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AI Becomes Silicon Valley’s Next Buzzy Bandwagon as Crypto Boom Fizzles

senttoschool 4y ago
It has always been a buzz world, since 2014 or so. But AI has real world applications, unlike the vast majority or all of crypto.
- whateveracct 4y ago
  that's hindsight. crypto had a sell when it was up and coming. and then when the rubber hit the road, all the benefits didn't hold up to scrutiny. The new AI wave isn't proven quite yet. I wonder if it will have to make a "BTC is a store of value a la gold"-esque marketing pivot too.
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    Is it hindsight? I've worked in crypto since 2016 and I knew it was all BS and all scams back then. Seven years later, it hasn't contributed anything to society except more sophisticated scams.
    - hulitu 4y ago
      > it hasn't contributed anything to society It paid journalists.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - john_the_writer 4y ago
      Yep.. only hindsight if you were walking backwards with your eye closed. I've not see one real use case. It's all just a "greater fool" exercise.
    - senttoschool 4y ago
      PS. A lot of people have been saying crypto is all scam and BS back in 2016. Probably even much earlier. It's not just me.
    - pcthrowaway 4y ago
      There are a lot of BS, scammy projects. And it sounds like you've worked for them (and apparently don't have an issue with that, or you have no other options). That doesn't mean it's all BS and scams.
      - senttoschool 4y ago
        It's all BS and scams.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - daqhris 4y ago
      If you are interested, I would be open to having a discussion with you about crypto. Show you a bit about how I've been using crypto for last couple of years. Since 2016, I am living in Belgium as a refugee (asylum seeker as they like to call us). I have had no functional bank account for the last 5 years. The first two years, I had only one option. To use a government-backed bank, called Belfius. etc... Long story short, I just wanted to put out there that crypto's usefulness can not be found unless your life depends on you finding an alternative financial and economic system not under control of a single state or government. Thinking about the opportunities that crypto unlocks.. For the next 5 years, it would be an uphill battle for me, a black man from foreign origin, to start a company in real life, under Belgian law. If I were to do it on the Ethereum blockchain, it would be a matter of days or months. Moreover, the use of crypto technology for nefarious actions says more about the human and the team conducting those kind of morally abject behaviors. Not the math.
      - freejazz 4y ago
        I think you mistake your current context with opportunity. It's absolutely true that you can do what you can now thanks to the crypto economy. That doesn't stand for the proposition that the crypto economy presents any sort of business opportunity. It actually suggests the opposite, imo. If the only opportunity in crypto is for the severely unbanked, then there isn't much opportunity in crypto.
        daqhris 4y ago
        Find me an example in the art market where a creator receives royalties without the involvement of more than one business partner. Be it a curator or dealer or PR agency or trademark office or other legal entities. With a smart contract, royalties are sent back to the creator, straight to a software wallet. That removes friction on the ladder of steps required to climb for a seller to reach a buyer. Efficiency is beloved by the real economy. Especially the media and entertainment sector. I'm not the one who decides on market moves. I'm just using open sourced tech tools to generate income. Someone else in Hollywood or Paris might use the same tools in an attempt to cut costs and reach global audiences/wallets. Let's see what the business community comes up with. The beauty of it is that the underlying technology is openly accessible and freely usable. No patent, no registration fees, no distribution rights, 24/7 reliable on-chain transaction settlement... For real life businesses in this digital age, those are pain-points that could be addressed by something like an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain. I'm talking from the viewpoint of an entrepreneur that could be running a company in the real world. By business opportunity, I understood what are the key improvements from crypto that could help start/grow a business. One last thing, Shopify.com is about to enable sellers on its platform to use crypto tools, concerning the Direct-To-Consumers type of businesses. Isn't that enough illustrations to show that there might hint of a business opportunity in the crypto economy?
