alt Hacker News> The comparison suggests that the thing doesn't do what it's marketed to do
In my opinion you should interpret the usage of "AI" here to mean "the entire business/management/financial/bubble ecosystem surrounding LLMs". The snake oil is much more how LLMs are being weaponized and utilized rather than a specific technical assessment (although that often is an issue too)
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I think then the AI-hype should be disregarded as snake-oil, not the tech itself. I know it sounds pretentious, but I need to say that words do matter.
My prediction is that it will go the same way as the dot com bubble. The hypesters and fraudsters will eventually collide with objective reality, but the technology will persist and society at large will benefit from the infrastructure and the increased access to knowledge.
The same thing happened around PCs, gaming, the Internet, the web, and cryptocurrency. It's a hit driven industry that loves hype.
> The snake oil is much more how LLMs are being weaponized and utilized
Calling something "snake oil" implies that the product only, at best, has a placebo effect (amplified, no doubt, by the sales presentation). LLMs seem to be much more useful than a placebo.