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I agree with the folks at GS. Every non-tech corporation in the world is trying to figure out some kind of "AI strategy," but most executives and managers have
by cs702 2y ago
I agree with the folks at GS. Every non-tech corporation in the world is trying to figure out some kind of "AI strategy," but most executives and managers have no clue as to what they're doing or ought to be doing with respect to "AI." They're like patsies joining a very expensive game of poker they don't understand, and they are driven by FOMO, ready and eager to put down gobs of cash on the table, because they don't want to miss their chance of winning. They are on track to learn predictable lessons that cannot be learned in any other way.
- EasyMark 2y agoThey should take the apple approach. There will be hundreds of options when they decide they really need an “AI strategy” it will fizzle out. It’s pretty obvious for Apple that they can use AI for some tasks and they’ll work it in practically as opposed to panic Keeping Up With the Jones’ mode. Apple is doing it the right way, since they aren’t actually in the AI business (yet), just a consumer. This is the way people need to think. When an actual use for LLMs presents itself then there will be plenty options, no need to panic.
- artemonster 2y agoreplace "AI" with any past trendy buzzword (big data, ML, XML, XaaS) and your statement remains exactly the same, hence, carrying 0 new information. just a historical observation :)
- Sharlin 2y agoExactly. It's incredible how it's the exact same story every time, repeating every few years.
- llm_trw 2y agoReplace it with the internet and it's the difference between Amazon and Sears.
- Sharlin 2y agoYes, I mean, in the 00s bubble everybody and their dog needed an internet presence without any idea of what to do with it. The difference is not that between Amazon and Sears, but that between Amazon and the thousands of contemporaneous companies with clueless execs who had no idea what to do with an internet but were told that they now HAD to have one, preferably two.
- llm_trw 2y agoThe difference _is_ between amazon and sears. One was an internet company and thrived, one wasn't and died. AI will do the same. That a bunch of companies couldn't figure out how to use the internet is neither here nor there. There were plenty of factories that never figured out how to use electricity. Doesn't mean that steam power is still viable.
- Sharlin 2y agoNope, the context was poor return on investment on AI, and the fact that it’s because AI is currently in the overinflated hype cycle part of emerging technologies, just like all the other examples once were. (Nb. someone using the term "AI" in 2024 can mean two things: either they just use it as a shorthand for referring to the currently hot incarnation of "AI", ie. "generative deep learning models with cross-attention layers", or they have no idea what they’ve talking about. And a priori the latter is much more likely.) Sure, at this point generative deep learning models are somewhat likely be more like the internet and less like blockchains with regard to being an enabling technology. That doesn’t mean the hype cycle is not real. Steam power is – and has always been – used to produce most of our electricity, BTW, and it’s only now changing, out of necessity.
- BoiledCabbage 2y agoIf your comparison for AI is XML, then you're missing the point of analogies.
- artemonster 2y agoyou can say something like that only with a power of hindsight, knowing what was a useless fad and what was a ReVolUtioNary TecHnOLOgY
- jaredsohn 2y agoIf you think of XML (and JSON, YAML) as a standardized CSV that can handle hierarchy I think that's beyond a useless fad. There are lots of edge cases in parsing data and having standardized tools for that makes it a lot easier for systems to communicate with each other. I think the hype was there because companies needed to update their data to follow standards and update how that data interacts with other companies. The specifics of XML are less relevant - once things are standardized there can be standardized ways of converting to other formats. Imagine needing to write custom parsers for every API; not needing that enabled SaaS APIs to be much more practical.
- marcosdumay 2y agoThe point is that media hype predicted 500 of the last 2 technological revolutions... and only missed 1 or 2. (And well, the OP's example of the internet is one that they missed.)
- bamboozled 2y agoThe part I don't really understand is that even if we built the AGI, what would actually make it want to work for humans? What's the ROI on that investment look like? I'm not judging whether or not building AI is possible, but I do ponder the psychology of it. Let's see...AGI might bring us eternal life, Utopia and a way to avoid having to work ever again...sounds a bit like something from the bible to me.
- sekh60 2y agoAGI is just going to spend its cycles looking at cats pics and /r/unixporn.
- bamboozled 2y agoBut it might want to do that…
- Sharlin 2y ago> what would actually make it want to work for humans? Well, I mean, that's the fundamental question of the entire AI alignment field and has been for over 20 years :D The question for which the wrong answer means the potential extinction of not merely the human species, but everything that we find valuable in the reachable universe. Now, let's be very clear that the question is not "Why wouldn't it just invent its own goals and ignore humans?" That's mere anthropomorphizing. What an agent wants to do is by definition the goals output by its goal system. And the goal system is supposed to be designed by us, but we may not be smart enough to design a goal system that won't be disastrous to us if implemented by a superintelligent agent.
- bamboozled 2y agoThan om quite famiar with all this. I’m not worried about extinction though , I just mea , why build to enslave ? How would you enslave something gore capable than you to recoup the 50 trillion in investments ? I mea. I get
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- csunbird 2y agoBut, it is almost certain that _some_ of the AI initiatives will be incredibly successful and they are going to make mountains of money, while others will be simple money sinks. Investors are currently betting on the ones they think going to be the first category and everyone else are trying to get a piece of the money being spent in the industry.