  - raydiatian 4y ago
    I mean, I still haven’t heard of the core tech of crypto being invalidated in any way. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Ripple are all still genuine projects with solid principles. To me, it still looks a lot like the .com bubble era of the 00’s: there was a veritable Cambrian explosion of mutations on ideas, and now you’re left with what was fit and what wasn’t. You can’t say crypto doesn’t work when the only people who have truly “used” it in any way shape or form thus far are scam artists. Crypto may nonetheless be dead because of optics and public opinion, but that is a signal that needs another decade to measure, and meanwhile there is still genuine work being done out there. Seems silly to claim it’s dead now, when everytime popular opinion is that “we finally buried it” it pops right back out of the dirt.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - john_the_writer 4y ago
      That's just it. The only people who truly used it were scammers. There is no real world use for WEB3 or NFT. Storage is expensive and the carbon footprint is nuts. It's not faster and it's not more secure. It can be hacked and it's not decentralised (ask Canadian Truckers about how safe their bitcoin was from government intervention) People keep bringing back Amway, that doesn't mean it's not scammer rubbish.
      - neuralzen 4y ago
        I don't think there is no real world application for Web3 or NFTs, that seems pretty short sighted. Sure, there are scams, but legit innovations as well. I mean, the MoMA liquidated 70 million USD in art, including a Picasso, to buy NFTs.
        Veen 4y ago
        I'd be interested to see what the NFTs MOMA bought are worth now. The NFT market is a fraction of the size it was during the highs of 2021.
  - lytefm 4y ago
    > I wonder if it will have to make a "BTC is a store of value a la gold"-esque marketing pivot too. I think it's already happening. Fully autonomous cars or a Bing-like AI that is actually reliable are probably still decades away, if ever possible. Instead, AI related companies are already pivoting towards enabling and assisting humans for specific use cases. E.g. „We'll have LIDAR-based crash prevention and assisted driving in most new cars by 2030“ instead of „We'll have fully autonomous driving within the next years“ or „This AI based tool will reliably summarize key investor information from quarterly reports“ instead of „Ask this AI anything“.
- dagorenouf 4y ago
  People were saying the same about crypto and web3 6 months ago. Not to say you’re wrong.
  - dopidopHN 4y ago
    About real world implication ? Rather the lack of it, right ?
  - wittycardio 4y ago
    I think AI will be underwhelming but will have real applications. Crypto has always been a pure pyramid scheme
- rchaud 4y ago
  > But AI has real world applications, unlike the vast majority or all of crypto. That isn't stopping hustlers from posting a deluge of videos and Tiktoks of low-effort ChatGPT tricks to "prove" the innovation. As with crypto, those able to leverage AI into money-making (the only reason anyone is funding this), already had the ability to make large amounts of money.
LatteLazy 4y ago
Also Fusion keep popping up. In another year we will be back to Quantum Computing...
- danrocks 4y ago
  I wonder what is going to come first: fusion or Linux on the desktop. /s
meltyness 4y ago
It's butter all the way down. Also isn't wall street as far as you can get from Silicon Valley while still being in the US? Anyone calling out "clear flaws" as any serious drawback (I didn't click the link but I assume he hit the audience with the 7% drawdown narrative some nitwit at BB concocted) probably hasn't even done enough investigative journalism to, I don't know, try using the damned thing?

