5 ms·

Maybe it's time for Bell Labs 2? I guess everyone is racing towards AGI in a few years or whatever so it's kind of impossible to cultivate that environment.

belter 11mo ago
> I guess everyone is racing towards AGI in a few years A pipe dream sustaining the biggest stock market bubble in history. Smart investors are jumping to the next bubble already...Quantum...
- re-thc 11mo ago
  > A pipe dream sustaining the biggest stock market bubble in history This is why we're losing innovation. Look at electric cars, batteries, solar panels, rare earths and many more. Bubble or struggle for survival? Right, because if US has no AI the world will have no AI? That's the real bubble - being stuck in an ancient world view. Meta's stock has already tanked for "over" investing in AI. Bubble, where?
  - belter 11mo ago
    2 Trillion dollars in Capex to get code generators with hallucinations, that run at a loss, and you ask where is the Bubble?
    - re-thc 11mo ago
      > 2 Trillion dollars in Capex to get code generators with hallucinations You assume that's the only use of it. And are people not using these code generators? Is this an issue with a lost generation that forgot what Capex is? We've moved from Capex to Opex and now the notion is lost, is it? You can hire an army of software developers but can't build hardware. Is it better when everyone buys DeepSeek or a non-US version? Well then you don't need to spend Capex but you won't have revenue either.
      - littlestymaar 11mo ago
        Deepseek somehow didn't need $2T to happen.
        re-thc 11mo ago
        Because you know how much they spent. And that $2T you're referring to includes infrastructure like energy, data centers, servers and many things. DeepSeek rents from others. Someone is paying.
        anotherd1p 11mo ago
        all that led up to Deepseek needed more. don't forget where it all comes from.
        matt3D 11mo ago
        I think the argument can be made that Deepseek is a state sponsored needle looking to pop another states bubble. If Deepseek is free it undermines the value of LLMs, so the value of these US companies is mainly speculation/FOMO over AGI.
        re-thc 11mo ago
        > the argument can be made that Deepseek is a state sponsored needle looking to pop another states bubble Who says they don't make money? Same with open source software that offer a hosted version. > If Deepseek is free it undermines the value of LLMs, so the value of these US companies is mainly speculation/FOMO over AGI Freemium, open source and other models all exist. Does it undermine the value of e.g. Salesforce?
    - belter 11mo ago
      "Big Tech Needs $2 Trillion In AI Revenue By 2030 or They Wasted Their Capex" - https://www.wheresyoured.at/big-tech-2tr/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/big-tech-2tr/
  - belter 11mo ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45902246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45902246
ryukoposting 11mo ago
The Bell Labs we look back on was only the result of government intervention in the telecom monopoly. The 1956 consent decree forced Bell to license thousands of its patents, royalty free, to anyone who wanted to use them. Any patent not listed in the consent decree was to be licensed at "reasonable and nondiscriminatory rates." The US government basically forced AT&T to use revenue from its monopoly to do fundamental research for the public good. Could the government do the same thing to our modern megacorps? Absolutely! Will it? I doubt it. https://www.nytimes.com/1956/01/25/archives/att-settles-antitrust-case-shares-patents-us-hails-consent-decree.html https://www.nytimes.com/1956/01/25/archives/att-settles-anti...
- aatd86 11mo ago
  Used to be a Google X. Not sure at what scale it was. But if any state/central bank was clever they would subsidize this. That's a better trickle down strategy. Until we get to agi and all new discoveries are autonomously led by AI that is :p
  - williamDafoe 11mo ago
    Google X is a complete failure. Maybe they had fei-fei on staff for a short while but most of her work was done elsewhere.
    - aatd86 11mo ago
      Didn't the current LLMs stem from this...? Or it might be Google Brain instead. For Google X, there is Waymo? I know a lot of stuff didn't pan out. This is expected. These were 'moonshots'. But the principle is there. I think that when a company sits on a load of cash, that's what they should do. Either that or become a kind of alternative investments allocator. These are risky bets. But they should be incentivized to take those risks. From a fiscal policy standpoint for instance. Well it probably is the case already via lower taxation of capital gains and so on. But there should probably exist a more streamlined framework to make sure incentives are aligned. And/or assigned government projects? Besides implementing their Cloud infrastructure that is...
HarHarVeryFunny 11mo ago
It seems DeepMind is the closest thing to a well funded blue-sky AI research group, even despite the merger with Google Brain and now more of a product focus.
blutoot 11mo ago
[flagged]
- sllabres 11mo ago
  If you are (obviously) interested in the matter you might find one of the Bell Labs articles discussed on HN: "Why Bell Labs Worked" [1] "The Influence of Bell Labs" [2] "Bringing back the golden days of Bell Labs" [3] "Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home" [4] or "Innovation and the Bell Labs Miracle" [5] interesting too. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43957010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43957010 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42275944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42275944 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32352584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32352584 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39077867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39077867 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3635489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3635489
