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This is the view of a year ago. This take is already outdated. There are already jobs being lost. You don't need to make "Billons", you just need a model chea

This is the view of a year ago. This take is already outdated. There are already jobs being lost. You don't need to make "Billons", you just need a model cheap enough to be cheaper than the human being replaced. So if I can take one of the off the shelf models, and it costs me $20/week to replace a human that costs $1000/week, then there you go. It is already disruptive. People forget that there was a shit ton of investment in the early internet that also didn't pay off, but nobody would say that the internet didn't have some winners. Edit: Lot of people with head in sand. https://tech.co/news/companies-replace-workers-with-ai https://tech.co/news/companies-replace-workers-with-ai I'm already having to deal with AI when making reservations at Delta. Where do you think the people that used to take phone calls went? That is one company, one role.

actsasbuffoon 2y ago
I think there are complicating factors. Investors are throwing unfathomable amounts of money at AI right now, and frontier models are very expensive to build. There’s also the issue of these AI-as-a-Service companies requiring an ever increasing amount of GPUs and electricity, and because frontier models keep getting bigger, the problem keeps getting worse. There is a serious risk to these companies. A frontier model doesn’t sit at the frontier for very long. Given a year or two, open source models can catch up for less than 1% of the money spent to build a frontier model. The moat doesn’t last long, so you need to keep burning tens of billions to stay ahead. But as open source models continue to improve, we run the risk of reaching a moment that looks like the current smartphone market. People aren’t upgrading their phones as often anymore because a 4 year old smart phone is still pretty great. There’s no need to buy every year. Well, at some point an open source model will be close enough to a frontier model that many users will just stick with it. They’ll prefer it because there’s no monthly fee to run it on their own hardware, because there are no rate limits, and because they prefer the privacy and flexibility. Right now you need a big cluster of GPUs to run top tier models. But with every passing year we get closer to good-enough open source models running on gaming GPUs. And when that happens, would you want to be one of the investors shoveling tens of billions of dollars into building frontier models with declining subscription numbers where you’ve got no moat? I don’t think the economics of this are going to pan out in the long run. Everyone is still hyped about ChatGPT, so investors are happy to throw money at it. But I think we’re in a very big AI bubble right now. The economics only make sense if someone achieves AGI within the next couple of years. If they don’t, this whole thing is going to decline sharply as open source models provide a better free alternative.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
> There are already jobs being lost. What jobs are being lost? Show us the data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
- apwell23 2y ago
  only ones I heard were Klarna customer support but i call BS on that too.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    Am I living on another planet? You think AI isn't having an impact? Except for one narrow thing you happen to be looking at. https://tech.co/news/companies-replace-workers-with-ai https://tech.co/news/companies-replace-workers-with-ai People are completely out of touch with how many simple/mid jobs with rote tasks are still out there and susceptible to moving to AI. Yeah, senior programmers are safe, so what. That is a <1% of total jobs.
    - apwell23 2y ago
      I hate to say "did you read your link" but i have no option since you are spamming that link everywhere. Earlier this year, US software company Salesforce fired 700 workers – equivalent to approximately 1% of its global workforce. This is in addition to similar cuts that saw the company reduce its personnel by 10% last year. Similarly to Google, Salesforce hasn’t announced that these job losses are directly linked to AI. Google CEO Sundar Pichai hasn’t explicitly announced these jobs will be replaced with AI technology outright In 2020, MSN sacked dozens of journalists responsible for writing news stories displayed on the company’s homepage and has since been using AI software to create the content. Turnitin laid off 15 people. some article about MSN from 2020 or a no name company Turnitin laying of 15 ppl convinced you about AI taking jobs ? Yea you are def living in a different planet (maybe a planet in metaverse running on cryptocurrency). These ppl are using AI as a cover for their businesses that need to lay ppl off. Layoffs = BAD Layoffs due to AI = Good per markets and investors so thats what these CEOs are pretending.
snowwrestler 2y ago
AI companies do need to make billions in order to produce returns on the billions of investment they have taken. > People forget that there was a shit ton of investment in the early internet that also didn't pay off Yes, those were called busts too. It’s not a value judgement, it’s just the term for that moment when lofty expectations don’t pan out.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  "lofty expectations don’t pan out" The point is, they did turn out, look at the internet today. Would anybody go back to the 80's and argue, it really isn't worth the investment? Amazon, don't bother, Cisco, forget about it.
  - jprete 2y ago
    Amazon was founded in 1994.
    - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
      There was investment in the internet pre-90's that built the infrastructure that allowed Amazon to exist. There were winners and losers. Maybe there were losers in the 80's and Amazon was a winner the in the 90's. Because there were losers doesn't mean there should not have been any investment, which seems to be the argument against AI. That it costs a lot and not producing anything. When we can clearly see that the rush to invest is exactly to not be left behind and get to winning.
  - snowwrestler 2y ago
    Amazon and Cisco are examples of companies that survived the busts. Some AI companies will survive too. There will definitely be busts, though.
  - pintxo 2y ago
    Survivorship bias? There’s tons of „Internet Investments“ that did not work out.
CPLX 2y ago
Yeah but to what extent is it all just marketing and promotional type copy, plus maybe "content" that explains or summarizes things. That's definitely responsible for billions of dollars in salaries. But also it's a bit of an arms race. Like the standards will just go up for everything evenly right?

