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See the waves of investor hype that immediately preceded the AI hypewave: Metaverse and Blockchain. The naysayers were absolutely right. Not to worry though, t

See the waves of investor hype that immediately preceded the AI hypewave: Metaverse and Blockchain. The naysayers were absolutely right. Not to worry though, the geniuses at Meta and a16z are sure that AI will stick the landing, after they bet the farm on Metaverse and Blockchain respectively.

ben_w 2y ago
Naysayers in the British establishment thought the 13 colonies would come crawling back when their little experiment with democracy failed and they needed some proper aristocrats who knew what they were doing. The space race had naysayers; the NYT printed the opinion that manned flight would take one to ten million years a week before the Wright Brothers; the iPod was lame with less space than a Nomad; SpaceX and Tesla were both dismissed when they were young; 3D printing likewise dismissed as if it was only plastic trinkets; and I've seen plenty of people here on HackerNews proclaiming that "AI will never ${x}" for various things some of which had already been accomplished by that point. There's always a naysayer. You can use their mere existence as evidence for much, it has to be the specific arguments.
- philistine 2y ago
  There's a difference between a naysayer and criticism. Using your iPod example, it was described as lame, in a way to dismiss it out of hand. But it did indeed have less space than a Nomad. That's valid, but ultimately unimportant, criticism. People here are criticizing the business fundamentals of the openAI company. What are your takes on its finances? Or are you just on board, everything is great, do not look behind the curtain where we hide our five billion dollar losses?
tim333 2y ago
Investment return over the last 30 years: S&P 6x Nasdaq 24x Sticking your money in tech may have ups and downs but has not done badly. Also AI will be huge in a way blockchain and the metaverse were not. Also re blockchain if you'd bought bitcoin rather than some bs startup you'd have done well. Though OpenAI may be in the bs startup category... dunno.
hnfong 2y ago
I haven’t owned anything on blockchain in my life. But I’m not so sure the naysayers are right about blockchain though. The ecosystem is still growing and apparently replacing cash in countries that don’t have a functional currency system.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Which is not the promise of blockchain's hype artists. "Better than using Venezuelan bolivars" is not a high bar.

ben_w 2y ago

Naysayers in the British establishment thought the 13 colonies would come crawling back when their little experiment with democracy failed and they needed some proper aristocrats who knew what they were doing. The space race had naysayers; the NYT printed the opinion that manned flight would take one to ten million years a week before the Wright Brothers; the iPod was lame with less space than a Nomad; SpaceX and Tesla were both dismissed when they were young; 3D printing likewise dismissed as if it was only plastic trinkets; and I've seen plenty of people here on HackerNews proclaiming that "AI will never ${x}" for various things some of which had already been accomplished by that point. There's always a naysayer. You can use their mere existence as evidence for much, it has to be the specific arguments.

philistine 2y ago
There's a difference between a naysayer and criticism. Using your iPod example, it was described as lame, in a way to dismiss it out of hand. But it did indeed have less space than a Nomad. That's valid, but ultimately unimportant, criticism. People here are criticizing the business fundamentals of the openAI company. What are your takes on its finances? Or are you just on board, everything is great, do not look behind the curtain where we hide our five billion dollar losses?

tim333 2y ago

Investment return over the last 30 years: S&P 6x Nasdaq 24x Sticking your money in tech may have ups and downs but has not done badly. Also AI will be huge in a way blockchain and the metaverse were not. Also re blockchain if you'd bought bitcoin rather than some bs startup you'd have done well. Though OpenAI may be in the bs startup category... dunno.

hnfong 2y ago

I haven’t owned anything on blockchain in my life. But I’m not so sure the naysayers are right about blockchain though. The ecosystem is still growing and apparently replacing cash in countries that don’t have a functional currency system.

lolinder 2y ago
Which is not the promise of blockchain's hype artists. "Better than using Venezuelan bolivars" is not a high bar.