  - mysfi 11mo ago
    I became interested in the matter reading this thread and vaguely remember reading a couple of the articles. Saved them all in NotebookLM to get an audio overview and to read later. Thanks!
- anotherd1p 11mo ago
  I always take a bird's eye kind of view on things like that, because however close I get, it always loops around to make no sense. > is massively monopolistic and have unbounded discretionary research budget that is the case for most megacorps. if you look at all the financial instruments. modern monopolies are not equal to single corporation domination. modern monopolies are portfolios who do business using the same methods and strategies. the problem is that private interests strive mostly for control, not money or progress. if they have to spend a lot of money to stay in control of (their (share of the)) segments, they will do that, which is why stuff like the current graph of investments of, by and for AI companies and the industries works. A modern equivalent and "breadth" of a Bell Labs (et. al) kind of R&D speed could not be controlled and would 100% result in actual Artificial Intelligence vs all those white labelababbebel (sry) AI toys we get now. Post WW I and II "business psychology" have build a culture that cannot thrive in a free world (free as in undisturbed and left to all devices available) for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of elements with a medieval/dark-age kind of aggressive tendency to come to power and maintain it that way. In other words: not having a Bell Labs kind of setup anymore ensures that the variety of approaches taken on large scales aka industry-wide or systemic, remains narrow enough.
gtech1 11mo ago
This sounds crazy. We don't even know/can't define what human intelligence is or how it works , but we're trying to replicate it with AGI ?
- Obscurity4340 11mo ago
  If an LLM can pass a bar exam, isn't that at least a decent proof of concept or working model?
  - anotherd1p 11mo ago
    I love this application of AI the most but as many have stated elsewhere: mathematical precision in law won't work, or rather, won't be tolerated.
    - Obscurity4340 11mo ago
      Do you have an example that you rely on for that kind of statement?
  - skeeter2020 11mo ago
    Or does this just prove lawyers are artificially intelligent? yes, a glib response, but think about it: we define an intelligence test for humans, which by definition is an artificial construct. If we then get a computer to do well on the test we haven't proved it's on par with human intelligence, just that both meet some of the markers that the test makers are using as rough proxies for human intelligence. Maybe this helps signal or judge if AI is a useful tool for specific problems, but it doesn't mean AGI
  - staticman2 11mo ago
    I don't think the bar exam is scientifically designed to measure intelligence so that was an odd example. Citing the bar exam is like saying it passes the "Game of thrones trivia" exam so it must be intelligent. As for IQ tests and the like, to the extent they are "scientific" they are designed based on empirical observations of humans. It is not designed to measure the intelligence of a statistical system containing a compressed version of the internet.
diego_sandoval 11mo ago
The fact that people invest on the architecture that keeps getting increasingly better results is a feature, not a bug. If LLMs actually hit a plateau, then investment will flow towards other architectures.
- esafak 11mo ago
  At which point companies that had the foresight to investigate those architectures earlier on will have the lead.
blueboo 11mo ago
We call it “legacy DeepMind”
ambicapter 11mo ago
Why would Bell Labs be a good fit? It was famous for embedding engineers with the scientists to direct research in a more results-oriented fashion.
musebox35 11mo ago
Google Deepmind is the closest lab to that idea because Google is the only entity that is big enough to get close to the scale of AT&T. I was skeptical that the Deepmind and Google Brain merge would be successful but it seems to have worked surprisingly well. They are killing it with LLMs and image editing models. They are also backing the fastest growing cloud business in the world and collecting Nobel prizes along the way.
ximeng 11mo ago
https://www.startuphub.ai/ai-news/ai-research/2025/sam-altmans-episteme-aims-to-reshape-science-rd/ https://www.startuphub.ai/ai-news/ai-research/2025/sam-altma... Like the new spin out Episteme from OpenAI?
meekaaku 11mo ago
I am of the opinion that splitting AT&T and hence Bell Labs was a net negative for America and rest of the world. We are yet to create lab as foundational as Bell Labs.
red2awn 11mo ago
I'd argue SSI and Thinking Machines Lab seem to that environment you are thinking about. Industry labs that focuses on research without immediate product requirement.
- inkysigma 11mo ago
  I don't think that quite matches because those labs have very clear directions of research in LLMs. The theming is a bit more constrained and I don't know if a line of research as vague as what LeCun is pursuing would be funded by those labs.
stocksinsmocks 11mo ago
I thought that was Google. Regulators pretend not to notice their monopoly, they probably get large government contracts for social engineering and surveillance laundered through advertising, and the “don’t be evil” part is they make some open source contributions

belter 11mo ago

> I guess everyone is racing towards AGI in a few years A pipe dream sustaining the biggest stock market bubble in history. Smart investors are jumping to the next bubble already...Quantum...

