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> There are good use cases for machine learning, AI, etc. But sadly, the best ones are masked by the hype-train AI junk that is either useless or incredibly exp

> There are good use cases for machine learning, AI, etc. But sadly, the best ones are masked by the hype-train AI junk that is either useless or incredibly expensive in comparison to the amount of money being charged for it. so ive been in the industry ~8 years now, and this is the exact same discussion that was held during the NFT/blockchain hype. this cycle seems inevitable for any new disruptive tech.

lucisferre 1y ago
Does NFT/blockchain actually have a cycle? I have not seen any real killer use cases. AI may be overhyped but the actual use cases and potential ones seem very clear.
- samcat116 1y ago
  I think we’ll start to see a bunch of fintech companies use stablecoins for things, but as more of an implementation detail and not really a speculative market like it was before.
  - WJW 1y ago
    Well stablecoins by design cannot really fluctuate a lot in value (unless they collapse), so speculation on them is pretty much out. It's still pretty unclear to me why you'd actually want a blockchain for managing it though, rather than a traditional database hosted by the central bank that is responsible for the currency that the stablecoin is following. You'd get vastly more throughput at much lower costs, and it's not like you really need decentralization for such a system anyway. The stablecoin is backed by something the central bank already has authority over.
    - galenmarchetti 1y ago
      then why hasn't the central bank done this yet
      - WJW 1y ago
        Depends. Several central banks are working on exactly that, see for example the recent speech by the FED and the whole GENIUS act regulation framework. But to be honest where I am (northwest Europe) we already have subsecond person-to-person transactions via the normal banking system, no matter which bank the sender and receiver use. So stablecoin-ifying the Euro wouldn't make a huge difference. There might be more to gain if the region doesn't have that kind of payment infrastructure yet.
- mikepurvis 1y ago
  I agree that this is an odd comparison— blockchain and especially NFTs really are a scam and a pyramid scheme, whereas modern generative AI has dozens of real applications where it's already been massively disruptive. Maybe compare with something the development of motion pictures, with dozens of small studios trying different approaches to storytelling, different formats, etc, with live performances being the legacy thing getting disrupted. And then the market rapidly maturing and being consolidated down to a few winners that lasted for decades.
- filoleg 1y ago
  Blockchain does, NFTs not so much.
- kelvinjps10 1y ago
  I don't know about NFT, but blockains allows to me to send money to my Family in usdt/usdc for cents on the dollars, and for example in countries like Venezuela besides using it for receiving and sending money some people use it to save money because you cannot trust in the government and banks
  - drivebyhooting 1y ago
    That’s because organized crime provides the demand and liquidity needed for cryptocurrency. Without cartels and the like trying to bypass money laundering and capital control laws you would not easily transfer bitcoin to and from Venezuela.
  - roland35 1y ago
    I feel like this isn't really a new or novel thing? Storing cash in a bank has risks, storing crypto in any sort of method also has risks, right? Sadly for those in unstable countries there are lots more risks in life, including financial. I'm not sure crypto is the best long term solution here
- warrenm 1y ago
  The valid use cases for blockchain are relatively few The use cases where it gets applied are far more than the valid ones As for NFTs ... there never was (and never will be) a valid use case - it does not matter if you "own" a digital asset (like an image): a screenshot of it is good enough for 99.99999...% of people, so why pay for the "real" thing?
  - lazystar 1y ago
    > The use cases where it gets applied are far more than the valid ones Yeah, and im seeing the same pattern with AI i think
fabian2k 1y ago
NFTs never had a real use case. Blockchains do have limited use, and cryptocurrencies are different enough that I don't think it's a valid comparison.
filoleg 1y ago
The difference is that NFT always seemed to be just hype for hype’s sake, with zero functional/helpful use-case at all. No, “trading cards [more like hashes/serial numbers receipts of those tbh], but digital” is not a functional use-case. And afaik, that was the only use of NFTs that actually worked. The whole “omg you can buy skin in this one game as an nft, and then have it across multiple games” (as well as other bs of a similar nature) was always a ridiculous thing, as it still requires gamedevs to collab and actually do all the required integration work (which is rather infeasible). And even if they decided to ever do that, they would almost certainly find it much easier to accomplish without relying on NFT tech. AI also has a ton of hype and pipedreams that are vaporware, of course (just look at all the batches of chatgpt wrapper startups in thr past couple of years). However, what the AI hype has (that NFT never did) is a number of actual functional use-cases, and people utilize it heavily for actual work/productivity/daily help with great success. Claud Code/Gemini CLI alone can be such a boon in the hands of a good software engineer, it is undeniable.
- bigstrat2003 1y ago
  AI also doesn't have good use cases yet. It sucks at the one thing it's supposed to be good at (writing code).
  - Ukv 1y ago
    Transcription, translation, material/product defect detection, weather forecasting/early warning systems, OCR, spam filtering, protein folding, tumor segmentation, drug discovery/interaction prediction, etc. seem fairly promising to me, with machine learning approaches often blowing traditional approaches out of the water. I feel the idea that there's only "one thing it's supposed to be good at (writing code)" is largely down to availability bias, in that we're in programming circles where LLM code completion gets talked about a lot. ChatGPT reportedly has 700 million weekly users - I'd assume many using it for tasks that I'm not even aware of (automating some tedious/repetitive part of their job).
  - dwaltrip 1y ago
    If Terence Tao says it can save hours of work for him, you might be holding it wrong.

