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I've also been around a while and I agree completely, but I think articles such as this amount to more uncritical skepticism than substance. The cat fairy was

I've also been around a while and I agree completely, but I think articles such as this amount to more uncritical skepticism than substance. The cat fairy was a cherry picked example. Back in the early days of the internet I dealt a lot in retail. Adults would come in and say things like "What would I ever do with the internet?". Today feels a lot like those early days. Make of it what you will.

rchaud 3y ago
> Adults would come in and say things like "What would I ever do with the internet?". Today feels a lot like those early days. Make of it what you will. That makes perfect sense, as online shopping wasn't what sold consumers on the Internet. It was email. Online shopping came years later and early Amazon wasn't much more than an electronic mail-order catalog. You wouldn't be able to sell Internet to somebody on the promise 'A lot of cool stuff is coming down the pipeline soon'. Same thing with consumer AI currently. Lots of potential, no killer app.
- potatolicious 3y ago
  Also importantly, there are no points for predicting a broad field, only points for being correct on specific things. There were a zillion "virtual mall" products in the early days of the internet. Exactly zero of them convinced anyone to buy stuff online. Amazon ended up cracking the formula and made billions doing it. The investors in the virtual malls lost their money. And people on the sidelines who predicted that we would all shop online are IMO only correct in the most meaningless and facile sense, because they had no specific predictions of what would work and what wouldn't, just a vague gesture at a futuristic buzzword. It's easy to wave generally in the direction of an abstract concept and say "that's a big deal", literally anyone can do it (and did! with crypto!), but it's specific predictions and hypotheses that separate those who know WTF they're talking about from LinkedIn thought-leadership pablum. Likewise "AI is a big deal" in and of itself is not an astute statement or meaningful prediction. What about it? What specifically can be leveraged from this technology that would appeal to users? What specific problems can you solve? What properties of this technology are most useful and what roadblocks remain in the way of mass success? pg coined the "middlebrow dismissal", I'd like to suggest a corollary: the middlebrow hype. All hot air without enough specificity to be worth anything. "The information superhighway will be huge!" is the 90s equivalent of "AI is the future". Ok. How?
bunderbunder 3y ago
Back in the early days of the internet the market was flooded with ill-conceived Web-powered products. We don't remember any of them because they didn't last, but in the late 90s they were EVERYWHERE. Similarly... it's not that I don't think machine learning is useful. I wouldn't have built my career on it if I didn't. But it is no more immune to Sturgeon's Law than the Information Superhighway was.
itronitron 3y ago
>> The cat fairy was a cherry picked example. Every example of AI is a cherry picked example.

rchaud 3y ago

> Adults would come in and say things like "What would I ever do with the internet?". Today feels a lot like those early days. Make of it what you will. That makes perfect sense, as online shopping wasn't what sold consumers on the Internet. It was email. Online shopping came years later and early Amazon wasn't much more than an electronic mail-order catalog. You wouldn't be able to sell Internet to somebody on the promise 'A lot of cool stuff is coming down the pipeline soon'. Same thing with consumer AI currently. Lots of potential, no killer app.

potatolicious 3y ago
Also importantly, there are no points for predicting a broad field, only points for being correct on specific things. There were a zillion "virtual mall" products in the early days of the internet. Exactly zero of them convinced anyone to buy stuff online. Amazon ended up cracking the formula and made billions doing it. The investors in the virtual malls lost their money. And people on the sidelines who predicted that we would all shop online are IMO only correct in the most meaningless and facile sense, because they had no specific predictions of what would work and what wouldn't, just a vague gesture at a futuristic buzzword. It's easy to wave generally in the direction of an abstract concept and say "that's a big deal", literally anyone can do it (and did! with crypto!), but it's specific predictions and hypotheses that separate those who know WTF they're talking about from LinkedIn thought-leadership pablum. Likewise "AI is a big deal" in and of itself is not an astute statement or meaningful prediction. What about it? What specifically can be leveraged from this technology that would appeal to users? What specific problems can you solve? What properties of this technology are most useful and what roadblocks remain in the way of mass success? pg coined the "middlebrow dismissal", I'd like to suggest a corollary: the middlebrow hype. All hot air without enough specificity to be worth anything. "The information superhighway will be huge!" is the 90s equivalent of "AI is the future". Ok. How?

bunderbunder 3y ago

Back in the early days of the internet the market was flooded with ill-conceived Web-powered products. We don't remember any of them because they didn't last, but in the late 90s they were EVERYWHERE. Similarly... it's not that I don't think machine learning is useful. I wouldn't have built my career on it if I didn't. But it is no more immune to Sturgeon's Law than the Information Superhighway was.

itronitron 3y ago

>> The cat fairy was a cherry picked example. Every example of AI is a cherry picked example.