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The simplest contrast is ChatGPT vs VR right now. OpenAI is up to over a billion of users and hundreds of millions of subscribers in <6 months, from a huge cros

The simplest contrast is ChatGPT vs VR right now. OpenAI is up to over a billion of users and hundreds of millions of subscribers in <6 months, from a huge cross-section of markets. VR has a few million users at most after ~10 years, and almost all of them are gamers. There is no demand for VR outside gaming. Efforts to try and create that demand are failing.

dr_dshiv 3y ago
And peak VR gaming circa 2023 seems to be Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber. Not saying those are bad games, but…
- brookst 3y ago
  Sure, to the extent peak non-VR gaming is candy crush. Most gaming will be casual, in VR just like non-VR. But there are much better and deeper games in both cases.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Alright lets put it this way: For fiveish years now, there have been basically copies of CS:GO and CoD in VR, games that get up to millions of daily users, and the VR versions of those games get like, hundreds of players, if that. VR just isn't that wanted by average people. "Immersion" just isn't a magic panacea that older execs seem to think it is, and being in a "virtual world" while you play most games don't make them better games! Oddly enough, most people don't play videogames to emulate real activities, but rather to play games, with their own made up rules and concepts. FIFA on the Xbox is nothing like actual soccer, but the players prefer it like that, and a FIFA that requires you to kick the ball with your real foot and costs hundreds of dollars is NOT better as a game, or more fun to most people, than "flat" FIFA. We literally already went over this with the Wii; shoehorning in "realism" into games that don't benefit from it just makes shitty games.
    - brookst 3y ago
      I don’t disagree with anything you said, but I believe you’re reasoning in circles between “immersion hasn’t been better enough to merit interest” and “immersion can never be good enough to merit interest”
darkwizard42 3y ago
Any new sources on the billion users of OpenAI? I know they hit 100 million users pretty quickly, but has any new data come out on subscribers and MAU of free users?
- nologic01 3y ago
  Maybe Meta is using it and thus implicitly its billions of active daily users?
- nwienert 3y ago
  It’s completely made up and untrue. Think about it, a billion users is 1/7 of all people on earth. If you assume that number has to be at least 3x in the US (extremely conservative, given we’re incredibly rich and at least 100x more exposed to it in media than most of the world), you’d have to expect that basically 40% of people you know are actively using it. Impossible. My extended circle which leans tech overall is maybe 4%. And many just tried it and aren’t really actively using it. They’re counting numbers very funny.
  - siva7 3y ago
    1B is a reasonable number as it is imaginable that 1 in 7 people on earth tried to use GPT (through ChatGPT or Bing) at some time over the past 6 months. It is undoubtly the fastest growing commercial product in history.
    - nwienert 3y ago
      Not a chance, these numbers are so heavily quadruple counted and biased, and even if they try it once it’s not an active user. Again if you think it’s that common you live in a bubble. Half the population is above 45, and it’s not above 2% for that cohort they barely hear about it on the news and have no idea how to even sign up for it.
      - marcus_holmes 3y ago
        I witnessed a middle-aged mum walking a pram talking to her son or husband about GPT. Haven't had that kind of moment since 1995 and the rapid uptake of email. Having seen this before, I don't think the numbers are incredible. Everyone I know has signed up for an OpenAI account, and probably 25% are paying for one. Granted I'm in the HN bubble, but this is so 1995.
rajman187 3y ago
You’re comparing a service accessible through any device with a physical product, not very apt I’d say
- 2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
  The first iPhone was released June 2007. The iPhone X was released by 2017. By then smart phones were ubiquitous. And it only took 4? Maybe 5 years? We’re still looking for a good use case for VR … and it’s not Second Life: Facebook Edition, or games (yet).
  - PretzelPirate 3y ago
    > The first iPhone was released June 2007 And the first mobile phone was sold to the public in 1949. It took time to catch on. People needed it to be convenient and accessible. VR/AR is neither convenient nor accessible today. You can use your iPhone camera for an AR experience, but your hands are occupied holding the phone so you can't do much at all when using it.
    - coffeebeqn 3y ago
      Even if AR through a phone is a bit clunky you’d think people would use it if it was so great. I’ve never heard any real consumer talk about AR outside of the short obsession with Pokemon Go. The whole meta verse thing seems like it was 100% hype building by people with money invested in it and none of the platforms had any users.
- marcus_holmes 3y ago
