5 ms·

At this point its a sunk cost fallacy

rhetocj23 1y ago
Yeah Im just waiting for this to finally play out. If you understand product design, economics, corporate finance and various other disciplines well - its obvious what is going on. MSFT wants to juice their numbers for the next earnings call to keep the mania going. Zzzzzzzzzzz Ive spoken to people who work in the finance sector - portfolio management and tax audit - they laugh hysterically at how bad the tools are (copilot in particular) and resent how much they are being pushed down on them.
toomuchtodo 1y ago
I think it's more nuanced than that. Microsoft is desperate for growth in a growth challenged macro, and Nadella has guided valuations and stock targets that are simply unobtainable without this growth. That's one part of the AI slop shovel. The second part is institutions that are desperate to cut labor costs or find other efficiency gains to maintain historical financial performance targets during ZIRP that are simply no longer obtainable. They are willing to push their workers through the sausage machine of "AI" to try to make it happen. And so the performance art must continue, at least until the AI investment music stops. Your options are get rich if in a position to (due to irrational exuberance and unsophisticated capital investment), or play along until the facade falls to keep your job. "It is what it is."
- rhetocj23 1y ago
  Yes but the sunk cost is also driving that - the investment has to show growth in cashflows, to the extent it is beating the hurdle rate to add value.
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    Ahh, Microsoft's AI capital investment sunk cost fallacy, certainly, I agree with that. The stock will be punished when the investment does not show cashflow returns for sure. MSFT: Microsoft CEO Offloads $75 Million in Stock Amid AI Boom - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/msft-microsoft-ceo-offloads-75-125857099.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/msft-microsoft-ceo-offloads-7... - September 5th, 2025
- blibble 1y ago
  > Nadella has guided valuations and stock targets that are simply unobtainable without this growth I read a couple of articles and he seems to have been completely suckered in by the damn thing from https://archive.is/oWbZB#selection-2387.572-2401.668 https://archive.is/oWbZB#selection-2387.572-2401.668 > Copilot consumes Nadella’s life outside the office as well. He likes podcasts, but instead of listening to them, he loads transcripts into the Copilot app on his iPhone so he can chat with the voice assistant about the content of an episode in the car on his commute to Redmond. At the office, he relies on Copilot to deliver summaries of messages he receives in Outlook and Teams and toggles among at least 10 custom agents from Copilot Studio. He views them as his AI chiefs of staff, delegating meeting prep, research and other tasks to the bots. “I’m an email typist,” Nadella jokes of his job, noting that Copilot is thankfully very good at triaging his messages. this is no different to ending up in an alternate reality populated by your AI "girlfriends" and will produce similar results
  - lukan 1y ago
    But if real, indicates, that he does take it serious. Eat your own dogfood and all that. I do not see it as AI girlfriend. I see it as pushing the limits of the technology for productivity. " Copilot is thankfully very good at triaging his messages" But .. I would never do that, without also having a human check what important bits don't get through.
  - ares623 1y ago
    At some point a mistake will be made that will be very embarrassing for someone that matters
  - AlotOfReading 1y ago
    People have "satired" similar hypotheticals about Sam Altman [0], and we know it's happened with people like Blake lemoine. It makes me curious how much, if any, of the current LLM hype is simply coming from people who are dealing with the ELIZA effect. [0] https://medium.com/where-thought-bends/the-7-trillion-delusion-was-sam-altman-the-first-real-case-of-chatgpt-psychosis-949b6d89ec55 https://medium.com/where-thought-bends/the-7-trillion-delusi...
- bigbadfeline 1y ago
  > institutions that are desperate to cut labor costs... I wonder if those who resist copilot aren't driven by the nascent feeling they are training their replacement. > ... to maintain historical financial performance targets during ZIRP that are simply no longer obtainable. If all else fails, they can ZIRP back to fantasy land and avoid being the losers by shifting it to the public once again.
rasz 1y ago
Microsoft really wants that AI company valuation.

