Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

telegraph.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 936 posts

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#601

Post by tracker1 »

I'm somewhere in the middle on this, with regards to the ROI... this isn't the kind of thing where you see immediate reflection on quarterly returns... it's the kind of thing where if you don't hedge some bets, you're likely to completely die out from a generational shift.

Facebook's product is eyeballs... they're being usurped on all sides between TikTok, X and BlueSky in terms of daily/regular users... They're competing with Google, X, MS, OpenAI and others in terms of AI interactions. While there's a lot of value in being the option for communication between friends and family, and the groups on FB don't have a great alternative, the entire market can shift greatly depending on AI research.

I look at some of the (I think it was OpenAI) in generated terrain/interaction and can't help but think that's a natural coupling to FB/Meta's investments in their VR headsets. They could potentially completely lose on a platform they largely pioneered. They could wind up like Blackberry if they aren't ready to adapt.

By contrast, Apple's lack of appropriate AI spending should be very concerning to any investors... Google's assistant is already quite a bit better than Siri and the gap is only getting wider. Apple is woefully under-invested, and the accountants running the ship don't even seem to realize it.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#602

Post by oblio »

kgwgk wrote: post #593
ipnon wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really difficult to wrap one's head around the cash they're able to deploy.

They “deploy” much more than what they generate. Their cash position has gone from $44bn to $12bn in the first six months of the year and are now getting other people to pay for datacenters https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-taps-pimco-blue-owl-29...

Ouch. Other FAANG in a similar position?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#603

Post by tracker1 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #313
miki123211 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an overwhelming feeling that what we're trying to do here is "Netflix over DialUp." We're clearly seeing what AI will eventually be able to do, just like many VOD, smartphone and grocery delivery companies of the 90s did with the internet. The groundwork has been laid, and it's not too hard to see the shape of things to come. This tech, however, is still far too immature for a lot of use cases. There's enough…

Some people even figured it out in the 80's. Sears founded and ran Prodigy, a large BBS and eventually ISP. They were trying to set themselves up to become Amazon. Not only that, Prodigy's thing (for a while) was using advertising revenue to lower subscription prices. Your "Netflix over dialup" analogy is more accessible to this readership, but Sears+Prodigy is my favorite example of trying to make the future happen…

On the flip side, they didn't actually learn that lesson... that it was a matter of immature tech with relatively limited reach... by the time the mid-90's came through, "the internet is just a fad" was pretty much the sentiment from Sears' leadership...

They literally killed their catalog sales right when they should have been ramping up and putting it online. They could easily have beat out Amazon for everything other than books.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#604

Post by andrew_lettuce »

KerrAvon wrote: post #476
dehrmann wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren't wrong. Its core business in what is still a viable-enough sector collapsed. Or if it were truly well-managed, running an ISP and a retailer should have been enough insight to be Amazon.

It wasn't possible for them to be well managed at the time it mattered. Sears was loaded with debt by private equity ghouls; same story for almost all defunct brick and mortar businesses; Amazon was a factor, but private equity is what actually destroyed them.

Thank you for bringing this up. Sears really didn't have a choice, they were a victim of the most pernicious LBO, Gordon Gecko-style strip mining nonsense on the PE spectrum. All private equity is not the same but after seeing two PE deals from the inside (one a leveraged buy out) and another VC one with the "grow at insane place" playbook I think I prefer the naked and aligned greed of the VC model; PE destroyed both of the other companies while the VC one was already doomed.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#605

Post by rstuart4133 »

deegles wrote: post #523
miki123211 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an overwhelming feeling that what we're trying to do here is "Netflix over DialUp." We're clearly seeing what AI will eventually be able to do, just like many VOD, smartphone and grocery delivery companies of the 90s did with the internet. The groundwork has been laid, and it's not too hard to see the shape of things to come. This tech, however, is still far too immature for a lot of use cases. There's enough…

> We're clearly seeing what AI will eventually be able to do Are we though? Aside from a narrow set of tasks like translation, grammar, and tone-shifting, LLMs are a dead end. Code generation sucks. Agents suck. They still hallucinate. If you wouldn't trust its medical advice without review from an actual doctor, why would you trust its advice on anything else? Also, the companies trying to "fix" issues with LLMs wit…

> Aside from a narrow set of tasks like translation, grammar, and tone-shifting, LLMs are a dead end.

I consider myself an LLM skeptic, but gee saying they are a "dead end" seems harsh.

Before LLM's came along computers understanding human language was graveyard academics when to end their careers in. Now computers are better at it and far faster than most humans.

LLM's also have an extortionary ability to distill and compress knowledge, so much so that you can download a model whose since is measured in GB, and it seems to have a pretty good general knowledge of everything of the internet. Again, far better than any human could do. Yes, the compression is lossy, and yes they consequently spout authoritative sounding bullshit on occasion. But I use them regardless as a sounding board, and I can ask them questions in plain English rather than go on a magical keyword hunt.