re-thc 11mo ago
> A pipe dream sustaining the biggest stock market bubble in history This is why we're losing innovation. Look at electric cars, batteries, solar panels, rare earths and many more. Bubble or struggle for survival? Right, because if US has no AI the world will have no AI? That's the real bubble - being stuck in an ancient world view. Meta's stock has already tanked for "over" investing in AI. Bubble, where?
- belter 11mo ago
  2 Trillion dollars in Capex to get code generators with hallucinations, that run at a loss, and you ask where is the Bubble?
  - re-thc 11mo ago
    > 2 Trillion dollars in Capex to get code generators with hallucinations You assume that's the only use of it. And are people not using these code generators? Is this an issue with a lost generation that forgot what Capex is? We've moved from Capex to Opex and now the notion is lost, is it? You can hire an army of software developers but can't build hardware. Is it better when everyone buys DeepSeek or a non-US version? Well then you don't need to spend Capex but you won't have revenue either.
    - littlestymaar 11mo ago
      Deepseek somehow didn't need $2T to happen.
      - re-thc 11mo ago
        Because you know how much they spent. And that $2T you're referring to includes infrastructure like energy, data centers, servers and many things. DeepSeek rents from others. Someone is paying.
      - anotherd1p 11mo ago
        all that led up to Deepseek needed more. don't forget where it all comes from.
      - matt3D 11mo ago
        I think the argument can be made that Deepseek is a state sponsored needle looking to pop another states bubble. If Deepseek is free it undermines the value of LLMs, so the value of these US companies is mainly speculation/FOMO over AGI.
        re-thc 11mo ago
        > the argument can be made that Deepseek is a state sponsored needle looking to pop another states bubble Who says they don't make money? Same with open source software that offer a hosted version. > If Deepseek is free it undermines the value of LLMs, so the value of these US companies is mainly speculation/FOMO over AGI Freemium, open source and other models all exist. Does it undermine the value of e.g. Salesforce?
  - belter 11mo ago
    "Big Tech Needs $2 Trillion In AI Revenue By 2030 or They Wasted Their Capex" - https://www.wheresyoured.at/big-tech-2tr/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/big-tech-2tr/
- belter 11mo ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45902246 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45902246

ryukoposting 11mo ago

The Bell Labs we look back on was only the result of government intervention in the telecom monopoly. The 1956 consent decree forced Bell to license thousands of its patents, royalty free, to anyone who wanted to use them. Any patent not listed in the consent decree was to be licensed at "reasonable and nondiscriminatory rates." The US government basically forced AT&T to use revenue from its monopoly to do fundamental research for the public good. Could the government do the same thing to our modern megacorps? Absolutely! Will it? I doubt it. https://www.nytimes.com/1956/01/25/archives/att-settles-antitrust-case-shares-patents-us-hails-consent-decree.html https://www.nytimes.com/1956/01/25/archives/att-settles-anti...

aatd86 11mo ago
Used to be a Google X. Not sure at what scale it was. But if any state/central bank was clever they would subsidize this. That's a better trickle down strategy. Until we get to agi and all new discoveries are autonomously led by AI that is :p
- williamDafoe 11mo ago
  Google X is a complete failure. Maybe they had fei-fei on staff for a short while but most of her work was done elsewhere.
  - aatd86 11mo ago
    Didn't the current LLMs stem from this...? Or it might be Google Brain instead. For Google X, there is Waymo? I know a lot of stuff didn't pan out. This is expected. These were 'moonshots'. But the principle is there. I think that when a company sits on a load of cash, that's what they should do. Either that or become a kind of alternative investments allocator. These are risky bets. But they should be incentivized to take those risks. From a fiscal policy standpoint for instance. Well it probably is the case already via lower taxation of capital gains and so on. But there should probably exist a more streamlined framework to make sure incentives are aligned. And/or assigned government projects? Besides implementing their Cloud infrastructure that is...

