5 ms·

I disagree frankly, as the next wave is clearly fully autonomous businesses.

notarobot123 6mo ago
Agreed, "fully autonomous businesses" is the evolutionary next step for spam. Spamcorp services are the future. Don't resist it, that would be futile.
- jcgrillo 6mo ago
  Onion routing but for shell companies instead of packets
ToucanLoucan 6mo ago
I challenge you to explain a business plan for a fully automated business that isn't at least a bit shady.
- neom 6mo ago
  Any business can be run in a shady manner if the human decided. One fully automated business I think could exist and might be useful is apartment/condo rental. I'd pay a business $100 for a proper report on the rentals available in a city that meet a criteria and are amalgamated from all the the various platforms. Doing it yourself (at least in Canada) means creating accounts on a bunch of platforms, and the process is very tedious.
  - ToucanLoucan 6mo ago
    > Any business can be run in a shady manner if the human decided. No kidding. > One fully automated business I think could exist and might be useful is apartment/condo rental. We're starting strong on the category of businesses that generate no actual value and just scrape an amount of value out of existing transactions that would've happened anyway, i.e., rent-seeking. But good for you, you can now artificially shrink the supply of limited-availability goods in the market, then gate access to them behind a paywall, and you don't even have to do the minimal amount of actual work required to fleece strangers for part of their paycheck while creating no value.
    - neom 6mo ago
      So basically you didn’t ask your original question in good faith. Got it. Thanks for wasting my time.
      - jcgrillo 6mo ago
        Could there be a simpler explanation?
      - deleted 6mo ago
        [deleted]
    - kortilla 6mo ago
      Despite paying rent for an apartment, it’s not rent-seeking. You get a place to live out of it that wouldn’t exist without the owner renting it to you. Rent-seeking is a very specific economic term where a party inserts themselves into a transaction and takes a cut without providing anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking Being a landlord comes with significant responsibilities and even principal investment risk.
      - chimeracoder 6mo ago
        > Despite paying rent for an apartment, it’s not rent-seeking. You get a place to live out of it that wouldn’t exist without the owner renting it to you. > Rent-seeking is a very specific economic term where a party inserts themselves into a transaction and takes a cut without providing anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking > Being a landlord comes with significant responsibilities and even principal investment risk. Economist here. Yes, this was a correct use of the term "rent-seeking behavior". It's actually quite funny to see someone try to argue otherwise, when the name was chosen because this is, literally, the textbook example.
        kortilla 6mo ago
        It is not the textbook example. The textbook example is regulatory capture where people put in an artificial gate and charge people to cross it. Everything functioned fine without the gate and nothing was improved by the gate. An apartment LEASE is literally nothing like that. You’re borrowing something you don’t have and it’s a rivalrous good so other people can’t use it while you are. Renting (leasing) a car, an apartment, or any other good like that is not rent seeking behavior. No actual economist would argue that because it dilutes the term to something completely meaningless.
  - justinclift 6mo ago
    > I'd pay a business $100 for a proper report on the rentals available in a city I'm curious about things of this nature, where it seems like a case of "this information is important to me and I want accurate results". But then the talk of automation seems to exclude careful human review of those results, which is needed to stop hallucinations from making their way to customers.
  - jensensbutton 6mo ago
    > I'd pay a business $100 for a proper report on the rentals available in a city that meet a criteria and are amalgamated from all the the various platforms. If this can be fully automated then you can just ask your own agent to do this and wouldn't need a business for it. And agents can already fill out web forms just fine.
    - neom 6mo ago
      Well like most rich guys, I have an assistant, so I don't need or use "agents" - maybe my assistant could learn to use "agents" - but her core competency isn't, nor should it be, learning to use AI agents in any meaningful way. Maybe she could outsource it to someone who got their agents to do it for her for $100.... Same with my little sister who has a 5 year old and a 2 year old and doesn't really know how a computer works never mind what AI agents are.
- skinfaxi 6mo ago
  Market making?
- axus 6mo ago
  Coordinating philanthropy and charity ? Low-commission employee recruiter? I'm thinking any intermediary that's not producing something new.
- pixel_popping 6mo ago
  An average SaaS?
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
reaperducer 6mo ago
I disagree frankly, as the next wave is clearly fully autonomous businesses. Considering the disaster of that AI-powered store in San Francisco, I'm skeptical that this could happen in the next wave. Or even the next ocean. (WSJ article from a few weeks ago stated that the "AI" can't stop ordering candles, and manages the staff so poorly that sometimes there are no employees scheduled for some shifts.)
- TychoCelchuuu 6mo ago
  [dead]
kjkjadksj 6mo ago
Who do you sell to when there are no more humans??
- grey-area 6mo ago
  Apparently Cloudflare have decided they'll sell to the agents instead.
  - pixel_popping 6mo ago
    Exactly, because they understood that a ton of businesses will be entirely managed without humans and they are right.
    - grey-area 6mo ago
      We'll see how this shakes out - to me it is more reminiscent of the boom in bitcoin and associated shitcoins a few years ago, where boosters thought they were going to take over finance and replace our financial institutions in a tech revolution involving NFTs, apps built on blockchain and all money moving to blockchains and everyone not accepting that a revolution was taking place was not going to make it. That didn't play out quite how the cheerleaders expected (though the value of Bitcoin at least is still high, NFTs and all the actual use-cases for Bitcoin fell through). I suspect we'll see something similar for LLMs, frankly they're nowhere near good enough for unsupervised use, and if you think they are, good luck to you in building a business on them.
LocalH 6mo ago
Nobody wants Manna outside of the billionaire class Which means it will be forced upon everyone

