5 ms·

The next AI winter is going to be savage, especially with the backdrop of normal (i.e. non-ZIRP) interest rates. Possibly AI might be seen as the 'hubris most

The next AI winter is going to be savage, especially with the backdrop of normal (i.e. non-ZIRP) interest rates. Possibly AI might be seen as the 'hubris most high' of the current tech bubble, with a correspondingly deep societal 'come down'. The painstaking, boring, and lucrative work of 'wiring the world' will continue of course, but perhaps with less fanfare.

cyanydeez 3y ago
it's going to be used for all the wrong industries it's already been tried. hiring process, referral to criminal sentencing, spam... and it'll be global. the bias will be baked in
freetonik 3y ago
I always wondered if those software-based technological bubbles (and I’m not necessarily agreeing that LLM-based AI is one of them) are doing so much harm to the overall progress of software, that we need at some point to explicitly identify it as a risk to the whole industry and the professional community. Imagining the possible negative effects of any sort of bubble burst in the area of AI while also understanding the true potential of the underlying technology is a painful realisation. “We could’ve done so much”-kinda feeling. Maybe I’m just too pessimistic.
- wddkcs 3y ago
  Preventing these bubbles assumes a level of foresight that doesn't seem feasible- besides a general limitor on any and all potential advancements, there is no possible way to know which technologies wil substantively deliver against their promises.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    The software doesn't cause bubbles, the "eat the world" model causes bubbles. When everyone is trying to capture the entire pie, it creates this constant, industry-wide FOMO. Like when Spotify decided that podcasts were going to be big, Amazon felt like they couldn't miss out on it. So Spotify signed Rogan, Amazon signed My Favorite Murder, etc. And they bid up the price on each other and now Spotify is in hot water because the economics don't make sense at the ridiculous valuations they FOMO'd themselves into. I don't pretend to know what a solution would be, but it's not like we have to choose between bubbles and innovative companies; bubbles are about how things are financed, and not about the things themselves. The horticulture industry is doing fine and controlled environment agriculture continues to innovate, without bidding up the price of tulips to something insane. I know it's hard to imagine (and I don't mean to be patronizing, I have trouble imagining it), but we could have a software industry that wasn't predicated on selling dollars for dimes until you've developed a monopoly and can charge high rents.
    - wddkcs 3y ago
      Can we really? Where's an exostant model for it?
      - maxbond 3y ago
        Virtually any other business model. You make something people want to pay for, and then you charge a price that compensates you for your costs plus a margin determined by your negotiating power. This doesn't produce eye popping returns, but it does produce financially sustainable companies. Operating at a huge loss for a very long time in the hopes of capturing the entirety of a market is not the norm overall. I know it can feel that way from inside our industry, but that's our cultural biases showing. I'd like to stress that that's an observation and not a criticism, and that I don't mean bias in the pejorative sense.
  - zcw100 3y ago
    That reminds me to go back and watch some old episodes of Connections by James Burke. He does a great job of showing the unpredictable and non-linear path of progress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Slomotonoto 3y ago
Why? Ai already makes money. My company is paying for GitHub copilot. I'm paying for chatgpt. I'm seeing more and more news article with images generated from ai. The demos for integration I have seen, work. Every company which is right now learning how to leverage ai will be able to pivot and already have necessary things in place like a company, people, base infrastructure. And the research is still super hot.
- somewhereoutth 3y ago
  I think the issue is that, per the article, even if it works it might only provide marginal value. So copilot may indeed be useful to you/your company, but perhaps, once all the bean counting has been worked out, not useful enough to justify the stratospheric valuations.
  - chii 3y ago
    > not useful enough to justify the stratospheric valuations. but why is that a concern for anyone else but the shareholders?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - meheleventyone 3y ago
      Enshittification as a result, cost increases and so on.
- krater23 3y ago
  The question is, how much do you pay and how much do you spare with it? Your company pays for GitHub Copilot, ok, but how many programmers are fired after they pay for it? Or does it have a meassurable effect at all? If not, this is a nice toy that will be removed soon. The news articles have generated images because they are cheaper than buying some stock photos. But stock fotos are still cheap.
  - 3y ago
atleastoptimal 3y ago
You really think there's gonna be an AI winter? Is that based on the assumption that LLM's will plateau? Do you believe AGI is never coming, at least in the next 10-20 years? I think your view represents something I see a lot on this site. A bearish cynicism at AI progess, an assumption that it's all just a hype cycle, comparing it to crypto and NFT's and a confident assurance of the momentum of the status quo which will return when the "hype" dissipates. What specific capabilities of LLM's and AI models would convince you that this is a sea change beyond the normal hype and boom bust cycles of the tech world?
- paganel 3y ago
  The exact same discourse was being said by blockchain (so, no NFTs) people around 8-10 years ago. We were also just 5 years away from getting autonomous vehicles around 2016-2017, we haven’t.
  - atleastoptimal 3y ago
    We have autonomous vehicles right now in San Francisco. I understand the blockchain-AI comparisons, but there are a few significant differences: 1. AI has proven to be much more useful in the real world 2. There are more highly respected experts anticipating transformative impacts of AI in comparison to blockchain 3. AI has a much lower scam/real product ratio than blockchain
  - lelanthran 3y ago
    2012. We were sold the 5 year story in 2012 first.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      In 2009, I thought (and told my friends that I thought) they were 10 years away.
  - two_in_one 3y ago
    The difference is LLMs are here to stay. They are already very useful and efficient. There is no turn around. Even if current state is the dead end of their evolution. Which it isn't, of course. The future.. there are so many ideas in the air right now that we can expect significant progress in next months and years. There will be fluctuations with bubbles and bursts, but that's how economics works. I expect slow approximation to AGI with increasing capabilities different products will claim to be it. First generations will be just very capable lifeless calculators. Subhuman in general with some superhuman abilities, like LLMs are today. When they will be able to improve themself, so called singularity? We are getting closer. Likely those will be still calculators which can be turned on/off at any moment.
tomjen3 3y ago
AI is here, now, and OpenAI is so saturated they had to cancel new customers. While the hype is real, so are the benefits. This feels more like the Internet in 1998 - there is a bubble forming and it may burst, but it is not like we got back to the Way Things Were after. Some sectors like (physical) mail continued their decline and others (like Google) continued to grow. The reason the previous AI winters were winters were that the AI didn't bring any benefits.

