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But isnt the whole startup model is throwing the garbage at the wall and seeing what sticks? It's about quick testing. Even the word venture in venture capital

But isnt the whole startup model is throwing the garbage at the wall and seeing what sticks? It's about quick testing. Even the word venture in venture capital is fitting? I don't see any other way that it can work tbh. Do you?

skepticATX 3y ago
Sure, but it's not just startups. How many Fortune 500 companies have started mentioning AI on earnings calls because it's what Wall Street wants to hear? How many companies are having internal "AI" hackathons that put the solution over the problem? (Am I the only one who has had to suffer through this?)
- pharmakom 3y ago
  Optimising for dumb money trading on earnings call transcripts.
Ensorceled 3y ago
I think there is a difference between "do people want a different kind of search engine" and "I'll wrap some marketing fluff around a prompt box like 500,000 other startups"
- sharemywin 3y ago
  I don't think that's fair because people have to start somewhere. To me a couple of useful features and all the sudden something becomes a useful niche product. Another AI writer probably not so great, let it integrate to wordpress or some other CMS maybe people will pay for it. There's probably alot of niches around some set of integrations and user interaction that save a lot of copy and pasting.
bunderbunder 3y ago
Yeah, there's no problem with that. I mean, being able to throw a bunch of garbage at the wall to see what sticks is arguably the reason why capitalism tends to economically outperform feudal and planned economies. But that creates a sort of "caveat emptor" situation. A lot of everyday consumers benefit from being constantly reminded that this is how things work, because humans are very susceptible to some bad heuristics. A very, very common line of reasoning that one sees in discussions about tech, even on HN, is effectively, "A is a piece of garbage that someone threw at the wall, and it stuck. B is also a piece of garbage. Therefore, when we throw B at the wall it will stick."
- Tainnor 3y ago
  I don't think that capitalism inherently implies "throw a bunch of garbage around". It's true that it may not be a priori possible to decide which way is the best - that's why competition is important - but that doesn't mean that everyone should purposefully run into a garbage direction just because of garbage trends and because the same few investors are funding all big companies. It effectively turns the problem of finding good solutions to whatever problem (and often there's not even a problem that anyone can point to) into a brute-force search. I don't think that's efficient.
  - bunderbunder 3y ago
    I didn't really imply any sort of teleological character to what I was saying. I do think that there's a tendency for this kind of thing to happen at a much larger scale in capitalist economies, but I don't think that's intentional. It's just an inevitable consequence of actual humans operating in such a system. That also doesn't mean that any one person consciously believes what they're doing is garbage - I'm sure they're all confident in their idea. But it's really, really difficult for me to perceive a practical distinction between millions of people all operating under widely varying and often mutually contradictory beliefs, and simple randomness. Maybe that's my statistical training affecting how I view the world, though.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    > I don't think that's efficient. Uh oh, sounds like someone wants a command economy! No, honestly that's exactly what you're saying "You shouldn't do X because I don't think it will have a potential payoff". Now in some particular cases where there are particular social or environmental harms we may pass laws to limit said behavior. After that point businesses and individuals have the right to waste money on whatever they like. Note, this is why it's also important to have government funded research on things that may not be profitable. While industry is screwing around trying to squeeze and extra penny out of a dime, research projects, while risky can find hidden quarters.
    - Tainnor 3y ago

skepticATX 3y ago

Sure, but it's not just startups. How many Fortune 500 companies have started mentioning AI on earnings calls because it's what Wall Street wants to hear? How many companies are having internal "AI" hackathons that put the solution over the problem? (Am I the only one who has had to suffer through this?)

pharmakom 3y ago
Optimising for dumb money trading on earnings call transcripts.

Ensorceled 3y ago

I think there is a difference between "do people want a different kind of search engine" and "I'll wrap some marketing fluff around a prompt box like 500,000 other startups"

sharemywin 3y ago
I don't think that's fair because people have to start somewhere. To me a couple of useful features and all the sudden something becomes a useful niche product. Another AI writer probably not so great, let it integrate to wordpress or some other CMS maybe people will pay for it. There's probably alot of niches around some set of integrations and user interaction that save a lot of copy and pasting.

bunderbunder 3y ago

Yeah, there's no problem with that. I mean, being able to throw a bunch of garbage at the wall to see what sticks is arguably the reason why capitalism tends to economically outperform feudal and planned economies. But that creates a sort of "caveat emptor" situation. A lot of everyday consumers benefit from being constantly reminded that this is how things work, because humans are very susceptible to some bad heuristics. A very, very common line of reasoning that one sees in discussions about tech, even on HN, is effectively, "A is a piece of garbage that someone threw at the wall, and it stuck. B is also a piece of garbage. Therefore, when we throw B at the wall it will stick."

Tainnor 3y ago
I don't think that capitalism inherently implies "throw a bunch of garbage around". It's true that it may not be a priori possible to decide which way is the best - that's why competition is important - but that doesn't mean that everyone should purposefully run into a garbage direction just because of garbage trends and because the same few investors are funding all big companies. It effectively turns the problem of finding good solutions to whatever problem (and often there's not even a problem that anyone can point to) into a brute-force search. I don't think that's efficient.
- bunderbunder 3y ago
  I didn't really imply any sort of teleological character to what I was saying. I do think that there's a tendency for this kind of thing to happen at a much larger scale in capitalist economies, but I don't think that's intentional. It's just an inevitable consequence of actual humans operating in such a system. That also doesn't mean that any one person consciously believes what they're doing is garbage - I'm sure they're all confident in their idea. But it's really, really difficult for me to perceive a practical distinction between millions of people all operating under widely varying and often mutually contradictory beliefs, and simple randomness. Maybe that's my statistical training affecting how I view the world, though.
- pixl97 3y ago
  > I don't think that's efficient. Uh oh, sounds like someone wants a command economy! No, honestly that's exactly what you're saying "You shouldn't do X because I don't think it will have a potential payoff". Now in some particular cases where there are particular social or environmental harms we may pass laws to limit said behavior. After that point businesses and individuals have the right to waste money on whatever they like. Note, this is why it's also important to have government funded research on things that may not be profitable. While industry is screwing around trying to squeeze and extra penny out of a dime, research projects, while risky can find hidden quarters.
  - Tainnor 3y ago