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I expect the builder.ai story will break into the mainstream via a book / documentary. There are some insane details and it's the first large-scale AI hype fail

by nikcub 1y ago

I expect the builder.ai story will break into the mainstream via a book / documentary. There are some insane details and it's the first large-scale AI hype failure - which people are hungry to get the details on - and some big names involved. Another failure of dd - I really wonder how high-profile investors pour hundreds of millions into a co without doing something simple like ordering an app using a burner account.

ethbr1 1y ago
> I really wonder how high-profile investors pour hundreds of millions into a co without doing something simple like ordering an app using a burner account. You'd think that if you're investing $1M+, there's budget for at least getting an intern / assistant to do that.
- pyman 1y ago
  Microsoft invested £250M in Inflection AI, £250M in Builder.ai, and has backed several other companies working on LLMs. They’ve been placing strategic bets across the AI space, but only a few of those companies actually had the talent, infrastructure, and funding needed to build real models. The VP of AI was Craig Saunders, the same person who helped create Amazon Alexa. The problem is, they ran out of money. $500 million sounds like a lot, but it's not even close to what you need to build and train a real LLM. You need billions. Most people just don't realise that. See: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240611122778/en/Builder.ai-Strengthens-Leadership-with-Craig-Saunders-from-Amazon-as-New-Vice-President-of-Artificial-Intelligence https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240611122778/en/Bui...
  - trilbyglens 1y ago
    This is why I think ai is basically the death of startups as we know them. Only big players can even take a swing. No more underdog garage startups, unless you're just downstream getting dorty bath water from the big boys. Ai all around is purely about consolidation of power and money. It's bad for workers and ultimately probably bad for the startup world and competition more broadly.
    - pyman 1y ago
      I agree. The infra side is dominated by VCs and big players. And the data is in the hands of regulators, who are looking the other way.
  - ricardobeat 1y ago
    DeepSeek cost just over $5M to train. StarCoder cost around $1M, there is no info for Starcoder2 but unlikely to be more than a few million. The idea of spending billions in training is OpenAI trying to build a moat that might not actually exist.
    - pyman 1y ago
      These architectures didn't exist last year. The Chinese are innovating thanks to massive government backing, access to talent, and a clear focus on winning the AI race.
      - ricardobeat 1y ago
        Starcoder was released in 2023, by french/american companies, and there were other coding models before it. That was right around the time this company had a new $250M funding round, so lack of resources to invest in actual AI is a terrible excuse.
        pyman 1y ago
        StarCoder is an open-source LLM for code, not text. Builder.ai told investors they were building a virtual assistant called "Natasha", not a code assistant. I'm just telling you what I read online. Builder.ai wasn't competing with GitHub Copilot, Cody, or CodeWhisperer. Those are code assistants for developers. Builder.ai was building a virtual assistant for customers. It meant to "talk" to clients, gather requirements and automate parts of the build process. Very different space. And like I said before, creating a dedicated, pre-trained foundation model is expensive. Not to mention a full LLM.
        ricardobeat 1y ago
        The point is that one doesn't need billions to create useful models — there is no reason they would need new foundation models in the first place — and that 'running out of money' is unlikely to have been their main problem, 250M should be more than enough to create an AI website builder.
- SteveNuts 1y ago
  >You'd think that if you're investing $1M+, there's budget for at least getting an intern / assistant to do that. Or having an AI Agent do it...
bobthepanda 1y ago
maybe this is the first large solely AI failure but algorithms and AIs have done lots of damage before. There have been flash crashes on Wall St, Zillow lost $1B using an algorithm to try and house flip, Klarna is circling the drain after hyping up AI, etc.

by nikcub 1y ago

ethbr1 1y ago

> I really wonder how high-profile investors pour hundreds of millions into a co without doing something simple like ordering an app using a burner account. You'd think that if you're investing $1M+, there's budget for at least getting an intern / assistant to do that.

pyman 1y ago
Microsoft invested £250M in Inflection AI, £250M in Builder.ai, and has backed several other companies working on LLMs. They’ve been placing strategic bets across the AI space, but only a few of those companies actually had the talent, infrastructure, and funding needed to build real models. The VP of AI was Craig Saunders, the same person who helped create Amazon Alexa. The problem is, they ran out of money. $500 million sounds like a lot, but it's not even close to what you need to build and train a real LLM. You need billions. Most people just don't realise that. See: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240611122778/en/Builder.ai-Strengthens-Leadership-with-Craig-Saunders-from-Amazon-as-New-Vice-President-of-Artificial-Intelligence https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240611122778/en/Bui...
- trilbyglens 1y ago
  This is why I think ai is basically the death of startups as we know them. Only big players can even take a swing. No more underdog garage startups, unless you're just downstream getting dorty bath water from the big boys. Ai all around is purely about consolidation of power and money. It's bad for workers and ultimately probably bad for the startup world and competition more broadly.
  - pyman 1y ago
    I agree. The infra side is dominated by VCs and big players. And the data is in the hands of regulators, who are looking the other way.
- ricardobeat 1y ago
  DeepSeek cost just over $5M to train. StarCoder cost around $1M, there is no info for Starcoder2 but unlikely to be more than a few million. The idea of spending billions in training is OpenAI trying to build a moat that might not actually exist.
  - pyman 1y ago
    These architectures didn't exist last year. The Chinese are innovating thanks to massive government backing, access to talent, and a clear focus on winning the AI race.
    - ricardobeat 1y ago
      Starcoder was released in 2023, by french/american companies, and there were other coding models before it. That was right around the time this company had a new $250M funding round, so lack of resources to invest in actual AI is a terrible excuse.
      - pyman 1y ago
        StarCoder is an open-source LLM for code, not text. Builder.ai told investors they were building a virtual assistant called "Natasha", not a code assistant. I'm just telling you what I read online. Builder.ai wasn't competing with GitHub Copilot, Cody, or CodeWhisperer. Those are code assistants for developers. Builder.ai was building a virtual assistant for customers. It meant to "talk" to clients, gather requirements and automate parts of the build process. Very different space. And like I said before, creating a dedicated, pre-trained foundation model is expensive. Not to mention a full LLM.
        ricardobeat 1y ago
        The point is that one doesn't need billions to create useful models — there is no reason they would need new foundation models in the first place — and that 'running out of money' is unlikely to have been their main problem, 250M should be more than enough to create an AI website builder.
SteveNuts 1y ago
>You'd think that if you're investing $1M+, there's budget for at least getting an intern / assistant to do that. Or having an AI Agent do it...

bobthepanda 1y ago

maybe this is the first large solely AI failure but algorithms and AIs have done lots of damage before. There have been flash crashes on Wall St, Zillow lost $1B using an algorithm to try and house flip, Klarna is circling the drain after hyping up AI, etc.