cyanydeez 3y ago

it's going to be used for all the wrong industries it's already been tried. hiring process, referral to criminal sentencing, spam... and it'll be global. the bias will be baked in

freetonik 3y ago

I always wondered if those software-based technological bubbles (and I’m not necessarily agreeing that LLM-based AI is one of them) are doing so much harm to the overall progress of software, that we need at some point to explicitly identify it as a risk to the whole industry and the professional community. Imagining the possible negative effects of any sort of bubble burst in the area of AI while also understanding the true potential of the underlying technology is a painful realisation. “We could’ve done so much”-kinda feeling. Maybe I’m just too pessimistic.

wddkcs 3y ago
Preventing these bubbles assumes a level of foresight that doesn't seem feasible- besides a general limitor on any and all potential advancements, there is no possible way to know which technologies wil substantively deliver against their promises.
- maxbond 3y ago
  The software doesn't cause bubbles, the "eat the world" model causes bubbles. When everyone is trying to capture the entire pie, it creates this constant, industry-wide FOMO. Like when Spotify decided that podcasts were going to be big, Amazon felt like they couldn't miss out on it. So Spotify signed Rogan, Amazon signed My Favorite Murder, etc. And they bid up the price on each other and now Spotify is in hot water because the economics don't make sense at the ridiculous valuations they FOMO'd themselves into. I don't pretend to know what a solution would be, but it's not like we have to choose between bubbles and innovative companies; bubbles are about how things are financed, and not about the things themselves. The horticulture industry is doing fine and controlled environment agriculture continues to innovate, without bidding up the price of tulips to something insane. I know it's hard to imagine (and I don't mean to be patronizing, I have trouble imagining it), but we could have a software industry that wasn't predicated on selling dollars for dimes until you've developed a monopoly and can charge high rents.
  - wddkcs 3y ago
    Can we really? Where's an exostant model for it?
    - maxbond 3y ago
      Virtually any other business model. You make something people want to pay for, and then you charge a price that compensates you for your costs plus a margin determined by your negotiating power. This doesn't produce eye popping returns, but it does produce financially sustainable companies. Operating at a huge loss for a very long time in the hopes of capturing the entirety of a market is not the norm overall. I know it can feel that way from inside our industry, but that's our cultural biases showing. I'd like to stress that that's an observation and not a criticism, and that I don't mean bias in the pejorative sense.
- zcw100 3y ago
  That reminds me to go back and watch some old episodes of Connections by James Burke. He does a great job of showing the unpredictable and non-linear path of progress. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Slomotonoto 3y ago

