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We all remember cryptocurrency. Everyone in tech proclaimed fiat was dead, every office buzzed with talk of every possible way that cryptocurrency could be used

by fontain 5mo ago

We all remember cryptocurrency. Everyone in tech proclaimed fiat was dead, every office buzzed with talk of every possible way that cryptocurrency could be used, billions of dollars flooded in to projects losing money hand over fist. The cynics reacted to the froth with outright rejection of the idea. And today… cryptocurrency exists, it has some use, but it didn’t take over the world, it didn’t kill fiat, it was useful in some areas and worthless in others. AI will be the same. The noisiest proponents will be over exaggerating. The most cynical cynics will be underestimating. The result will be somewhere in the middle. Success will not be predicated on adoption of the technology. We, nerds, are bad at predicting the impact of technology.

budman1 5mo ago
You are predicting the weather by saying tomorrow will be just like today. Which has a good track record of being right, most of the time. I agree!
andrewflnr 5mo ago
I wish people would stop comparing AI with cryptocurrency. The hype/perception was the only thing that was similar between them. The fundamental usefulness of the respective technologies are not comparable.
- dathanb82 5mo ago
  Two other similarities: they both rely on burning huge amounts of electricity, and have driven up costs of GPUs around the world.
  - CTDOCodebases 5mo ago
    The cognitive dissonance around this is astounding. First of all define productive. Would someone using AI to build software at a startup which is likely to fail be considered productive? What if there is already similar software available that solves the same problems? What about the broad use of LLMs to draft emails or make silly memes? It’s funny how everyone’s concerns around climate change just disappeared when they realised AI was useful to them.
    - gymbeaux 4mo ago
      I think it's worth noting that the "work" these LLMs are doing is digital. ChatGPT cannot plow fields, or construct buildings and roads, or otherwise interact with the physical world. LLMs are useful because humanity has evolved (devolved?) into so much intangible work- documents, code, powerpoint presentations... One solar flare and that's all wiped out, and then we can say definitively that LLMs were a waste of time and energy.
- fontain 5mo ago
  That's the fallacy. You think technology usefulness dictates the outcomes. There are billions of people living in poverty the world over, starving every day, we have the technology and resources to solve that right now, we have for decades, but we don't because we don't want to. Could AI technology change the world? Sure. Will it? That depends on so much more than what the technology can do. Why are we all still working 40 hours a week? Why are people still hungry? We could have radically changed our world with the technology we have had for decades. Yet, we have not, we have continued, nothing has really changed. The internet is a great example. What is the most impactful part of the internet today? Social media. Social media has radically changed our culture. What is social media? A database, a few endpoints and an app? The technology is the least consequential part, the consequence comes from how we use it. Nerds focus on what is possible with the technology, not what society is likely to do with it. What evidence is there that AI is going to change the world? What change is going to come from... being able to generate plausible sounding text? From being able to instruct agents? How many companies are using garbage software from 20 years ago despite dozens of revolutionarily better equivalents being available out there today that could have drastically reshaped their workforce? What are agents if not better macros? How many businesses have hundreds of employees doing the same tasks over and over again that could have been replaced by a few macros? How much of the code that you and I have written in our careers has already been written before? The fundamental usefulness is the least important part of a technology when discussing how that technology will impact the world.
  - andrewflnr 5mo ago
    What "society is likely to do" with a technology drops to zero for things that technology cannot do. That's a technical property. On the other hand, people quite reliably find unexpected uses for technology, beyond the initial hype, again, due to inherent technical properties. You're vastly overcorrecting against "nerds".
- ungreased0675 5mo ago
  One of the reasons it gets compared with crypto is because the same people who were all in on crypto schemes are now all in on AI schemes.
  - andrewflnr 5mo ago
    Yeah, that's the hype part. Those people are creatures of hype.
bluegatty 5mo ago
Almost nobody used crypto, everyone is using AI, every day for doing productive work and almost nobody would give it up. I don't understand how it's remotely reasonable to try to make the comparison.
- sevenseacat 5mo ago
  I would throw it away for everyone in an instant if it was possible.
CTDOCodebases 5mo ago
It’s a matter of timeframes too. Cryptocurrency is more popular and intertwined with the financial system than it ever was so while the claim isn’t currently true it doesn’t mean it won’t be on a long enough timeframe. If you are old enough then you would be aware that similar claims were made about email but only one country that I know of (the Netherlands) no longer processes mail. Still if we had to guess I would say that we are still early and email will replace the worlds postal systems.

