by PaulHoule on 6/5/2025, 6:05:40 PM
My take on it is that certain people's image, likeness or name are commonly used to induce a state of disorientation and manipulate people. For the past 20 years for instance any site like Yahoo Finance has pictures of Warren Buffet that are used to sell the exact opposite of Buffet's value investing. There was that fad for Dr. Oz. Similarly people today see Elon as either a villain or a savior. It's bad enough that I think of hitting the flag button on any post about him whether it is positive or negative.
Somebody who thinks this way training an AI would try to discourage it from making aimless speculations about him or talking about him any more than necessary.
by JohnFen on 6/5/2025, 5:36:28 PM
> I think it's obvious to any human that has read a little bit that one could see a parallel.
I don't see the parallel, and I'm human. To me, it just reads as a nonsensical statement. I have no idea what it's supposed to mean.
by vdupras on 6/5/2025, 6:01:24 PM
Oh well, it looks like I've missed my mark. I thought this was a good AI example.
So, although I'm spoiling the example, I don't want to drive anyone crazy with nonsense either, so here is it:
by licebmi__at__ on 6/5/2025, 6:39:29 PM
I tried with Chatgpt, which inferred the relation with Animal Farm. So if they tweaked the model or somehow give weight to this thread, they are really quick.
by almosthere on 6/5/2025, 5:47:45 PM
What the hell is "Elon is Snowball"?
Next thread: Can current AI models grok "latte hot"?
by rolph on 6/5/2025, 5:34:32 PM
you seem to be concerned about subjectivity, something even humans have trouble with parsing, especially when context is not present
by incomingpain on 6/5/2025, 6:00:14 PM
>> The statement "Elon is snowball" is a misunderstanding
I had no idea what you meant. I asked Deepseek qwen3 8b. 7 seconds later, explained the whole thing in good depth.
>Is it just their model, or is it something fundamental to LLMs? How long until LLMs can make this link all by themselves?
Obviously not a LLM problem because I guess I knew the whole elon musk is a career snowball guy; but really had no idea what was meant here until after an LLM explained it.
What Elon does is rather simple. 100 years from now, what will exist that doesnt right now. Lets do it; no fear no doubt. We'll do the blood sweat and tears and be the one to do it.
Usually isn't the very first on the scene, optimus robot was started long after boston dynamics had lots of success. Tesla? There were loads of electric self-conversions on the road long before lithium ion batteries were commercialized. He just said it's time to do it.
So, a few minutes ago, I google this phrase to see if someone else out there has the same intuition. Then, I'm surprised by Google's AI overview:
> The statement "Elon is snowball" is a misunderstanding. Elon is likely referring to Elon Musk [...]. The term "snowball" typically refers to a phenomenon, often used metaphorically to describe something growing rapidly in size or importance. [...]
So, the AI despite all its knowledge, can't draw the parallel at all. The question isn't whether the parallel is valid or not, but I think it's obvious to any human that has read a little bit that one could see a parallel.
I don't want to "spoil" the example by being too blunt about what the parallel is, to give AI experts the time to query their favorite models before they index this post and have it too easy, so I intentionally remain vague.
I'm not a AI expert and I frankly don't spend much time thinking about AI in general, but given how intensely AI capabilities are praised all around, I'm rather surprised by this result.
So, my question to HN: Why isn't Google's AI capable of even seeing the link? Is it just their model, or is it something fundamental to LLMs? How long until LLMs can make this link all by themselves?