  hmmm, not quite. To get an email address you need a computer. We went from 1% of the population having email addresses in 1994 to a decent 25%+ of the population in 1998 (or around then). All of them had to buy a computer to access that email. If VR was so compelling, people would buy the headset to get the experience. It's not so they don't.
nologic01 3y ago
> ~10 years Actually its more like 30 years. People get too focused on devices and the recent storyline around Google/Oculus/Meta/Apple etc. Any and all devices are and will always be WIP, they get refined once there is strong demand in the direction of that demand. The concept and experierence of immersive / interactive computing is much older and we should not ignore the lessons it may try to teach us. What we have here is a new round of device refinement in anticipation of strong demand for an alternative computer interface that did not materialize in several decades - even though it could have. It may be that VR is an exception. Some people are arguing that there is some sort of threshold that needs to be reached. Its possible. But this is not the usual pattern. People are extremely adept and keen at glossing over grave limitations and filling in the blanks if a technology helps them achieve something relevant to them.
cracrecry 3y ago
Excuse me, but how much time people have been developing the technology that powers ChatGPT. How much time and money has Google spent to create Transformers? How much time has been spent developing neural networks or CUDA devices. How much money has ChatGPT invested? Billions. GPT1 is from 2018, but neural networks have more than 70 years now. VR have more than 30 years since the early prototypes.
- brookst 3y ago
  I bought a commercial VR product in 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFX1_Headgear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFX1_Headgear
moonchrome 3y ago
> There is no demand for VR outside gaming If I could replace my monitor with a portable device that would grant me huge virtual desktop space I would pay 3500$ Right now I'm waiting to see the feedback and for the early adopter issues to get ironed out. But I'd say this demand is far greater than gaming. Being able to work from any rental where I can plop a keyboard and laptop without having to deal with bad desk height and non adjustable chair/lack of monitors is huge - it would literally mean I could work from anywhere. Right now I can't - and I've tried many times. Experience is terrible and after a few days of bad desk/chair combo, even lugging a small 24inch monitor in the car, I get insane cramps/headaches from neck strain or back pain from bad posture. If VR can solve this I know a lot of people would buy into that.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >If I could replace my monitor with a portable device that would grant me huge virtual desktop space I would pay 3500$ People keep parroting this line, but have you ever actually tried this? There's way more to discomfort in VR than just pixel density.
  - moonchrome 3y ago
    Last time I tried was early oculus days and it wasn't even close. But it's been like 7 years at this point ? If Apple has decided to launch it I would assume they worked out the kinks. I'm not buying it until I see enough evidence it's usable (doubt I'll get to try it for 8 hours without buying one).
    - marcus_holmes 3y ago
      I loved the idea of Oculus Vim But the practicality of not being able to see the people around me gave me the screaming heeby-jeebies. I just wasn't comfortable not knowing who was near me. I will happily have 3 monitors in realspace just so I can turn my head to see who's near me.
sumedh 3y ago
> There is no demand for VR outside gaming. How big was the demand for the first mobile phone?
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  The pitch was very common sense - you can make calls without being tethered to your home/office physical phone line. They were just too big, expensive and low coverage in the beginning for most people.
  - sbuk 3y ago
    That sounds familliar...
spacebanana7 3y ago
For most of the past two decades Chatbots were pushed by enterprises and hated by consumers. ChatGPT was the first chatbot to cross the magic threshold, after which point consumers enthusiastically adopted it.
andsoitis 3y ago
I don't know that comparing ChatGPT (a particular instance of a branch of AI) to the entire category of VR (not a particular instance of a branch of VR) makes too much sense. AI has been around since the 50s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intelligence#The_birth_of_artificial_intelligence_1952–1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intellig... VR has been around since roughly a decade later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History
- cloverich 3y ago
  The apt part of the comparison is, since the 50s the use cases for AI has been obvious and clamored for, and is sufficiently revolutionary its difficult to even imagine all of the use cases, but very easy to imagine some. Its much closer to electricity -- it will likely change just about everything about how we go through life. And most people are keenly aware of that. ... AR / VR may have the same promise. But the implementation is sufficiently far away, that most people look at it and think "Wow, really cool toy. I don't have a use for it right now", and walk away. They'll be back if / when that tipping point arrives, but unlike ChatGPT, its not here, not yet.

