebs@infosec.exchange)'s status on Friday, 06-Jun-2025 23:41:02 JST BrianKrebs

   Really enjoyed David Gerard's amusing take on how programming with AI becomes like a gambling addiction for many.

   "Large language models work the same way as a carnival psychic. Chatbots look smart by the Barnum Effect — which is where you read what’s actually a generic statement about people and you take it as being personally about you. The only intelligence there is yours."

   "With ChatGPT, Sam Altman hit upon a way to use the Hook Model with a text generator. The unreliability and hallucinations themselves are the hook — the intermittent reward, to keep the user running prompts and hoping they’ll get a win this time."

   "This is why you see previously normal techies start evangelising AI coding on LinkedIn or Hacker News like they saw a glimpse of God and they’ll keep paying for the chatbot tokens until they can just see a glimpse of Him again. And you have to as well. This is why they act like they joined a cult. Send ’em a copy of this post."

   https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/generative-ai-runs-on-gambling-addiction-just-one-more-prompt-bro/

   • prettygood likes this.
   • Kim Scheinberg repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 06:32:00 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Kim Scheinberg

     @briankrebs @kims

     More good thoughts along these lines:
     https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/

   • Embed this notice
     alcinnz (alcinnz@floss.social)'s status on Saturday, 07-Jun-2025 12:03:53 JST alcinnz

     in reply to

     @briankrebs s/AI/cocaine/ is hilarious!

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.