lucisferre 1y ago

Does NFT/blockchain actually have a cycle? I have not seen any real killer use cases. AI may be overhyped but the actual use cases and potential ones seem very clear.

samcat116 1y ago
I think we’ll start to see a bunch of fintech companies use stablecoins for things, but as more of an implementation detail and not really a speculative market like it was before.
- WJW 1y ago
  Well stablecoins by design cannot really fluctuate a lot in value (unless they collapse), so speculation on them is pretty much out. It's still pretty unclear to me why you'd actually want a blockchain for managing it though, rather than a traditional database hosted by the central bank that is responsible for the currency that the stablecoin is following. You'd get vastly more throughput at much lower costs, and it's not like you really need decentralization for such a system anyway. The stablecoin is backed by something the central bank already has authority over.
  - galenmarchetti 1y ago
    then why hasn't the central bank done this yet
    - WJW 1y ago
      Depends. Several central banks are working on exactly that, see for example the recent speech by the FED and the whole GENIUS act regulation framework. But to be honest where I am (northwest Europe) we already have subsecond person-to-person transactions via the normal banking system, no matter which bank the sender and receiver use. So stablecoin-ifying the Euro wouldn't make a huge difference. There might be more to gain if the region doesn't have that kind of payment infrastructure yet.
mikepurvis 1y ago
I agree that this is an odd comparison— blockchain and especially NFTs really are a scam and a pyramid scheme, whereas modern generative AI has dozens of real applications where it's already been massively disruptive. Maybe compare with something the development of motion pictures, with dozens of small studios trying different approaches to storytelling, different formats, etc, with live performances being the legacy thing getting disrupted. And then the market rapidly maturing and being consolidated down to a few winners that lasted for decades.
filoleg 1y ago
Blockchain does, NFTs not so much.
kelvinjps10 1y ago
I don't know about NFT, but blockains allows to me to send money to my Family in usdt/usdc for cents on the dollars, and for example in countries like Venezuela besides using it for receiving and sending money some people use it to save money because you cannot trust in the government and banks
- drivebyhooting 1y ago
  That’s because organized crime provides the demand and liquidity needed for cryptocurrency. Without cartels and the like trying to bypass money laundering and capital control laws you would not easily transfer bitcoin to and from Venezuela.
- roland35 1y ago
  I feel like this isn't really a new or novel thing? Storing cash in a bank has risks, storing crypto in any sort of method also has risks, right? Sadly for those in unstable countries there are lots more risks in life, including financial. I'm not sure crypto is the best long term solution here
warrenm 1y ago
The valid use cases for blockchain are relatively few The use cases where it gets applied are far more than the valid ones As for NFTs ... there never was (and never will be) a valid use case - it does not matter if you "own" a digital asset (like an image): a screenshot of it is good enough for 99.99999...% of people, so why pay for the "real" thing?
- lazystar 1y ago
  > The use cases where it gets applied are far more than the valid ones Yeah, and im seeing the same pattern with AI i think

fabian2k 1y ago

NFTs never had a real use case. Blockchains do have limited use, and cryptocurrencies are different enough that I don't think it's a valid comparison.

filoleg 1y ago

The difference is that NFT always seemed to be just hype for hype’s sake, with zero functional/helpful use-case at all. No, “trading cards [more like hashes/serial numbers receipts of those tbh], but digital” is not a functional use-case. And afaik, that was the only use of NFTs that actually worked. The whole “omg you can buy skin in this one game as an nft, and then have it across multiple games” (as well as other bs of a similar nature) was always a ridiculous thing, as it still requires gamedevs to collab and actually do all the required integration work (which is rather infeasible). And even if they decided to ever do that, they would almost certainly find it much easier to accomplish without relying on NFT tech. AI also has a ton of hype and pipedreams that are vaporware, of course (just look at all the batches of chatgpt wrapper startups in thr past couple of years). However, what the AI hype has (that NFT never did) is a number of actual functional use-cases, and people utilize it heavily for actual work/productivity/daily help with great success. Claud Code/Gemini CLI alone can be such a boon in the hands of a good software engineer, it is undeniable.

bigstrat2003 1y ago
AI also doesn't have good use cases yet. It sucks at the one thing it's supposed to be good at (writing code).
- Ukv 1y ago
  Transcription, translation, material/product defect detection, weather forecasting/early warning systems, OCR, spam filtering, protein folding, tumor segmentation, drug discovery/interaction prediction, etc. seem fairly promising to me, with machine learning approaches often blowing traditional approaches out of the water. I feel the idea that there's only "one thing it's supposed to be good at (writing code)" is largely down to availability bias, in that we're in programming circles where LLM code completion gets talked about a lot. ChatGPT reportedly has 700 million weekly users - I'd assume many using it for tasks that I'm not even aware of (automating some tedious/repetitive part of their job).
- dwaltrip 1y ago
  If Terence Tao says it can save hours of work for him, you might be holding it wrong.