It's important to point out flawed arguments when we see them. It's our duty as educated citizens. Here's one such:
Even if you accept that LLMs are a necessary, but ultimately disappointing, step on the way to a much more useful technology like AGI there's still a very good argument to be made that we should stop investing in it now.
... human overlords ... will have absolutely no problem condemning billions to untold suffering and death if it means they can make a few more dollars. We need to figure our shit out as a species before we birth that kind of technology or else we're all going to suffer immensely.
This was my first pass response:
People said the same things about computers in the 1940s and 1950s. Thomas Watson said there was only a market for five computers in the world. Same thing with cars. The New York Times in 1902 called them “useless luxuries” compared to horses. When trains first appeared in the 1800s, doctors warned they could cause brain damage if people moved faster than 30 miles per hour. Electricity was called too dangerous for homes, and even Thomas Edison argued against alternating current saying it would kill people. The internet was called a passing fad in the 1990s by Clifford Stoll.
Every time, the critics were wrong. The same pattern shows up again and again. A new technology looks expensive, dangerous, or pointless until it becomes part of everyday life. LLMs fit that same story.