- ProjectArcturis 2y agoYeah, but if you're, say, Home Depot, or any other large non-tech company, your company culture will simply not be smart or flexible enough to innovate. The VPs of Data in those kinds of places are the true marks in the game. They have money to spend and no ability to determine real AI from bullshit. They also will be rewarded in the short term for buying something shiny but useless. Which if they're smart they'll leverage into a CTO position somewhere.
- brookst 2y agoI think you could go back in time and s/AI/internet. But if we look at the 90’s, the lesson is not that companies wasted time on internet strategies they didn’t need. The lesson is that companies that had good internet strategies thrived (Netflix) and those that had bad internet strategies died (Blockbuster). Agree there’s a lot of FOMO, but unlike your patsies, these companies would not be better served by staying away and ignoring the temptation.
- behringer 2y agoIf blockbuster had waited and then just copied Netflix, they'd still be around. They failed to do either one.
- jordanb 2y agoThey had an opportunity to buy netflix for $50 million after the dot com bust.
- chucke1992 2y agoWell it took Netflix years and years to reach the current point though.
- silverquiet 2y agoIt's still not clear to me that LLMs are actually useful, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm some sort of neo-luddite (how deliciously ironic a term by the way). I wonder, do you think there are examples of companies that have good strategies now? And if so, what utility are they getting out of it?
- vertis 2y agoBut are you actually a luddite objecting to the impact that technology (AI in this case) is going to have or just a skeptic?
- ReptileMan 2y agoLLMs are tremendous force multipliers. They don't replace humans but increase the productivity of people quite a bit
- _fat_santa 2y agoI think this is even the case for tech companies. So many products I see now that offer AI where I go "is that really necessary?". Even in the case of my own startup, my business partner has been pushing me to figure out some way to integrate AI into our product and my response to him every time has been to convince him that it's not in our best interest to go down that road. I told him that even in a world where we could adjust our subscription prices to compensate for the added expense of AI, we would be burning valuable time on AI when we could be spending it in other areas of our product. Even though we are a tiny startup I have a feeling that this applies to many other tech companies as well.
- eureka-belief 2y agoThe reality is, the economy is on a ticking timer for when it will be turned upside down by 1) LLM agent workflows 2) AGI 3) superintelligence. There are many companies who know this and want to hedge against that future but they simply don’t know how yet. The tricky part about productizing LLMs is that your product designers need to have a full understanding of LLMs and what they can and cannot do. So currently many of the existing product designs and AI user experiences still suck. The biggest misconception is that just because chatbots are now more capable that somehow that means that you should replace your UI with one.
- hatefulmoron 2y agoThe timer might be much longer than it's fashionable to believe right now, which would make this sort of FOMO investment completely pointless.
- alephnerd 2y agoDepends on the industry and use case. For example, AI leveraged SOC is going to be operational within 3-5 years, and there goes 50-70% of jobs in that sector. Others segments are significantly behind (robo-taxis) and I'm sure there are other segments much further ahead (call center automation), but the change is absolutely coming - not because of LLMs alone, but because the entire ecosystem around ML/AI is a 15 years old now, and there's an entire generation of SWEs that are just as competent as ML PhDs were 15 years ago.
- cj 2y agoIt’s not just executives, it’s many employees at most companies. I’m a hiring manager for multiple roles across engineering, product, sales, marketing, and ops. 90% of candidates (regardless of IC vs. manager, regardless of seniority) loves to ask what the company’s AI strategy is, or “how will AI impact your business in the next 5 years?” It’s easy to say the hype is driven by the execs at the top. Maybe it is. But your average IC is equally interested, in my experience.
- RodoBobJon 2y agoIt’s possible at least some of those people enquiring about the AI strategy are looking to find out if a company is about to ruin itself with bad decisions around AI. And some others are probably saying what they think people want to hear. And yes, of course some are caught up in the hype; that’s the nature of these hype bubbles.
- drewcoo 2y agoIf they're not asking more pointed questions about your tech as it is today, that suggests that you have very junior people in your hiring pipeline. [edit] Or at least those are the only people that make it to the stage of talking with the hiring manager.
- cj 2y agoThey aren’t asking pointedly. But that’s a good idea. Next time the question comes up I’m going to try flipping it around to ask how they think our industry will be affected by AI since you’re right, it does feel like a hollow question.
- surgical_fire 2y ago> 90% of candidates (regardless of IC vs. manager, regardless of seniority) loves to ask what the company’s AI strategy is, or “how will AI impact your business in the next 5 years?” It may be possible that they just want to sound as if they are "aware" of the latest trends, especially considering how often companies talk about it.
- thiht 2y agoFOMO is legit though. Every organization has an obligation to assess if LLMs and OpenAI(-like) can improve their workflow. No need to expect much of it, but every org should know what they’re missing on or why they’re not missing on anything.
- seventytwo 2y agoPart of what’s driving this is that CUSTOMERS are buying the hype also. So when two companies offer a similar product, but one slaps a “driven by AI” sticker on the box, they get more sales. So, does that make the executives stupid for trying to find a legitimate reason to shoe-horn AI into a product?