4 ms·

I think the common theme is that a lot of people: meaning both people in the community, like here on HN, and people making decisions in industry, are treating A

I think the common theme is that a lot of people: meaning both people in the community, like here on HN, and people making decisions in industry, are treating AI today as if it's what they hope it will be in five years. That's a very leveraged bet, which isn't always the wrong call, but I'm not convinced they are aware that that's what they're doing. I think this is different from the usual hype cycle.

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
Well, it still feels like a form of hype to me. They are being very loudly told by ever AI cloud service, of which there are many, that worker-replacing AI agents are just around the corner so they should buy in with the inferior agents that are being offered today.
- Gerardo1 2y ago
  Oh it's definitely still driven by hype, I think it's just a slightly more extreme version than your normal tech hype cycle.
only-one1701 2y ago
I genuinely wonder if this is a "too big to fail" scenario though, where mass belief (and maybe a helping hand via govt subsidies/regulations) powers it to a point where everything is just kind of worse but cheaper for shareholders/execs and the economic landscape can't support an actual disruption. That's my fear at least.
hedora 2y ago
I've seen hype cycles like this before. Imagine "The Innovator's Dilemma" was written in the Idiocracy universe: 1) We're in late stage capitalism, so no companies have any viable competition, customers are too dumb to notice they didn't get what they paid for, and with subsidies, businesses cannot fail. i.e., "Plants love electrolytes!" 2) Costs are completely decoupled from income. 3) Economic growth is pinned to population growth; otherwise the economy is zero sum. 4) Stocks still need to compound faster than inflation annually. 5) After hiking prices stops working, management decides they may as well fire all the engineers (and find some "it's different now" excuse, even though the real justification is 2). 6) This leads to a societal crisis because everyone forgot the company was serving a critical function, and now it's not. 7) A new competitor fills the gaps, takes over the incumbent's original role, then eventually adopts the same strategy. Examples: Disney Animation vs. Pixar, Detroit vs. Tesla, Boeing vs. SpaceX. (Remember when Musk was cool?)
marcosdumay 2y ago
It's not very different from people using all their retirement money to buy a monkey NFT. Or pushing everybody else's retirement money into houses sold at prices people clearly can not pay.

SketchySeaBeast 2y ago

Well, it still feels like a form of hype to me. They are being very loudly told by ever AI cloud service, of which there are many, that worker-replacing AI agents are just around the corner so they should buy in with the inferior agents that are being offered today.

Gerardo1 2y ago
Oh it's definitely still driven by hype, I think it's just a slightly more extreme version than your normal tech hype cycle.

only-one1701 2y ago

I genuinely wonder if this is a "too big to fail" scenario though, where mass belief (and maybe a helping hand via govt subsidies/regulations) powers it to a point where everything is just kind of worse but cheaper for shareholders/execs and the economic landscape can't support an actual disruption. That's my fear at least.

hedora 2y ago

I've seen hype cycles like this before. Imagine "The Innovator's Dilemma" was written in the Idiocracy universe: 1) We're in late stage capitalism, so no companies have any viable competition, customers are too dumb to notice they didn't get what they paid for, and with subsidies, businesses cannot fail. i.e., "Plants love electrolytes!" 2) Costs are completely decoupled from income. 3) Economic growth is pinned to population growth; otherwise the economy is zero sum. 4) Stocks still need to compound faster than inflation annually. 5) After hiking prices stops working, management decides they may as well fire all the engineers (and find some "it's different now" excuse, even though the real justification is 2). 6) This leads to a societal crisis because everyone forgot the company was serving a critical function, and now it's not. 7) A new competitor fills the gaps, takes over the incumbent's original role, then eventually adopts the same strategy. Examples: Disney Animation vs. Pixar, Detroit vs. Tesla, Boeing vs. SpaceX. (Remember when Musk was cool?)

marcosdumay 2y ago

It's not very different from people using all their retirement money to buy a monkey NFT. Or pushing everybody else's retirement money into houses sold at prices people clearly can not pay.