It has always been a buzz world, since 2014 or so. But AI has real world applications, unlike the vast majority or all of crypto.

whateveracct 4y ago
that's hindsight. crypto had a sell when it was up and coming. and then when the rubber hit the road, all the benefits didn't hold up to scrutiny. The new AI wave isn't proven quite yet. I wonder if it will have to make a "BTC is a store of value a la gold"-esque marketing pivot too.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  Is it hindsight? I've worked in crypto since 2016 and I knew it was all BS and all scams back then. Seven years later, it hasn't contributed anything to society except more sophisticated scams.
  - hulitu 4y ago
    > it hasn't contributed anything to society It paid journalists.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - john_the_writer 4y ago
    Yep.. only hindsight if you were walking backwards with your eye closed. I've not see one real use case. It's all just a "greater fool" exercise.
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    PS. A lot of people have been saying crypto is all scam and BS back in 2016. Probably even much earlier. It's not just me.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    There are a lot of BS, scammy projects. And it sounds like you've worked for them (and apparently don't have an issue with that, or you have no other options). That doesn't mean it's all BS and scams.
    - senttoschool 4y ago
      It's all BS and scams.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - daqhris 4y ago
    If you are interested, I would be open to having a discussion with you about crypto. Show you a bit about how I've been using crypto for last couple of years. Since 2016, I am living in Belgium as a refugee (asylum seeker as they like to call us). I have had no functional bank account for the last 5 years. The first two years, I had only one option. To use a government-backed bank, called Belfius. etc... Long story short, I just wanted to put out there that crypto's usefulness can not be found unless your life depends on you finding an alternative financial and economic system not under control of a single state or government. Thinking about the opportunities that crypto unlocks.. For the next 5 years, it would be an uphill battle for me, a black man from foreign origin, to start a company in real life, under Belgian law. If I were to do it on the Ethereum blockchain, it would be a matter of days or months. Moreover, the use of crypto technology for nefarious actions says more about the human and the team conducting those kind of morally abject behaviors. Not the math.
    - freejazz 4y ago
      I think you mistake your current context with opportunity. It's absolutely true that you can do what you can now thanks to the crypto economy. That doesn't stand for the proposition that the crypto economy presents any sort of business opportunity. It actually suggests the opposite, imo. If the only opportunity in crypto is for the severely unbanked, then there isn't much opportunity in crypto.
      - daqhris 4y ago
        Find me an example in the art market where a creator receives royalties without the involvement of more than one business partner. Be it a curator or dealer or PR agency or trademark office or other legal entities. With a smart contract, royalties are sent back to the creator, straight to a software wallet. That removes friction on the ladder of steps required to climb for a seller to reach a buyer. Efficiency is beloved by the real economy. Especially the media and entertainment sector. I'm not the one who decides on market moves. I'm just using open sourced tech tools to generate income. Someone else in Hollywood or Paris might use the same tools in an attempt to cut costs and reach global audiences/wallets. Let's see what the business community comes up with. The beauty of it is that the underlying technology is openly accessible and freely usable. No patent, no registration fees, no distribution rights, 24/7 reliable on-chain transaction settlement... For real life businesses in this digital age, those are pain-points that could be addressed by something like an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain. I'm talking from the viewpoint of an entrepreneur that could be running a company in the real world. By business opportunity, I understood what are the key improvements from crypto that could help start/grow a business. One last thing, Shopify.com is about to enable sellers on its platform to use crypto tools, concerning the Direct-To-Consumers type of businesses. Isn't that enough illustrations to show that there might hint of a business opportunity in the crypto economy?
- raydiatian 4y ago
  I mean, I still haven’t heard of the core tech of crypto being invalidated in any way. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Ripple are all still genuine projects with solid principles. To me, it still looks a lot like the .com bubble era of the 00’s: there was a veritable Cambrian explosion of mutations on ideas, and now you’re left with what was fit and what wasn’t. You can’t say crypto doesn’t work when the only people who have truly “used” it in any way shape or form thus far are scam artists. Crypto may nonetheless be dead because of optics and public opinion, but that is a signal that needs another decade to measure, and meanwhile there is still genuine work being done out there. Seems silly to claim it’s dead now, when everytime popular opinion is that “we finally buried it” it pops right back out of the dirt.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - john_the_writer 4y ago
    That's just it. The only people who truly used it were scammers. There is no real world use for WEB3 or NFT. Storage is expensive and the carbon footprint is nuts. It's not faster and it's not more secure. It can be hacked and it's not decentralised (ask Canadian Truckers about how safe their bitcoin was from government intervention) People keep bringing back Amway, that doesn't mean it's not scammer rubbish.
    - neuralzen 4y ago
      I don't think there is no real world application for Web3 or NFTs, that seems pretty short sighted. Sure, there are scams, but legit innovations as well. I mean, the MoMA liquidated 70 million USD in art, including a Picasso, to buy NFTs.
      - Veen 4y ago
        I'd be interested to see what the NFTs MOMA bought are worth now. The NFT market is a fraction of the size it was during the highs of 2021.
- lytefm 4y ago
  > I wonder if it will have to make a "BTC is a store of value a la gold"-esque marketing pivot too. I think it's already happening. Fully autonomous cars or a Bing-like AI that is actually reliable are probably still decades away, if ever possible. Instead, AI related companies are already pivoting towards enabling and assisting humans for specific use cases. E.g. „We'll have LIDAR-based crash prevention and assisted driving in most new cars by 2030“ instead of „We'll have fully autonomous driving within the next years“ or „This AI based tool will reliably summarize key investor information from quarterly reports“ instead of „Ask this AI anything“.
dagorenouf 4y ago
People were saying the same about crypto and web3 6 months ago. Not to say you’re wrong.
- dopidopHN 4y ago
  About real world implication ? Rather the lack of it, right ?
- wittycardio 4y ago
  I think AI will be underwhelming but will have real applications. Crypto has always been a pure pyramid scheme
rchaud 4y ago
> But AI has real world applications, unlike the vast majority or all of crypto. That isn't stopping hustlers from posting a deluge of videos and Tiktoks of low-effort ChatGPT tricks to "prove" the innovation. As with crypto, those able to leverage AI into money-making (the only reason anyone is funding this), already had the ability to make large amounts of money.

LatteLazy 4y ago

Also Fusion keep popping up. In another year we will be back to Quantum Computing...

danrocks 4y ago
I wonder what is going to come first: fusion or Linux on the desktop. /s

meltyness 4y ago

It's butter all the way down. Also isn't wall street as far as you can get from Silicon Valley while still being in the US? Anyone calling out "clear flaws" as any serious drawback (I didn't click the link but I assume he hit the audience with the 7% drawdown narrative some nitwit at BB concocted) probably hasn't even done enough investigative journalism to, I don't know, try using the damned thing?