Yeah Im just waiting for this to finally play out. If you understand product design, economics, corporate finance and various other disciplines well - its obvious what is going on. MSFT wants to juice their numbers for the next earnings call to keep the mania going. Zzzzzzzzzzz Ive spoken to people who work in the finance sector - portfolio management and tax audit - they laugh hysterically at how bad the tools are (copilot in particular) and resent how much they are being pushed down on them.

toomuchtodo 1y ago

I think it's more nuanced than that. Microsoft is desperate for growth in a growth challenged macro, and Nadella has guided valuations and stock targets that are simply unobtainable without this growth. That's one part of the AI slop shovel. The second part is institutions that are desperate to cut labor costs or find other efficiency gains to maintain historical financial performance targets during ZIRP that are simply no longer obtainable. They are willing to push their workers through the sausage machine of "AI" to try to make it happen. And so the performance art must continue, at least until the AI investment music stops. Your options are get rich if in a position to (due to irrational exuberance and unsophisticated capital investment), or play along until the facade falls to keep your job. "It is what it is."

rhetocj23 1y ago
Yes but the sunk cost is also driving that - the investment has to show growth in cashflows, to the extent it is beating the hurdle rate to add value.
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Ahh, Microsoft's AI capital investment sunk cost fallacy, certainly, I agree with that. The stock will be punished when the investment does not show cashflow returns for sure. MSFT: Microsoft CEO Offloads $75 Million in Stock Amid AI Boom - https://finance.yahoo.com/news/msft-microsoft-ceo-offloads-75-125857099.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/msft-microsoft-ceo-offloads-7... - September 5th, 2025
blibble 1y ago
> Nadella has guided valuations and stock targets that are simply unobtainable without this growth I read a couple of articles and he seems to have been completely suckered in by the damn thing from https://archive.is/oWbZB#selection-2387.572-2401.668 https://archive.is/oWbZB#selection-2387.572-2401.668 > Copilot consumes Nadella’s life outside the office as well. He likes podcasts, but instead of listening to them, he loads transcripts into the Copilot app on his iPhone so he can chat with the voice assistant about the content of an episode in the car on his commute to Redmond. At the office, he relies on Copilot to deliver summaries of messages he receives in Outlook and Teams and toggles among at least 10 custom agents from Copilot Studio. He views them as his AI chiefs of staff, delegating meeting prep, research and other tasks to the bots. “I’m an email typist,” Nadella jokes of his job, noting that Copilot is thankfully very good at triaging his messages. this is no different to ending up in an alternate reality populated by your AI "girlfriends" and will produce similar results
- lukan 1y ago
  But if real, indicates, that he does take it serious. Eat your own dogfood and all that. I do not see it as AI girlfriend. I see it as pushing the limits of the technology for productivity. " Copilot is thankfully very good at triaging his messages" But .. I would never do that, without also having a human check what important bits don't get through.
- ares623 1y ago
  At some point a mistake will be made that will be very embarrassing for someone that matters
- AlotOfReading 1y ago
  People have "satired" similar hypotheticals about Sam Altman [0], and we know it's happened with people like Blake lemoine. It makes me curious how much, if any, of the current LLM hype is simply coming from people who are dealing with the ELIZA effect. [0] https://medium.com/where-thought-bends/the-7-trillion-delusion-was-sam-altman-the-first-real-case-of-chatgpt-psychosis-949b6d89ec55 https://medium.com/where-thought-bends/the-7-trillion-delusi...
bigbadfeline 1y ago
> institutions that are desperate to cut labor costs... I wonder if those who resist copilot aren't driven by the nascent feeling they are training their replacement. > ... to maintain historical financial performance targets during ZIRP that are simply no longer obtainable. If all else fails, they can ZIRP back to fantasy land and avoid being the losers by shifting it to the public once again.

rasz 1y ago

Microsoft really wants that AI company valuation.