Why? Ai already makes money. My company is paying for GitHub copilot. I'm paying for chatgpt. I'm seeing more and more news article with images generated from ai. The demos for integration I have seen, work. Every company which is right now learning how to leverage ai will be able to pivot and already have necessary things in place like a company, people, base infrastructure. And the research is still super hot.

somewhereoutth 3y ago
I think the issue is that, per the article, even if it works it might only provide marginal value. So copilot may indeed be useful to you/your company, but perhaps, once all the bean counting has been worked out, not useful enough to justify the stratospheric valuations.
- chii 3y ago
  > not useful enough to justify the stratospheric valuations. but why is that a concern for anyone else but the shareholders?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - meheleventyone 3y ago
    Enshittification as a result, cost increases and so on.
krater23 3y ago
The question is, how much do you pay and how much do you spare with it? Your company pays for GitHub Copilot, ok, but how many programmers are fired after they pay for it? Or does it have a meassurable effect at all? If not, this is a nice toy that will be removed soon. The news articles have generated images because they are cheaper than buying some stock photos. But stock fotos are still cheap.
- 3y ago

atleastoptimal 3y ago

You really think there's gonna be an AI winter? Is that based on the assumption that LLM's will plateau? Do you believe AGI is never coming, at least in the next 10-20 years? I think your view represents something I see a lot on this site. A bearish cynicism at AI progess, an assumption that it's all just a hype cycle, comparing it to crypto and NFT's and a confident assurance of the momentum of the status quo which will return when the "hype" dissipates. What specific capabilities of LLM's and AI models would convince you that this is a sea change beyond the normal hype and boom bust cycles of the tech world?

paganel 3y ago
The exact same discourse was being said by blockchain (so, no NFTs) people around 8-10 years ago. We were also just 5 years away from getting autonomous vehicles around 2016-2017, we haven’t.
- atleastoptimal 3y ago
  We have autonomous vehicles right now in San Francisco. I understand the blockchain-AI comparisons, but there are a few significant differences: 1. AI has proven to be much more useful in the real world 2. There are more highly respected experts anticipating transformative impacts of AI in comparison to blockchain 3. AI has a much lower scam/real product ratio than blockchain
- lelanthran 3y ago
  2012. We were sold the 5 year story in 2012 first.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    In 2009, I thought (and told my friends that I thought) they were 10 years away.
- two_in_one 3y ago
  The difference is LLMs are here to stay. They are already very useful and efficient. There is no turn around. Even if current state is the dead end of their evolution. Which it isn't, of course. The future.. there are so many ideas in the air right now that we can expect significant progress in next months and years. There will be fluctuations with bubbles and bursts, but that's how economics works. I expect slow approximation to AGI with increasing capabilities different products will claim to be it. First generations will be just very capable lifeless calculators. Subhuman in general with some superhuman abilities, like LLMs are today. When they will be able to improve themself, so called singularity? We are getting closer. Likely those will be still calculators which can be turned on/off at any moment.

tomjen3 3y ago

AI is here, now, and OpenAI is so saturated they had to cancel new customers. While the hype is real, so are the benefits. This feels more like the Internet in 1998 - there is a bubble forming and it may burst, but it is not like we got back to the Way Things Were after. Some sectors like (physical) mail continued their decline and others (like Google) continued to grow. The reason the previous AI winters were winters were that the AI didn't bring any benefits.