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I think you two are talking about different things. The AI winter as I understand it refers to slowing technological advancement in “expert systems” for example

I think you two are talking about different things. The AI winter as I understand it refers to slowing technological advancement in “expert systems” for example. But technological development is moving faster than ever. This is different. It’s a weird combination of huge amounts of capital chasing a very specific idea of next token prediction, and a slowdown in SWE hiring that may be related. It’s the first time “AI” as an industry has eaten itself.

est31 2y ago
From what I read, AI "winters" have not just had less progress but also have had less research activity in general: during them, AI was seen as a dead end that didn't provide value, which translates to less funding, which translates to less people doing research on it (or introducing AI to the research they wanted to do already).
throwup238 2y ago
The AI winter refers to the collapse in government and industry funding. It came as a result of a lot of hype like expert systems not panning out but it was about the money that dried up. This time “it’s different” but VCs are just as fickle as grant reviewers and executives - that funding could dry up at any moment if one of the big AI companies has a down round or goes bankrupt altogether. I don’t think a second AI winter is likely because of how useful LLMs have proven this time around, but we’re probably going to have a correction sooner or later. I don’t think the hiring slowdown and AI are related. Some companies are using rhetoric about AI to save face but the collapse in the job market was due to an end to ZIRP.
- timy2shoes 2y ago
  The down rounds have started for those companies that either haven’t found product market fit, or aren’t in contention on leaderboards. Especially those companies that are a OpenAI wrapper and can be easily replaced by a new, more broadly applicable, foundation model or a new modality model. https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-down-rounds-rise-valuations-investors-2024-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-down-rounds-rise-valuatio...

est31 2y ago

From what I read, AI "winters" have not just had less progress but also have had less research activity in general: during them, AI was seen as a dead end that didn't provide value, which translates to less funding, which translates to less people doing research on it (or introducing AI to the research they wanted to do already).

throwup238 2y ago

The AI winter refers to the collapse in government and industry funding. It came as a result of a lot of hype like expert systems not panning out but it was about the money that dried up. This time “it’s different” but VCs are just as fickle as grant reviewers and executives - that funding could dry up at any moment if one of the big AI companies has a down round or goes bankrupt altogether. I don’t think a second AI winter is likely because of how useful LLMs have proven this time around, but we’re probably going to have a correction sooner or later. I don’t think the hiring slowdown and AI are related. Some companies are using rhetoric about AI to save face but the collapse in the job market was due to an end to ZIRP.

timy2shoes 2y ago
The down rounds have started for those companies that either haven’t found product market fit, or aren’t in contention on leaderboards. Especially those companies that are a OpenAI wrapper and can be easily replaced by a new, more broadly applicable, foundation model or a new modality model. https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-down-rounds-rise-valuations-investors-2024-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-down-rounds-rise-valuatio...