actsasbuffoon 2y ago

I think there are complicating factors. Investors are throwing unfathomable amounts of money at AI right now, and frontier models are very expensive to build. There’s also the issue of these AI-as-a-Service companies requiring an ever increasing amount of GPUs and electricity, and because frontier models keep getting bigger, the problem keeps getting worse. There is a serious risk to these companies. A frontier model doesn’t sit at the frontier for very long. Given a year or two, open source models can catch up for less than 1% of the money spent to build a frontier model. The moat doesn’t last long, so you need to keep burning tens of billions to stay ahead. But as open source models continue to improve, we run the risk of reaching a moment that looks like the current smartphone market. People aren’t upgrading their phones as often anymore because a 4 year old smart phone is still pretty great. There’s no need to buy every year. Well, at some point an open source model will be close enough to a frontier model that many users will just stick with it. They’ll prefer it because there’s no monthly fee to run it on their own hardware, because there are no rate limits, and because they prefer the privacy and flexibility. Right now you need a big cluster of GPUs to run top tier models. But with every passing year we get closer to good-enough open source models running on gaming GPUs. And when that happens, would you want to be one of the investors shoveling tens of billions of dollars into building frontier models with declining subscription numbers where you’ve got no moat? I don’t think the economics of this are going to pan out in the long run. Everyone is still hyped about ChatGPT, so investors are happy to throw money at it. But I think we’re in a very big AI bubble right now. The economics only make sense if someone achieves AGI within the next couple of years. If they don’t, this whole thing is going to decline sharply as open source models provide a better free alternative.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

> There are already jobs being lost. What jobs are being lost? Show us the data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

apwell23 2y ago
only ones I heard were Klarna customer support but i call BS on that too.
- FrustratedMonky 2y ago
  Am I living on another planet? You think AI isn't having an impact? Except for one narrow thing you happen to be looking at. https://tech.co/news/companies-replace-workers-with-ai https://tech.co/news/companies-replace-workers-with-ai People are completely out of touch with how many simple/mid jobs with rote tasks are still out there and susceptible to moving to AI. Yeah, senior programmers are safe, so what. That is a <1% of total jobs.
  - apwell23 2y ago
    I hate to say "did you read your link" but i have no option since you are spamming that link everywhere. Earlier this year, US software company Salesforce fired 700 workers – equivalent to approximately 1% of its global workforce. This is in addition to similar cuts that saw the company reduce its personnel by 10% last year. Similarly to Google, Salesforce hasn’t announced that these job losses are directly linked to AI. Google CEO Sundar Pichai hasn’t explicitly announced these jobs will be replaced with AI technology outright In 2020, MSN sacked dozens of journalists responsible for writing news stories displayed on the company’s homepage and has since been using AI software to create the content. Turnitin laid off 15 people. some article about MSN from 2020 or a no name company Turnitin laying of 15 ppl convinced you about AI taking jobs ? Yea you are def living in a different planet (maybe a planet in metaverse running on cryptocurrency). These ppl are using AI as a cover for their businesses that need to lay ppl off. Layoffs = BAD Layoffs due to AI = Good per markets and investors so thats what these CEOs are pretending.

snowwrestler 2y ago

AI companies do need to make billions in order to produce returns on the billions of investment they have taken. > People forget that there was a shit ton of investment in the early internet that also didn't pay off Yes, those were called busts too. It’s not a value judgement, it’s just the term for that moment when lofty expectations don’t pan out.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago
"lofty expectations don’t pan out" The point is, they did turn out, look at the internet today. Would anybody go back to the 80's and argue, it really isn't worth the investment? Amazon, don't bother, Cisco, forget about it.
- jprete 2y ago
  Amazon was founded in 1994.
  - FrustratedMonky 2y ago
    There was investment in the internet pre-90's that built the infrastructure that allowed Amazon to exist. There were winners and losers. Maybe there were losers in the 80's and Amazon was a winner the in the 90's. Because there were losers doesn't mean there should not have been any investment, which seems to be the argument against AI. That it costs a lot and not producing anything. When we can clearly see that the rush to invest is exactly to not be left behind and get to winning.
- snowwrestler 2y ago
  Amazon and Cisco are examples of companies that survived the busts. Some AI companies will survive too. There will definitely be busts, though.
- pintxo 2y ago
  Survivorship bias? There’s tons of „Internet Investments“ that did not work out.

CPLX 2y ago

Yeah but to what extent is it all just marketing and promotional type copy, plus maybe "content" that explains or summarizes things. That's definitely responsible for billions of dollars in salaries. But also it's a bit of an arms race. Like the standards will just go up for everything evenly right?