dr_dshiv 3y ago

And peak VR gaming circa 2023 seems to be Gorilla Tag and Beat Saber. Not saying those are bad games, but…

brookst 3y ago
Sure, to the extent peak non-VR gaming is candy crush. Most gaming will be casual, in VR just like non-VR. But there are much better and deeper games in both cases.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Alright lets put it this way: For fiveish years now, there have been basically copies of CS:GO and CoD in VR, games that get up to millions of daily users, and the VR versions of those games get like, hundreds of players, if that. VR just isn't that wanted by average people. "Immersion" just isn't a magic panacea that older execs seem to think it is, and being in a "virtual world" while you play most games don't make them better games! Oddly enough, most people don't play videogames to emulate real activities, but rather to play games, with their own made up rules and concepts. FIFA on the Xbox is nothing like actual soccer, but the players prefer it like that, and a FIFA that requires you to kick the ball with your real foot and costs hundreds of dollars is NOT better as a game, or more fun to most people, than "flat" FIFA. We literally already went over this with the Wii; shoehorning in "realism" into games that don't benefit from it just makes shitty games.
  - brookst 3y ago
    I don’t disagree with anything you said, but I believe you’re reasoning in circles between “immersion hasn’t been better enough to merit interest” and “immersion can never be good enough to merit interest”

darkwizard42 3y ago

Any new sources on the billion users of OpenAI? I know they hit 100 million users pretty quickly, but has any new data come out on subscribers and MAU of free users?

nologic01 3y ago
Maybe Meta is using it and thus implicitly its billions of active daily users?
nwienert 3y ago
It’s completely made up and untrue. Think about it, a billion users is 1/7 of all people on earth. If you assume that number has to be at least 3x in the US (extremely conservative, given we’re incredibly rich and at least 100x more exposed to it in media than most of the world), you’d have to expect that basically 40% of people you know are actively using it. Impossible. My extended circle which leans tech overall is maybe 4%. And many just tried it and aren’t really actively using it. They’re counting numbers very funny.
- siva7 3y ago
  1B is a reasonable number as it is imaginable that 1 in 7 people on earth tried to use GPT (through ChatGPT or Bing) at some time over the past 6 months. It is undoubtly the fastest growing commercial product in history.
  - nwienert 3y ago
    Not a chance, these numbers are so heavily quadruple counted and biased, and even if they try it once it’s not an active user. Again if you think it’s that common you live in a bubble. Half the population is above 45, and it’s not above 2% for that cohort they barely hear about it on the news and have no idea how to even sign up for it.
    - marcus_holmes 3y ago
      I witnessed a middle-aged mum walking a pram talking to her son or husband about GPT. Haven't had that kind of moment since 1995 and the rapid uptake of email. Having seen this before, I don't think the numbers are incredible. Everyone I know has signed up for an OpenAI account, and probably 25% are paying for one. Granted I'm in the HN bubble, but this is so 1995.

rajman187 3y ago

You’re comparing a service accessible through any device with a physical product, not very apt I’d say

2muchcoffeeman 3y ago
The first iPhone was released June 2007. The iPhone X was released by 2017. By then smart phones were ubiquitous. And it only took 4? Maybe 5 years? We’re still looking for a good use case for VR … and it’s not Second Life: Facebook Edition, or games (yet).
- PretzelPirate 3y ago
  > The first iPhone was released June 2007 And the first mobile phone was sold to the public in 1949. It took time to catch on. People needed it to be convenient and accessible. VR/AR is neither convenient nor accessible today. You can use your iPhone camera for an AR experience, but your hands are occupied holding the phone so you can't do much at all when using it.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    Even if AR through a phone is a bit clunky you’d think people would use it if it was so great. I’ve never heard any real consumer talk about AR outside of the short obsession with Pokemon Go. The whole meta verse thing seems like it was 100% hype building by people with money invested in it and none of the platforms had any users.
marcus_holmes 3y ago
hmmm, not quite. To get an email address you need a computer. We went from 1% of the population having email addresses in 1994 to a decent 25%+ of the population in 1998 (or around then). All of them had to buy a computer to access that email. If VR was so compelling, people would buy the headset to get the experience. It's not so they don't.

