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The bubble will pop, just like the web bubble popped; and that’s going to suck. AI technologies will remain and be genuinely transformative, just like the web r

The bubble will pop, just like the web bubble popped; and that’s going to suck. AI technologies will remain and be genuinely transformative, just like the web remained and was transformative (for good and ill).

troupo 1y ago
It's a source of constant amusement to me that "arguments" used for AI are indistinguishable from "arguments" used for crypto. (With a caveat that LLMs actually do have their uses)
- tim333 1y ago
  I think they are somewhat distinguishable. Going by the HN consensus most people thought cryptocurrency was not much use beyond crime and gambling. On the other hand I think most people see that if AI achieves human level thinking it'll be able to do human like jobs which would be a big deal economically.
  - troupo 1y ago
    That's a huge if that you can only accept if you buy into "AGI has been achieved internally" marketing.
    - tim333 1y ago
      I'm thinking more that AGI will happen within a few years. It's one of the reasons for the present financial weirdness. Throwing so much money into current AI would make no sense if it stays as it is. It only makes sense if you think the tech will improve.
      - troupo 1y ago
        You say that arguments for AI and crypto are somewhat distinguishable while presenting arguments indistinguishable from crypto. Billions of dollars were spent on crypto as well.
        tim333 1y ago
        Crypto is going to reach human intelligence and do the jobs?
827a 1y ago
The nasdaq composite p/e at its peak during the dotcom bubble breached 200. Today we're at 40, and Nvidia alone is at 49. As much as everyone wants this to be a bubble: it isn't. ChatGPT was the fastest "thing" in history to reach 100M MAUs, and is believed to be a top 5 most visited website today, across the entire internet. Cursor was the fastest company in human history to reach $500M in revenue. Midjourney, the company no one talks about anymore, is profitable and makes over $200M in revenue. Being brutal here: HackerNews is in the bubble. Yeah, there's some froth, there's some overvaluation, some of these companies will die. But I seriously do not understand how people can see these real, hard statistics, not fake money like VC dollars or the price of bitcoin but fucking deep and real shit and still say "nah its like crypto all over again". 48% of survey respondents to a recent survey said they've used ChatGPT for therapy [1]. FORTY EIGHT PERCENT. There is no technology humanity has ever invented that has seen genpop uptake this quickly, and its not dropping. This is not "oh, well, the internet will be popular soon, throw money at it people will eventually come". This is: "we physically cannot buy enough GPUs to satisfy demand, our services keep going down every week because so many people want to pay for this". [1] https://sentio.org/ai-blog/ai-survey https://sentio.org/ai-blog/ai-survey
- troupo 1y ago
  > But I seriously do not understand how people can see these real, hard statistics, not fake money like VC dollars You're commenting this under an article showing how deeply unprofitable most of "AI" companies are. Revenue isn't profit. Midjourney is probably the only company that is profitable. > 48% of survey respondents to a recent survey said they've used ChatGPT for therapy [1]. FORTY EIGHT PERCENT. No idea why you provide this frankly scary statistic. It's not proof that this isn't a bubble. > This is: "we physically cannot buy enough GPUs to satisfy demand, our services keep going down every week because so many people want to pay for this". It's called a mania. Manias always end.
- tim333 1y ago
  >we physically cannot buy enough GPUs to satisfy demand is caused by mispricing - VC money is used to pay for the GPUs but the product is mostly given away for free. If companies just charged the public what the service cost to provide usage would go down dramatically.

troupo 1y ago

It's a source of constant amusement to me that "arguments" used for AI are indistinguishable from "arguments" used for crypto. (With a caveat that LLMs actually do have their uses)

tim333 1y ago
I think they are somewhat distinguishable. Going by the HN consensus most people thought cryptocurrency was not much use beyond crime and gambling. On the other hand I think most people see that if AI achieves human level thinking it'll be able to do human like jobs which would be a big deal economically.
- troupo 1y ago
  That's a huge if that you can only accept if you buy into "AGI has been achieved internally" marketing.
  - tim333 1y ago
    I'm thinking more that AGI will happen within a few years. It's one of the reasons for the present financial weirdness. Throwing so much money into current AI would make no sense if it stays as it is. It only makes sense if you think the tech will improve.
    - troupo 1y ago
      You say that arguments for AI and crypto are somewhat distinguishable while presenting arguments indistinguishable from crypto. Billions of dollars were spent on crypto as well.
      - tim333 1y ago
        Crypto is going to reach human intelligence and do the jobs?

827a 1y ago

The nasdaq composite p/e at its peak during the dotcom bubble breached 200. Today we're at 40, and Nvidia alone is at 49. As much as everyone wants this to be a bubble: it isn't. ChatGPT was the fastest "thing" in history to reach 100M MAUs, and is believed to be a top 5 most visited website today, across the entire internet. Cursor was the fastest company in human history to reach $500M in revenue. Midjourney, the company no one talks about anymore, is profitable and makes over $200M in revenue. Being brutal here: HackerNews is in the bubble. Yeah, there's some froth, there's some overvaluation, some of these companies will die. But I seriously do not understand how people can see these real, hard statistics, not fake money like VC dollars or the price of bitcoin but fucking deep and real shit and still say "nah its like crypto all over again". 48% of survey respondents to a recent survey said they've used ChatGPT for therapy [1]. FORTY EIGHT PERCENT. There is no technology humanity has ever invented that has seen genpop uptake this quickly, and its not dropping. This is not "oh, well, the internet will be popular soon, throw money at it people will eventually come". This is: "we physically cannot buy enough GPUs to satisfy demand, our services keep going down every week because so many people want to pay for this". [1] https://sentio.org/ai-blog/ai-survey https://sentio.org/ai-blog/ai-survey

troupo 1y ago
> But I seriously do not understand how people can see these real, hard statistics, not fake money like VC dollars You're commenting this under an article showing how deeply unprofitable most of "AI" companies are. Revenue isn't profit. Midjourney is probably the only company that is profitable. > 48% of survey respondents to a recent survey said they've used ChatGPT for therapy [1]. FORTY EIGHT PERCENT. No idea why you provide this frankly scary statistic. It's not proof that this isn't a bubble. > This is: "we physically cannot buy enough GPUs to satisfy demand, our services keep going down every week because so many people want to pay for this". It's called a mania. Manias always end.
tim333 1y ago
>we physically cannot buy enough GPUs to satisfy demand is caused by mispricing - VC money is used to pay for the GPUs but the product is mostly given away for free. If companies just charged the public what the service cost to provide usage would go down dramatically.