Agreed, "fully autonomous businesses" is the evolutionary next step for spam. Spamcorp services are the future. Don't resist it, that would be futile.

jcgrillo 6mo ago
Onion routing but for shell companies instead of packets

ToucanLoucan 6mo ago

I challenge you to explain a business plan for a fully automated business that isn't at least a bit shady.

neom 6mo ago
Any business can be run in a shady manner if the human decided. One fully automated business I think could exist and might be useful is apartment/condo rental. I'd pay a business $100 for a proper report on the rentals available in a city that meet a criteria and are amalgamated from all the the various platforms. Doing it yourself (at least in Canada) means creating accounts on a bunch of platforms, and the process is very tedious.
- ToucanLoucan 6mo ago
  > Any business can be run in a shady manner if the human decided. No kidding. > One fully automated business I think could exist and might be useful is apartment/condo rental. We're starting strong on the category of businesses that generate no actual value and just scrape an amount of value out of existing transactions that would've happened anyway, i.e., rent-seeking. But good for you, you can now artificially shrink the supply of limited-availability goods in the market, then gate access to them behind a paywall, and you don't even have to do the minimal amount of actual work required to fleece strangers for part of their paycheck while creating no value.
  - neom 6mo ago
    So basically you didn’t ask your original question in good faith. Got it. Thanks for wasting my time.
    - jcgrillo 6mo ago
      Could there be a simpler explanation?
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
  - kortilla 6mo ago
    Despite paying rent for an apartment, it’s not rent-seeking. You get a place to live out of it that wouldn’t exist without the owner renting it to you. Rent-seeking is a very specific economic term where a party inserts themselves into a transaction and takes a cut without providing anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking Being a landlord comes with significant responsibilities and even principal investment risk.
    - chimeracoder 6mo ago
      > Despite paying rent for an apartment, it’s not rent-seeking. You get a place to live out of it that wouldn’t exist without the owner renting it to you. > Rent-seeking is a very specific economic term where a party inserts themselves into a transaction and takes a cut without providing anything: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking > Being a landlord comes with significant responsibilities and even principal investment risk. Economist here. Yes, this was a correct use of the term "rent-seeking behavior". It's actually quite funny to see someone try to argue otherwise, when the name was chosen because this is, literally, the textbook example.
      - kortilla 6mo ago
        It is not the textbook example. The textbook example is regulatory capture where people put in an artificial gate and charge people to cross it. Everything functioned fine without the gate and nothing was improved by the gate. An apartment LEASE is literally nothing like that. You’re borrowing something you don’t have and it’s a rivalrous good so other people can’t use it while you are. Renting (leasing) a car, an apartment, or any other good like that is not rent seeking behavior. No actual economist would argue that because it dilutes the term to something completely meaningless.
- justinclift 6mo ago
  > I'd pay a business $100 for a proper report on the rentals available in a city I'm curious about things of this nature, where it seems like a case of "this information is important to me and I want accurate results". But then the talk of automation seems to exclude careful human review of those results, which is needed to stop hallucinations from making their way to customers.
- jensensbutton 6mo ago
  > I'd pay a business $100 for a proper report on the rentals available in a city that meet a criteria and are amalgamated from all the the various platforms. If this can be fully automated then you can just ask your own agent to do this and wouldn't need a business for it. And agents can already fill out web forms just fine.
  - neom 6mo ago
    Well like most rich guys, I have an assistant, so I don't need or use "agents" - maybe my assistant could learn to use "agents" - but her core competency isn't, nor should it be, learning to use AI agents in any meaningful way. Maybe she could outsource it to someone who got their agents to do it for her for $100.... Same with my little sister who has a 5 year old and a 2 year old and doesn't really know how a computer works never mind what AI agents are.
skinfaxi 6mo ago
Market making?
axus 6mo ago
Coordinating philanthropy and charity ? Low-commission employee recruiter? I'm thinking any intermediary that's not producing something new.
pixel_popping 6mo ago
An average SaaS?
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

reaperducer 6mo ago

I disagree frankly, as the next wave is clearly fully autonomous businesses. Considering the disaster of that AI-powered store in San Francisco, I'm skeptical that this could happen in the next wave. Or even the next ocean. (WSJ article from a few weeks ago stated that the "AI" can't stop ordering candles, and manages the staff so poorly that sometimes there are no employees scheduled for some shifts.)

TychoCelchuuu 6mo ago
[dead]

kjkjadksj 6mo ago

Who do you sell to when there are no more humans??

grey-area 6mo ago
Apparently Cloudflare have decided they'll sell to the agents instead.
- pixel_popping 6mo ago
  Exactly, because they understood that a ton of businesses will be entirely managed without humans and they are right.
  - grey-area 6mo ago
    We'll see how this shakes out - to me it is more reminiscent of the boom in bitcoin and associated shitcoins a few years ago, where boosters thought they were going to take over finance and replace our financial institutions in a tech revolution involving NFTs, apps built on blockchain and all money moving to blockchains and everyone not accepting that a revolution was taking place was not going to make it. That didn't play out quite how the cheerleaders expected (though the value of Bitcoin at least is still high, NFTs and all the actual use-cases for Bitcoin fell through). I suspect we'll see something similar for LLMs, frankly they're nowhere near good enough for unsupervised use, and if you think they are, good luck to you in building a business on them.

LocalH 6mo ago

Nobody wants Manna outside of the billionaire class Which means it will be forced upon everyone