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Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

ibtimes.co.uk

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Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#31

Post by sib »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #9
mountainriver wrote: post #2

Do folks think that this was utter negligence by the VCs, or just a pump and dump?

neither? Negligence doesn't make sense because it was the VCs own money- no duty to care. It doesn't seem like anyone cashed out either. Seems like a bad bet that went south.

>> Negligence doesn't make sense because it was the VCs own money

Almost definitionally, VCs are investing someone else's money (the people providing the capital are called the "limited partners" (LPs); the VCs who raise and invest the money are "general partners" (GPs).) The LPs are often pension funds, university endowments, and charitable organizations.

Yes, GPs do typically have a capital contribution requirement, but it's generally in the area of 1% of the fund, so the vast majority of what VCs are investing is other people's money, for which they definitely have fiduciary responsibility.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#32

Post by giarc »

Havoc wrote: post #6

I've read indications that this was always aimed at hybrid model rather than pure AI, but hard to tell now because all the news is on this indians train.

Not only that..."The deception wasn't new. As early as 2019, The Wall Street Journal exposed Builder.ai's questionable AI claim revealing that the platform relied heavily on human contractors rather than artificial intelligence."

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#33

Post by burnte »

Supermancho wrote: post #20
klipt wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all companies are equal. At the same time that Tesla was making actual electric cars, Nikola was rolling fake "electric trucks" downhill. Grifters exist, but not everyone is a grifter.

Capitalism rewards dishonesty. Every company is a grifter to some degree. This is more widespread in technical service companies.

Capitalis does no such thing, the market available to the company does. Every problem people blame on "capitalism" is solvable with appropriate regulation. That's literally the point of regulation, too. Dozens of other countries show you can have a vibrant economy that isn't beholden to a few billionaires.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#34

Post by TYPE_FASTER »

wongarsu wrote: post #24
Ancalagon wrote: post #3

Really weird considering how much AI is actually available now

If you have an idea for a cool AI startup it's faster to build your first prototype without the actual AI, just faking that part. But if your Actual Indians had 95% accuracy and you can't get an AI to do more than 85% then you are kind of stuck if you raised money and got customers pretending that your Actual Indians are Artificial Intelligence.

This is the way. Funny how AI could also stand for Actual Intelligence. Or, Artisanal Intelligence? "Now 100% organic handcrafted thoughts, unique for your business problem."

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#37

Post by givemeethekeys »

mrweasel wrote: post #29
Ancalagon wrote: post #3

Really weird considering how much AI is actually available now

Also it can't have been fast. Didn't customers and investors feel that it was weird that CoPilot spits out code as fast as you can type, but Builder.ai needs days or weeks to generate your app. Or where these Indian developers just really really fast?

Maybe they use GPT :)

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#38

Post by jampekka »

klipt wrote: post #11
immibis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost like it doesn't work as well as they market it as working?

Not all companies are equal. At the same time that Tesla was making actual electric cars, Nikola was rolling fake "electric trucks" downhill. Grifters exist, but not everyone is a grifter.

Coast-to-coast self-driving Teslas were promised by 2017. And have been promised next year almost every year since.

Tesla can make electric vehicles but the company valuagion is based on grift.

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#39

Post by rdtsc »

> Linas Beliūnas, Director of the financial company Zero Hash, recently exposed that Builder.ai lacked true AI, instead utilising a group of Indian developers who were merely pretending to be bots writing code.

They probably had to train people to talk like ChatGPT.

Step 0: Make sure you have an em dash shortcut on your keyboard and use that as often as possible.

Step 1: Be extremely polite and apologize profusely.

Step 2: ...

Re: Builder.ai Collapses: $1.5B 'AI' Startup Exposed as 'Indians'?

#40

Post by jampekka »

burnte wrote: post #33
Supermancho wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism rewards dishonesty. Every company is a grifter to some degree. This is more widespread in technical service companies.

Capitalis does no such thing, the market available to the company does. Every problem people blame on "capitalism" is solvable with appropriate regulation. That's literally the point of regulation, too. Dozens of other countries show you can have a vibrant economy that isn't beholden to a few billionaires.

> Every problem people blame on "capitalism" is solvable with appropriate regulation.

Capitalism makes capitalism hard to appropriately regulate. Concentration of capital means concentration of power.

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