Merely being able to understand language or having a good memory is not sufficient to code or do a lot else, on it's own. But they are necessary ingredients for many tasks, and consequently it's hard to imagine a AI that can competently code that doesn't have an LLM as a component.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#606

Post by tamimio »

I think I have said it before here (and in real life too) that AI is just another bubble, let alone AGI which is a complete joke, and all I got is angry faces and responses. Tech always had bubbles and early adopters get the biggest slice, and try as much as possible to keep it alive later to maximize that cut. By the time the average person is aware of it and is talking about it, it's over already. Previous tech bubbles: internet, search engines, content makers, smartphones, cybersecurity, blockchain and crypto, and now generative AI. By the way, AI was never new and anyone in the field knows this. ML was already part of some tech before generative AI kicked in.

Glad I personally never jumped on the hype and still focused on what I think is the big thing, but until I get enough funds to be the first in the market, I will keep it low.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#607

Post by malfist »

tracker1 wrote: post #601

I'm somewhere in the middle on this, with regards to the ROI... this isn't the kind of thing where you see immediate reflection on quarterly returns... it's the kind of thing where if you don't hedge some bets, you're likely to completely die out from a generational shift. Facebook's product is eyeballs... they're being usurped on all sides between TikTok, X and BlueSky in terms of daily/regular users... They're comp…

How many years of not seeing returns this quarter does it take before its all hype?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#608

Post by didibus »

jopsen wrote: post #528
didibus wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, and I also think LLMs have an impact. The issue is the way the market is investing they are looking for massive growth, in the multiples. That growth can't really come from trading cost. It has to come from creating new demand for new things. I think that's what not happened yet. Are diffusion models increasing the demand for video and image content? Is it having customers spend more on shows, games, an…

> Is it going to lead to the creation of a whole new consumption medium ? Good question? Is that necessary, or is it sufficient for AI to be integrated in every kind of CAD/design software out there? Because I think most productivity tools whether CAD, EDA, Office, graphic 2d/3d design, etc will benefit from AI. That's a huge market.

I guess there are two markets to consider.

The market of the AI foundation models itself, will they have customers long term willing to pay a lot of money for access to the models?

I think yes, there will be demand for foundational AI models, and a lot of it.

The second market is the market of CAD, EDA, Office, graphic 2d/3d design, etc. This market will not grow because they integrate AI into their products, or that is the question, will it? Otherwise, you could almost hypothesize these market will shrink as AI is going to be for them an additional cost of business that customers will expect to be included. Or maybe they manage to sell to their customers a premium for the AI features where they take a cut above that of what they pay the foundational models under the hood, that's a possibility.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#609

Post by tracker1 »

mindcrime wrote: post #444
tombert wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Craftsman tools have almost felt like a life-hack sometimes; their no-questions-asked warranties were just incredible. My dad broke a Craftsman shovel once that he had owned for four years, took it to Sears, and it was replaced immediately, no questions asked. I broke a socket wrench that I had owned for a year and had the same story. I haven't tested these warranties since Craftsman was sold to Black and Decker, but…

FWIW, I bought a Craftsman 1/4" drive ratchet/socket set at a Lowes Home Improvement store last year, and when I got it home and started messing with it, the ratchet jammed up immediately (before even being used on any actual fastener). I drove back over there the next day and the lady at the service desk took a quick look, said "go get another one off the shelf and come back here." I did, and by the time I got back…

I think that's as much about Lowes as it is Craftsman... I don't think Craftsman tools have been particularly well build, just that they had and are able to have enough margins to have a no questions asked policy... it probably helps that a lot of the materials are completely and easily recyclable.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg freezes AI hiring amid bubble fears

#610

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

fluoridation wrote: post #551
penteract wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain your claim that ANNs are nothing like real neural networks beyond their initial inspiration (if you'll accept my paraphrasing). I've seen it a few times on HN, and I'm not sure what people mean by it. By my very limited understanding of neural biology, neurons activate according to inputs that are mostly activations of other neurons. A dot product of weights and inputs (i.e. one part of matrix multi…

>I haven't heard anything about biological systems doing something comparable to backpropogation The brain isn't organized into layers like ANNs are. It's a general graph of neurons and cycles are probably common.

Actually that's not true. Our neocortex - the "crumpled up" outer layer of our brain, which is basically responsible for cognition/intelligence, has a highly regular architecture. If you uncrumpled it, it'd be a thin sheet of neurons about the size of a teatowel, consisting of 6 layers of different types of neurons with a specific inter-layer and intra-layer pattern of connections. It's not a general graph at all, but rather a specific processing architecture.
Post reply on HN