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> I don't agree. I think it's still just a toy that can't get anything useful done. Yeah, sorry, but your view is not supported by data. There are billions of

> I don't agree. I think it's still just a toy that can't get anything useful done. Yeah, sorry, but your view is not supported by data. There are billions of $ spent on tokens every year (between oAI, anthropic, goog, etc). This is not a toy anymore. People are using it, one way or another so it's useful to them - to the tune of billions of dollars. How useful it'll turn out to be in the abstract is still up for debate, but it is useful today.

ghaff 1y ago
Companies are willing to spend money on it today which isn't the same thing. Personally, I probably wouldn't spend a penny on it (OK, maybe a dollar) but really haven't found generative AI to be particularly useful.
- NitpickLawyer 1y ago
  Companies usually go for "business gpt" in azure or whatever oAI & MS are offering. I'm talking about regular users at 20$ a pop. Unless all the providers are lying, billions of $ are being spent right now, by regular users. You may not find it useful, but others are.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    Possibly unless it's just FOMO because Bill at the next desk is using it. I have tried some of the products. Just didn't find them more than casually useful. But I obviously can't speak for everyone's experiences. And different people have different needs.
ripe 1y ago
Some of that money is these companies trying to find a use for this technology, because their investors don't want them to miss the AI train. Not sure what proportion is seeing any returns right now. If the product were to disappear tomorrow, I doubt the real economy would notice the loss of 0.05% in productivity. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111207/a-nobel-laureate-on-the-economics-of-artificial-intelligence https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111207/a-nobel-...
jcgrillo 1y ago
Companies spending money on SaaS means, generally, that a detached executive many rungs away from the actual users was sufficiently wowed by a demo/steak dinner/whatever to sign a deal. It has nothing in general to do with utility. To get an industry to spend billions you need only target a few hundred or a few thousand people.
bandrami 1y ago
Have those billions of dollars produced a single viable product?
- threecheese 1y ago
  I spend less time on web search, I suppose. But in trade I need to pay for it, while still providing my behavior data to the surveillance capitalism platforms. It’s also improved my ability to analyze data, generating graphs and insights. But I still need to run that last mile myself, because I can’t fully trust its output. Same for web search actually, when I have a need to be comprehensive.
  - bandrami 1y ago
    But has that resulted in you making a commercially viable product? That's the step that still seems to be missing
    - threecheese 1y ago
      If AI companies can save $2 to pocket $.01 - across the entire market of human effort - then we have choice and no stake. We arent the customer, we’re the tangible good.
      - bandrami 1y ago
        Why would we need "AI companies"? Isn't this supposed to supercharge individual developers? But all I see people making with it is tooling for AI systems. Literally nobody's made a text editor or MIDI sequencer with it and just put the result on Github?
- NitpickLawyer 1y ago
  Is this in jest? Chatgpt in itself is a viable product (based on how many active paying users they have). And then there's code w/ the myriad of implementations. Unless you've been hiding under a rock since 2023, we went from "cute toy, look it even looks like python" to "well, this agent-built, zero intervention, scribbled notes prompt to full-stack application probably has some security bugs, so be careful" real quick.

ghaff 1y ago

Companies are willing to spend money on it today which isn't the same thing. Personally, I probably wouldn't spend a penny on it (OK, maybe a dollar) but really haven't found generative AI to be particularly useful.

NitpickLawyer 1y ago
Companies usually go for "business gpt" in azure or whatever oAI & MS are offering. I'm talking about regular users at 20$ a pop. Unless all the providers are lying, billions of $ are being spent right now, by regular users. You may not find it useful, but others are.
- ghaff 1y ago
  Possibly unless it's just FOMO because Bill at the next desk is using it. I have tried some of the products. Just didn't find them more than casually useful. But I obviously can't speak for everyone's experiences. And different people have different needs.

ripe 1y ago

Some of that money is these companies trying to find a use for this technology, because their investors don't want them to miss the AI train. Not sure what proportion is seeing any returns right now. If the product were to disappear tomorrow, I doubt the real economy would notice the loss of 0.05% in productivity. [1] https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111207/a-nobel-laureate-on-the-economics-of-artificial-intelligence https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/25/1111207/a-nobel-...

jcgrillo 1y ago

Companies spending money on SaaS means, generally, that a detached executive many rungs away from the actual users was sufficiently wowed by a demo/steak dinner/whatever to sign a deal. It has nothing in general to do with utility. To get an industry to spend billions you need only target a few hundred or a few thousand people.

bandrami 1y ago

Have those billions of dollars produced a single viable product?

threecheese 1y ago
I spend less time on web search, I suppose. But in trade I need to pay for it, while still providing my behavior data to the surveillance capitalism platforms. It’s also improved my ability to analyze data, generating graphs and insights. But I still need to run that last mile myself, because I can’t fully trust its output. Same for web search actually, when I have a need to be comprehensive.
- bandrami 1y ago
  But has that resulted in you making a commercially viable product? That's the step that still seems to be missing
  - threecheese 1y ago
    If AI companies can save $2 to pocket $.01 - across the entire market of human effort - then we have choice and no stake. We arent the customer, we’re the tangible good.
    - bandrami 1y ago
      Why would we need "AI companies"? Isn't this supposed to supercharge individual developers? But all I see people making with it is tooling for AI systems. Literally nobody's made a text editor or MIDI sequencer with it and just put the result on Github?
NitpickLawyer 1y ago
Is this in jest? Chatgpt in itself is a viable product (based on how many active paying users they have). And then there's code w/ the myriad of implementations. Unless you've been hiding under a rock since 2023, we went from "cute toy, look it even looks like python" to "well, this agent-built, zero intervention, scribbled notes prompt to full-stack application probably has some security bugs, so be careful" real quick.