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Growth of AI Through a Cloud Lens

58 points by ingve 4y ago

lampshades 4y ago
Everyone loves the chance to take a shot at blockchain, but it keeps growing. It must be providing someone value, even if it’s not you.
- asadlionpk 4y ago
  Scams have such traits.
- dang 4y ago
  "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- atleastoptimal 4y ago
  Even the ideal world where blockchain is maximally implemented is only marginally better than our current world.
- flangola7 4y ago
  In blunt words I do not understand what value it provides. I have used it, I have even written my own (toy, definitely not security hardened) wallet and PoW miner for fun. The foundational technology itself was creative, Satoshi made something no one had ever made before. But I have never seen a problem it solves that traditional solutions don't already solve in a better and less expensive manner. Blockchain's primary advertised use is cryptocurrency, but every crypto is too unstable to actually be used as a USD replacement. In the real world it behaves like a stock, but unlike regular stocks it is zero sum. For every person that made money on crypto other people had to lose money; there's no fundamentals that actually produce a product or service and adds wealth to the world. If anything it is net negative to global wealth by enabling a previously impossible levels of fraud, and of tax and sanctions dodging. There are non-currency applications such as smart contracts, but these don't demand the same attention as "currency" uses, and again don't solve anything that regular contracts don't already provide. Again, these come with downsides not possible in regular contracts such as software bugs that enable funds to be remotely stolen (with no recourse), or for funds to simply vanish and become permanently locked in an inaccessible state. Other than semi-anonymously buying bulk acid (one of the few legitimate usecases), what usecase is it actually objectively a superior tool for?
marcopicentini 4y ago
My doubts is: AI will just be a feature to implement into existing product or can exist as based product for hundreds new startup? Since most models are open source anyone can train it and make everything available as API (eg open AI)
- lumost 4y ago
  Alternate hypothesis: AI is more general purpose than existing software. GPT4 is capable of developing and executing plans in multiple domains. GPT-5 will undoubtedly improve upon this. Why would we need an AI for X tool? Why not just pay for an AI tool? Perhaps the AI tool needs some integrations to work well, but when the ai can build arbitrary programs to achieve its goal… durable value of tools becomes dubious. My suspicion is that many startups are trying to surf a wave of rising AI capability. Many will be swamped by the AI simply getting better and eliminating their differentiators. See GPT-4/Plug-ins… whatever is next.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Why would we need an AI for X tool? Because (1) GPT-4 is giant and resource intensive, and (2) has several areas where it is not particularly strong without additional, external tools. Focussed AI in particular domains can be stronger and lighter in the domain. Also, because even where GPT-4 or its successor is the ultimate backend model, actual AI tools are more than the backend model, and the specialization of that piece for the target domain can make a big difference.
    - lumost 4y ago
      possible, but as a counter point - why do I care that GPT-4 is resource intensive if it solves all of my tasks? GPUs are getting faster by the year. General purpose quantization methods and other acceleration techniques are likewise accelerating inference at ratios of 4-8x per year. External tools are great - but why would we expect the outcome not to be GPT-5 uses all external tools? unless you are building a mote that you must use your LLM to work with the tool, in which case - why not just charge GPT-5 customers through the plugin marketplace?

58 points by ingve 4y ago

Everyone loves the chance to take a shot at blockchain, but it keeps growing. It must be providing someone value, even if it’s not you.

asadlionpk 4y ago
Scams have such traits.
dang 4y ago
"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
atleastoptimal 4y ago
Even the ideal world where blockchain is maximally implemented is only marginally better than our current world.
flangola7 4y ago
In blunt words I do not understand what value it provides. I have used it, I have even written my own (toy, definitely not security hardened) wallet and PoW miner for fun. The foundational technology itself was creative, Satoshi made something no one had ever made before. But I have never seen a problem it solves that traditional solutions don't already solve in a better and less expensive manner. Blockchain's primary advertised use is cryptocurrency, but every crypto is too unstable to actually be used as a USD replacement. In the real world it behaves like a stock, but unlike regular stocks it is zero sum. For every person that made money on crypto other people had to lose money; there's no fundamentals that actually produce a product or service and adds wealth to the world. If anything it is net negative to global wealth by enabling a previously impossible levels of fraud, and of tax and sanctions dodging. There are non-currency applications such as smart contracts, but these don't demand the same attention as "currency" uses, and again don't solve anything that regular contracts don't already provide. Again, these come with downsides not possible in regular contracts such as software bugs that enable funds to be remotely stolen (with no recourse), or for funds to simply vanish and become permanently locked in an inaccessible state. Other than semi-anonymously buying bulk acid (one of the few legitimate usecases), what usecase is it actually objectively a superior tool for?

marcopicentini 4y ago

My doubts is: AI will just be a feature to implement into existing product or can exist as based product for hundreds new startup? Since most models are open source anyone can train it and make everything available as API (eg open AI)

lumost 4y ago
Alternate hypothesis: AI is more general purpose than existing software. GPT4 is capable of developing and executing plans in multiple domains. GPT-5 will undoubtedly improve upon this. Why would we need an AI for X tool? Why not just pay for an AI tool? Perhaps the AI tool needs some integrations to work well, but when the ai can build arbitrary programs to achieve its goal… durable value of tools becomes dubious. My suspicion is that many startups are trying to surf a wave of rising AI capability. Many will be swamped by the AI simply getting better and eliminating their differentiators. See GPT-4/Plug-ins… whatever is next.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > Why would we need an AI for X tool? Because (1) GPT-4 is giant and resource intensive, and (2) has several areas where it is not particularly strong without additional, external tools. Focussed AI in particular domains can be stronger and lighter in the domain. Also, because even where GPT-4 or its successor is the ultimate backend model, actual AI tools are more than the backend model, and the specialization of that piece for the target domain can make a big difference.
  - lumost 4y ago
    possible, but as a counter point - why do I care that GPT-4 is resource intensive if it solves all of my tasks? GPUs are getting faster by the year. General purpose quantization methods and other acceleration techniques are likewise accelerating inference at ratios of 4-8x per year. External tools are great - but why would we expect the outcome not to be GPT-5 uses all external tools? unless you are building a mote that you must use your LLM to work with the tool, in which case - why not just charge GPT-5 customers through the plugin marketplace?