HarHarVeryFunny 11mo ago

It seems DeepMind is the closest thing to a well funded blue-sky AI research group, even despite the merger with Google Brain and now more of a product focus.

blutoot 11mo ago

[flagged]

sllabres 11mo ago
If you are (obviously) interested in the matter you might find one of the Bell Labs articles discussed on HN: "Why Bell Labs Worked" [1] "The Influence of Bell Labs" [2] "Bringing back the golden days of Bell Labs" [3] "Remembering Bell Labs as legendary idea factory prepares to leave N.J. home" [4] or "Innovation and the Bell Labs Miracle" [5] interesting too. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43957010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43957010 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42275944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42275944 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32352584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32352584 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39077867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39077867 [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3635489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3635489
- mysfi 11mo ago
  I became interested in the matter reading this thread and vaguely remember reading a couple of the articles. Saved them all in NotebookLM to get an audio overview and to read later. Thanks!
anotherd1p 11mo ago
I always take a bird's eye kind of view on things like that, because however close I get, it always loops around to make no sense. > is massively monopolistic and have unbounded discretionary research budget that is the case for most megacorps. if you look at all the financial instruments. modern monopolies are not equal to single corporation domination. modern monopolies are portfolios who do business using the same methods and strategies. the problem is that private interests strive mostly for control, not money or progress. if they have to spend a lot of money to stay in control of (their (share of the)) segments, they will do that, which is why stuff like the current graph of investments of, by and for AI companies and the industries works. A modern equivalent and "breadth" of a Bell Labs (et. al) kind of R&D speed could not be controlled and would 100% result in actual Artificial Intelligence vs all those white labelababbebel (sry) AI toys we get now. Post WW I and II "business psychology" have build a culture that cannot thrive in a free world (free as in undisturbed and left to all devices available) for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of elements with a medieval/dark-age kind of aggressive tendency to come to power and maintain it that way. In other words: not having a Bell Labs kind of setup anymore ensures that the variety of approaches taken on large scales aka industry-wide or systemic, remains narrow enough.

gtech1 11mo ago

This sounds crazy. We don't even know/can't define what human intelligence is or how it works , but we're trying to replicate it with AGI ?

Obscurity4340 11mo ago
If an LLM can pass a bar exam, isn't that at least a decent proof of concept or working model?
- anotherd1p 11mo ago
  I love this application of AI the most but as many have stated elsewhere: mathematical precision in law won't work, or rather, won't be tolerated.
  - Obscurity4340 11mo ago
    Do you have an example that you rely on for that kind of statement?
- skeeter2020 11mo ago
  Or does this just prove lawyers are artificially intelligent? yes, a glib response, but think about it: we define an intelligence test for humans, which by definition is an artificial construct. If we then get a computer to do well on the test we haven't proved it's on par with human intelligence, just that both meet some of the markers that the test makers are using as rough proxies for human intelligence. Maybe this helps signal or judge if AI is a useful tool for specific problems, but it doesn't mean AGI
- staticman2 11mo ago
  I don't think the bar exam is scientifically designed to measure intelligence so that was an odd example. Citing the bar exam is like saying it passes the "Game of thrones trivia" exam so it must be intelligent. As for IQ tests and the like, to the extent they are "scientific" they are designed based on empirical observations of humans. It is not designed to measure the intelligence of a statistical system containing a compressed version of the internet.

diego_sandoval 11mo ago

The fact that people invest on the architecture that keeps getting increasingly better results is a feature, not a bug. If LLMs actually hit a plateau, then investment will flow towards other architectures.

esafak 11mo ago
At which point companies that had the foresight to investigate those architectures earlier on will have the lead.

blueboo 11mo ago

We call it “legacy DeepMind”

ambicapter 11mo ago

Why would Bell Labs be a good fit? It was famous for embedding engineers with the scientists to direct research in a more results-oriented fashion.

musebox35 11mo ago

Google Deepmind is the closest lab to that idea because Google is the only entity that is big enough to get close to the scale of AT&T. I was skeptical that the Deepmind and Google Brain merge would be successful but it seems to have worked surprisingly well. They are killing it with LLMs and image editing models. They are also backing the fastest growing cloud business in the world and collecting Nobel prizes along the way.

ximeng 11mo ago

https://www.startuphub.ai/ai-news/ai-research/2025/sam-altmans-episteme-aims-to-reshape-science-rd/ https://www.startuphub.ai/ai-news/ai-research/2025/sam-altma... Like the new spin out Episteme from OpenAI?

meekaaku 11mo ago

I am of the opinion that splitting AT&T and hence Bell Labs was a net negative for America and rest of the world. We are yet to create lab as foundational as Bell Labs.

red2awn 11mo ago

I'd argue SSI and Thinking Machines Lab seem to that environment you are thinking about. Industry labs that focuses on research without immediate product requirement.

inkysigma 11mo ago
I don't think that quite matches because those labs have very clear directions of research in LLMs. The theming is a bit more constrained and I don't know if a line of research as vague as what LeCun is pursuing would be funded by those labs.

stocksinsmocks 11mo ago

I thought that was Google. Regulators pretend not to notice their monopoly, they probably get large government contracts for social engineering and surveillance laundered through advertising, and the “don’t be evil” part is they make some open source contributions