by fontain 5mo ago

budman1 5mo ago

You are predicting the weather by saying tomorrow will be just like today. Which has a good track record of being right, most of the time. I agree!

andrewflnr 5mo ago

I wish people would stop comparing AI with cryptocurrency. The hype/perception was the only thing that was similar between them. The fundamental usefulness of the respective technologies are not comparable.

dathanb82 5mo ago
Two other similarities: they both rely on burning huge amounts of electricity, and have driven up costs of GPUs around the world.
- CTDOCodebases 5mo ago
  The cognitive dissonance around this is astounding. First of all define productive. Would someone using AI to build software at a startup which is likely to fail be considered productive? What if there is already similar software available that solves the same problems? What about the broad use of LLMs to draft emails or make silly memes? It’s funny how everyone’s concerns around climate change just disappeared when they realised AI was useful to them.
  - gymbeaux 4mo ago
    I think it's worth noting that the "work" these LLMs are doing is digital. ChatGPT cannot plow fields, or construct buildings and roads, or otherwise interact with the physical world. LLMs are useful because humanity has evolved (devolved?) into so much intangible work- documents, code, powerpoint presentations... One solar flare and that's all wiped out, and then we can say definitively that LLMs were a waste of time and energy.
fontain 5mo ago
That's the fallacy. You think technology usefulness dictates the outcomes. There are billions of people living in poverty the world over, starving every day, we have the technology and resources to solve that right now, we have for decades, but we don't because we don't want to. Could AI technology change the world? Sure. Will it? That depends on so much more than what the technology can do. Why are we all still working 40 hours a week? Why are people still hungry? We could have radically changed our world with the technology we have had for decades. Yet, we have not, we have continued, nothing has really changed. The internet is a great example. What is the most impactful part of the internet today? Social media. Social media has radically changed our culture. What is social media? A database, a few endpoints and an app? The technology is the least consequential part, the consequence comes from how we use it. Nerds focus on what is possible with the technology, not what society is likely to do with it. What evidence is there that AI is going to change the world? What change is going to come from... being able to generate plausible sounding text? From being able to instruct agents? How many companies are using garbage software from 20 years ago despite dozens of revolutionarily better equivalents being available out there today that could have drastically reshaped their workforce? What are agents if not better macros? How many businesses have hundreds of employees doing the same tasks over and over again that could have been replaced by a few macros? How much of the code that you and I have written in our careers has already been written before? The fundamental usefulness is the least important part of a technology when discussing how that technology will impact the world.
- andrewflnr 5mo ago
  What "society is likely to do" with a technology drops to zero for things that technology cannot do. That's a technical property. On the other hand, people quite reliably find unexpected uses for technology, beyond the initial hype, again, due to inherent technical properties. You're vastly overcorrecting against "nerds".
ungreased0675 5mo ago
One of the reasons it gets compared with crypto is because the same people who were all in on crypto schemes are now all in on AI schemes.
- andrewflnr 5mo ago
  Yeah, that's the hype part. Those people are creatures of hype.

bluegatty 5mo ago

Almost nobody used crypto, everyone is using AI, every day for doing productive work and almost nobody would give it up. I don't understand how it's remotely reasonable to try to make the comparison.

sevenseacat 5mo ago
I would throw it away for everyone in an instant if it was possible.

CTDOCodebases 5mo ago

It’s a matter of timeframes too. Cryptocurrency is more popular and intertwined with the financial system than it ever was so while the claim isn’t currently true it doesn’t mean it won’t be on a long enough timeframe. If you are old enough then you would be aware that similar claims were made about email but only one country that I know of (the Netherlands) no longer processes mail. Still if we had to guess I would say that we are still early and email will replace the worlds postal systems.