nologic01 3y ago

> ~10 years Actually its more like 30 years. People get too focused on devices and the recent storyline around Google/Oculus/Meta/Apple etc. Any and all devices are and will always be WIP, they get refined once there is strong demand in the direction of that demand. The concept and experierence of immersive / interactive computing is much older and we should not ignore the lessons it may try to teach us. What we have here is a new round of device refinement in anticipation of strong demand for an alternative computer interface that did not materialize in several decades - even though it could have. It may be that VR is an exception. Some people are arguing that there is some sort of threshold that needs to be reached. Its possible. But this is not the usual pattern. People are extremely adept and keen at glossing over grave limitations and filling in the blanks if a technology helps them achieve something relevant to them.

cracrecry 3y ago

Excuse me, but how much time people have been developing the technology that powers ChatGPT. How much time and money has Google spent to create Transformers? How much time has been spent developing neural networks or CUDA devices. How much money has ChatGPT invested? Billions. GPT1 is from 2018, but neural networks have more than 70 years now. VR have more than 30 years since the early prototypes.

brookst 3y ago
I bought a commercial VR product in 1995: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFX1_Headgear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFX1_Headgear

moonchrome 3y ago

> There is no demand for VR outside gaming If I could replace my monitor with a portable device that would grant me huge virtual desktop space I would pay 3500$ Right now I'm waiting to see the feedback and for the early adopter issues to get ironed out. But I'd say this demand is far greater than gaming. Being able to work from any rental where I can plop a keyboard and laptop without having to deal with bad desk height and non adjustable chair/lack of monitors is huge - it would literally mean I could work from anywhere. Right now I can't - and I've tried many times. Experience is terrible and after a few days of bad desk/chair combo, even lugging a small 24inch monitor in the car, I get insane cramps/headaches from neck strain or back pain from bad posture. If VR can solve this I know a lot of people would buy into that.

mrguyorama 3y ago
>If I could replace my monitor with a portable device that would grant me huge virtual desktop space I would pay 3500$ People keep parroting this line, but have you ever actually tried this? There's way more to discomfort in VR than just pixel density.
- moonchrome 3y ago
  Last time I tried was early oculus days and it wasn't even close. But it's been like 7 years at this point ? If Apple has decided to launch it I would assume they worked out the kinks. I'm not buying it until I see enough evidence it's usable (doubt I'll get to try it for 8 hours without buying one).
  - marcus_holmes 3y ago
    I loved the idea of Oculus Vim But the practicality of not being able to see the people around me gave me the screaming heeby-jeebies. I just wasn't comfortable not knowing who was near me. I will happily have 3 monitors in realspace just so I can turn my head to see who's near me.

sumedh 3y ago

> There is no demand for VR outside gaming. How big was the demand for the first mobile phone?

coffeebeqn 3y ago
The pitch was very common sense - you can make calls without being tethered to your home/office physical phone line. They were just too big, expensive and low coverage in the beginning for most people.
- sbuk 3y ago
  That sounds familliar...

spacebanana7 3y ago

For most of the past two decades Chatbots were pushed by enterprises and hated by consumers. ChatGPT was the first chatbot to cross the magic threshold, after which point consumers enthusiastically adopted it.

andsoitis 3y ago

I don't know that comparing ChatGPT (a particular instance of a branch of AI) to the entire category of VR (not a particular instance of a branch of VR) makes too much sense. AI has been around since the 50s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intelligence#The_birth_of_artificial_intelligence_1952–1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_artificial_intellig... VR has been around since roughly a decade later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality#History

cloverich 3y ago
The apt part of the comparison is, since the 50s the use cases for AI has been obvious and clamored for, and is sufficiently revolutionary its difficult to even imagine all of the use cases, but very easy to imagine some. Its much closer to electricity -- it will likely change just about everything about how we go through life. And most people are keenly aware of that. ... AR / VR may have the same promise. But the implementation is sufficiently far away, that most people look at it and think "Wow, really cool toy. I don't have a use for it right now", and walk away. They'll be back if / when that tipping point arrives, but unlike ChatGPT, its not here, not yet.