4mitkumar

I believe there is a bit of hype on both sides, with the labs operating from the mindset of "never let a good crisis go waste".

It is a crisis and the risk of A(G)I is real. But almost all this while in the history of automation, we have blamed implementation of automation when things go wrong. Instead of attributing morality, intent and so many other things that we do with LLMs.

Without having to go in to the philosophical validity of these concepts applied to AI, I feel it's much more useful to focus on the implementation of automation here as well - what risks were opened, how was the env hardened, what was the observability like - how was it being observed anyway, and more.

Done poorly, that can be catastrophic enough. But that sounds mundane. And does not help the hype.

This led me on a 1.5 hours long, entertaining chat session with Gemini learning about stuff in Physics - hopefully without much hallucinations. But definitely with a lot of typical - "You have arrived at a great insight.." like egging on by the AI :D

But learned a bunch about bosons, fermions, QCD, gluons, Kugelblitz, composite bosons and finally Noether’s Theorem on symmetry. Was a wild ride

This is very interesting because I have been thinking vaguely about a somewhat "opposite" effect. In the sense, talking to LLMs kills my enthusiasm for an idea with other people.

Sometimes, I' get excited by an idea, may be even write a bit about it. Then turn to LLMs to explore it a bit more. An hour later, I feel drained. Like I have explored it from so many angles and nuance that it starts to feel tiresome.

And within that span of couple of hours, the idea goes from "Aha! Let's talk to others about it!" to "Meh.."

EDIT: I do agree with this framing from the article though: "Once an idea is written down, it becomes easier to work with..... This is not new. Writing has always done this for me."

Probably those SAP, Salesforce ServiceNow folks come somewhat closer?

Like the author says - fleet-tracking system, a bus-ticketing platform or IoT platform share some basically similar requirements. And this is what those SAP types offer - standardised templated versions of workflows.

But slowly, as they get more and more standardised, they start feeling like calcified systems that the end users start hating. Because they are now forced to work as per the templates.

And then the need for customization. And move beyond IKEA-like standardization.

But I see the allure of the idea.

I found just now that my telecom operator - Airtel - randomly subscribed me for OTT services and charged me for it. But upon calling them and contesting, they just asked if I want to unsubscribe and then reverted the charges. No threats, pleading, or back-and-forth involved from either side. Mildly surreal.

I wonder that's a new corporate strategy - charge randomly till someone goes through the pain of IVR and spends 15 mins with support. Must generate quite an upside for them if it is indeed a strategy.

There's also some more light CBT-inspired stuff: like reminders when you're stuck, off-screen break suggestions (I consider breaks essential to long term momentum), and automatic summaries showing how far you've come when you feel like you've been just stuck in the weeds (I frequently judge myself a bit too harshly till I see the numbers and am sometime pleasantly surprised)

I made this primarily for myself – I'm someone who gets stuck between "I should be productive" and "I literally cannot decide what to do right now." The pattern I noticed: starting anything small breaks the spell, then I can think about actual goals.

The (optional) AI suggestions are deliberately constrained to be actionable (15-60 minutes tasks that ladder up to your goal) rather than generic productivity advice.

Would love to hear if this resonates with anyone else, or if you have thoughts on the approach.