I think we need to distinguish among kinds of AGI, as the term has become overloaded and redefined over time. I'd argue we need to retire the term and use more appropriate terminology to distinguish between economic automation and human-like synthetic minds. I wrote a post about this here:
https://syntheticminds.substack.com/p/retiring-agi-two-paths...
Readit Newschriskanan commented on AGI is not imminent, and LLMs are not the royal road to getting there garymarcus.substack.com/p... · Posted by u/FromTheArchives
chriskanan commented on Megafauna was the meat of choice for South American hunters arstechnica.com/science/2... · Posted by u/rbanffy
I wonder if the extinction of most megafauna happening just before the advent of agriculture and the first civilizations is not just coincidence but direct causation. We spent ~200kyr with a lot of "easy" calories roaming around. So no need for complex societies. Once we caused our first "end of the world" overhunting with stone age technology, and they were gone, the only remaining alternative for the survivors was meager small game that had to be complemented with backbreaking work in the fields trying to raise more plant food. Thus agriculture got popular. With it the need for record keeping and sedentary lifestyle. Only then civilization could be kickstarted.
See this study, which is consistent with your thesis: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/814485
Essentially, it claims that modern humans and our ancestors starting with Homo habilis were primarily carnivores for 2 million years. We moved back to an omnivorous diet starting around 85,000 years ago after killing off the megafauna, is the hypothesis.
chriskanan commented on The Universe Within 12.5 Light Years atlasoftheuniverse.com/12... · Posted by u/algorithmista
A Type II supernova within 26 light-years of Earth is estimated to destroy more than half of the Earth's ozone layer. Some have argued that supernovas within 250-100 light-years can have a significant impact on Earth's environment, increase cancer rates, and kill a lot of plankton. They can potentially cause ice ages and extinctions. Within 25 light-years, we are within a supernova's "kill range." Fortunately, nothing should go supernova close to us for a long time.
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova
Kurzgesagt video on the impact on Earth of supernovas at varying distances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4DF3j4saCE
That's the practical reason for why one might care. Keep in mind that the solar system is rotating around the galaxy, so over time different stars become closer or farther away.
As the Kurzesagt video points out, a supernova within 100 light-years would make space travel very difficult for humans and machines due to the immense amount of radiation for many years.
Still, I think the primary value is in expanding our understanding of science and the nature of the universe and our location within it.
chriskanan commented on The Universe Within 12.5 Light Years atlasoftheuniverse.com/12... · Posted by u/algorithmista
I always wondered why do we care about stuff outside of Solar system. Apart from the "wow" factor, what else are the real uses for info? I think anything beyond solar system is unlikely to have an impact on the life on the Earth.
A Type II supernova within 26 light-years of Earth is estimated to destroy more than half of the Earth's ozone layer. Some have argued that supernovas within 250-100 light-years can have a significant impact on Earth's environment, increase cancer rates, and kill a lot of plankton. They can potentially cause ice ages and extinctions. Within 25 light-years, we are within a supernova's "kill range." Fortunately, nothing should go supernova close to us for a long time.
Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova
Kurzgesagt video on the impact on Earth of supernovas at varying distances: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4DF3j4saCE
chriskanan commented on The AI vibe shift is upon us cnn.com/2025/08/22/busine... · Posted by u/lelele
> Researchers at MIT published a report showing that 95% of the generative AI programs launched by companies failed to do the main thing they were intended for
I think everyone had a gut feel for something along those lines, but those numbers are even starker than I would've imagined. Granted, many (most?) people trying to vibe code full apps don't know much about building software, so they're bound to struggle to get it to do what they want. But this quote is about companies and code they've actually put into production. Don't get me wrong, I've vibe coded a bunch of utilities that I now use daily, but 95% is way higher than I would've expected.
Read the paper. The media is not providing a lot of missing context. The paper points out problems like leadership failures for those efforts, lack of employee buy-in (potentially because they use their personal LLM), etc.
A huge fraction of people at my work use LLMs, but only a small fraction use the LLM they provided. Almost everyone is using a personal license
chriskanan commented on The US Department of Agriculture Bans Support for Renewables insideclimatenews.org/new... · Posted by u/mooreds
This is so shortsighted. The US needs a huge increase in its electricity generation capabilities, and nowadays, rewnewables, especially solar, are the cheapest option.
This video from a few days ago analyzes the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tNp2vsxEzk
Regardless of climate change issues, the anti-renewable policy doesn't seem to make any sense from an economic, growth, or national security standpoint. It even is contrary to the anti-regulation and pro-capitalism _stated_ stance of the administration.
chriskanan commented on 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend thedailyadda.com/95-of-co... · Posted by u/speckx
Here is the report: https://mlq.ai/media/quarterly_decks/v0.1_State_of_AI_in_Bus...
The story there is very different than what's in the article.
Some infos:
- 50% of the budgets (the one that fails) went to marketing and sales
- the authors still see that AI would offer automation equaling $2.3 trillion in labor value affecting 39 million positions
- top barriers for failure is Unwillingness to adopt new tools, Lack of executive sponsorship
Lots of people here are jumping to conclusions. AI does not work. I don't think that's what the report says.
That's my assessment of the report as well.... really, some news truly is "fake" where they are pushing a narrative that they think will drive clicks and eyeballs, and the media is severely misrepresenting what is in this report.
The failure is not AI, but that a lot of existing employees are not adopting the tools or at least not adopting the tools provided by their company. The "Shadow AI economy" they discuss is a real issue: People are just using their personal subscriptions to LLMs rather than internal company offerings. My university made an enterprise version of ChatGPT available to all students, faculty, and staff so that it can be used with data that should not be used with cloud-based LLMs, but it lacks a lot of features and has many limitations compared to, for example, GPT-5. So, adoption and retention of users of that system is relatively low, which is almost surely due to its limitations compared to cloud-based options. Most use-cases don't necessarily involve data that would be illegal to use with a cloud-based system.
chriskanan commented on 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend thedailyadda.com/95-of-co... · Posted by u/speckx
Where is the actual paper that makes these claims? I'm seeing this story repeated all over today, but the link doesn't actually seem to go to the study.
I am not going to trust it without actually going over the paper.
Even then, if it isn't peer-reviewed and properly vetted, I still wouldn't necessarily trust it. The MIT study on AI's impact on scientific discovery that made a big splash a year ago was fraudulent even though it was peer reviewed (so I'd really like to know about the veracity of the data): https://www.ndtv.com/science/mit-retracts-popular-study-clai...
chriskanan commented on 95% of Companies See 'Zero Return' on $30B Generative AI Spend thedailyadda.com/95-of-co... · Posted by u/speckx
We are entering the “Trough of disillusionment.” These hype cycles are very predictable. GPT-5 being panned as a disappointment after endless hype may go down as GenAI’s “jump the shark” moment.
It’s all fun and games until the bean counters start asking for evidence of return on investment. GenAI folks better buckle up. Bumps ahead. The smart folks are already quietly preparing for a shift to ride the next hype wave up while others ride this train to the trough’s bottom.
Cue a bunch of increasingly desperate puff PR trying to show this stuff returns value.
Sam Altman way oversold GPT-5's capabilities, in that it doesn't feel like a big leap in capability from a user's perspective; however, the a idea of a trainable dynamic router enabling them to run inference using a lot less compute (in aggregate) to me seems like a major win. Just not necessarily a win for the user (a win for the electric grid and making OpenAI's models more cost competitive).