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AI companies have a financial incentive to burn more tokens than the task actually needs
by vinyl7 1mo ago
AI companies have a financial incentive to burn more tokens than the task actually needs
- Rudybega 1mo agoThis is only true if they can't saturate token production with a model that does less superfluous things. Given that they can (they're hilariously compute strained), having a model that solves tasks more quickly adds way more perceived value to users.
- ohyes 1mo agoWell they decide what a token is. So they can do less superfluous things and backfill with a weaker model.
- chrisjj 1mo agoA.k.a. theft.
- pizzafeelsright 1mo agoAgreed although the differences between the effort and reasoning is massive. I generally ship 40 hours in three with AI. I could not figure out why my delivery was behind until I started going through the logs. The thinking was extensive, the effort was beyond the original request by a magnitude of 50x
- discreteevent 1mo agoHow do you even know that it's consistently 40 hours in 3? What kind of developer ever had that kind of estimation accuracy (unless it's really repetitive) or even focuses on productivity rather than the problem like that? This sounds more like factory work than design or development. I really don't get it.
- pizzafeelsright 1mo agoWe are in new territory and not everyone gets it. I am not a developer although I have written production code but that's not what I am talking about. I know for a fact that I can do a task in a week. It may take 12 or 40 hours but it'll be done in a week. Now with AI? I can get that task done in a day. Anywhere from 3-12 hours.
- owebmaster 1mo ago> I generally ship 40 hours in three with AI. You ship 3 hours in three with AI. The old number is meaningless now.
- pizzafeelsright 1mo agoAgreed and management is becoming aware.
- DonsDiscountGas 1mo agoOnly if the customer is paying per token. If it's by subscription they're burning their own money
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- blehn 1mo agothe subscriptions all have limits. when you hit the limit you again start paying per token.
- nozzlegear 1mo agoIf you're on one of the lower tiers (e.g. the $20 tier), they still have that incentive to burn your tokens and upsell the higher tiers.
- jjk166 1mo agoBurning tokens does little to convince people that more tokens are a good use of money - especially if they are choosing between buying more of your tokens and more of your competitor's tokens.
- eli_gottlieb 1mo agoJust like me fr fr
- simianwords 1mo agonice conspiracy theory, but it doesn't hold. these companies won't last long if people don't get actual work done.
- owebmaster 1mo agoThere's a big chance these companies won't last long