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Do AI companies work?

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Re: Do AI companies work?

#121

Post by SoftTalker »

alexashka wrote: post #118
bhouston wrote: post #90

I think we are in the middle of a steep S-curve of technology innovation. It is far from plateauing and there are still a bunch of major innovations that are likely to shift things even further. Interesting time and these companies are riding a wild wave. It is likely some will actually win big, but most will die - similar to previous technology revolutions. The ones that win will win not just on technology, but on t…

> I think we are in the middle of a steep S-curve of technology innovation We are? What innovation? What do we need innovation for ? What present societal problems can tech innovation possibly address? Surely none of the big ones, right? So then is it fit to call technological change - 'innovation'? I'd agree that LLMs improve upon having to read Wikipedia for topics I'm interested in but would investing billions in…

One of Google's founding goals was "organizing human knowledge" IIRC. They ended up being an ad company.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#122

Post by ActionHank »

bhouston wrote: post #90

I think we are in the middle of a steep S-curve of technology innovation. It is far from plateauing and there are still a bunch of major innovations that are likely to shift things even further. Interesting time and these companies are riding a wild wave. It is likely some will actually win big, but most will die - similar to previous technology revolutions. The ones that win will win not just on technology, but on t…

The car wasn't a horse that was better, but a car has not changed drastically since they went mainstream.

They've gotten better, more efficient, loaded with tech, but are still roughly 4 seats, 4 doors, 4 wheels, driven by petroleum.

I know that this is a massive oversimplification, but I think we have seen the "shape" of LLMs\Gen AI\AI products already and it's all incremental improvements from here on out with more specialization.

We are going to have SUVs, sports cars, and single seater cars, not flying cars. AI will be made more fit for purpose for more people to use, but isn't going to replace people outright in their jobs.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#123

Post by SoftTalker »

bradhilton wrote: post #114

Kind of feels like the ride-sharing early days. Lots of capital being plowed into a handful of companies to grab market share. Economics don't really make sense in the short term because the vast majority of cash flows are still far in the future (Zero to One). In the end the best funded company, Uber, is now the most valuable (~$150B). Lyft, the second best funded, is 30x smaller. Are there any other serious ride sh…

It took 15 years for Uber to turn a profit. Will AI investors have that much patience?

Re: Do AI companies work?

#124

Post by dj_axl »

bradhilton wrote: post #114

Kind of feels like the ride-sharing early days. Lots of capital being plowed into a handful of companies to grab market share. Economics don't really make sense in the short term because the vast majority of cash flows are still far in the future (Zero to One). In the end the best funded company, Uber, is now the most valuable (~$150B). Lyft, the second best funded, is 30x smaller. Are there any other serious ride sh…

You're perhaps forgetting Waymo at $30B

Re: Do AI companies work?

#125

Post by xenospn »

benrutter wrote: post #95
analog31 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On an amusing note, I've read something similar: Everything that works stops being called philosophy. Science and math being the two familiar examples.

Just in case anyone's curious, this is from Bertrand Russell's "the history of philosophy". > As soon as definite knowledge concerning any subject becomes possible, this subject ceases to be called philosophy, and becomes a separate science. I'm not actually sure I agree with it, especially in light of less provable schools of science like string theory or some branches of economics, but it's a great idea.

Is this why almost all CompSci PhDs are actually “doctor of philosophy”?

Re: Do AI companies work?

#126

Post by marcosdumay »

bradhilton wrote: post #114

Kind of feels like the ride-sharing early days. Lots of capital being plowed into a handful of companies to grab market share. Economics don't really make sense in the short term because the vast majority of cash flows are still far in the future (Zero to One). In the end the best funded company, Uber, is now the most valuable (~$150B). Lyft, the second best funded, is 30x smaller. Are there any other serious ride sh…

Is Uber profitable already or are they waiting for another order of magnitude increase in scale before they bother with that?

Amazon is the poster-child of that mentality. It spent more than it earned into growth for more than 20 years, got a monopoly on retail, and still isn't the most profitable retail company around.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#127

Post by xenospn »

flappyeagle wrote: post #2

This is like when VCs were funding all kinds of ride share, bike share, food delivery, cannabis delivery, and burning money so everyone gets subsidized stuff while the market figures out wtf is going on. I love it. More goodies for us

Unless we’re trying to get an actual company funded without giving away our worthless product for free.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#128

Post by overcast »

martin_drapeau wrote: post #101

The fundamental question is how to monetize AI? I see 2 paths: - Consumers - the Google way: search and advertise to consumers - Businesses - the AWS way: attrack businesses to use your API and lock them in The first is fickle. Will OpenAI become the door to the Internet? You'll need people to stop using Google Search and rely on ChatGPT for that to happen. Will become a commodity. Short term you can charge a subscri…

My guess would be using "AI" to increase/enhance sales with your existing processes. Pay for this product, get 20% increased sales, ad revenue, yada yada.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#129

Post by SoftTalker »

Leherenn wrote: post #112
Terr_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What on earth would cardiologists use a Large Language Model for, except drafting fluff for journals? Safely and effectively, that is. Dangerous and inappropriate is obviously a much wider set of possibilities.

Like some kind of linter? The cardiologist checks the ECG, compare with the LLM results and checks the difference. If it can reduce error rate by like 10%, that's already really good. My current stance on LLM is that it's good for stuff which is painful to generate, but easy to check (for you). It's easier/faster to read an email than to write it. If you're a domain expert, you can check the output, and so on. The da…

> trusting it implicitly because it is usually working

I think this danger is understated. Humans are really prone to developing expectations based on past observations and then not thinking very critically about or paying attention to those things once those expectations are established. This is why "self driving" cars that work most of the time but demand that the driver remain attentive and prepared to take over are such a bad idea.

Re: Do AI companies work?

#130

Post by matchagaucho »

>2) pushing the frontier further out will likely get more difficult.

The upside risk is premised on this point. It'll get so cost prohibitive to build frontier models that only 2-3 players will be left standing (to monetize).

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