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How the AI Bubble Will Pop

derekthompson.org

301–310 of 531 posts

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#301
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI figured out something on my mind that I didn’t tell it about yesterday (latest Sonnet). My best advice to you is to spend time and allow the AI to blow your mind. Then you’ll get it. Sometimes I sit in wonder at how the fuck it’s able to figure out that much intent without specific instructions. There’s no way anyone programmed it to understand that much. If you’re not blown away by this then I have to assume you…

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/20250...

[flagged]

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#302
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Current batch of deep learning models are fundamentally a technology for labor automation. This is immensely useful in itself, without the need to do AGI. The Sora2 capabilities are absolutely wild (see a great example here of what non-professional users are already able to create with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXp8_w3XzgU ) > So only looking at video capabilities, or at coding capabilities, it's already…

This is very surface level criticism. Qwen image and nano banana can both do that with images, there’s zero reason to think we can’t train video models for masking. This feels a lot like critiquing stable diffusion over hands and text, which the new SOTA models all handle well. One of the easiest iterations on these models is to add more training cases to the benchmarks. That’s a timeline of months, not comparable to…

> This is very surface level criticism.

Is it now. I don't think being able to accurately and predictably make changes to a shot, a draft, a design is surface level in production.

> Qwen image and nano banana can both do that with images, there’s zero reason to think we can’t train video models for masking.

Tell them to change the tilt of the camera roughly 15 degree left without changing anything else in the scene and tell me if it works.

> This feels a lot like critiquing stable diffusion over hands and text, which the new SOTA models all handle well.

Well does a lot of heavy lifting there.

> One of the easiest iterations on these models is to add more training cases to the benchmarks. That’s a timeline of months, not comparable to forecasting progress over 20 years like fusion.

And what if the model itself is the limiting factor ? The entire tech ? Do we have any proof that in the future the current technologies might be able to handle the cases I spoke about ?

Also, one thing that I didn't mention in the first post. Assuming that the tech does come to the point I can be used to automate a lot of the production. If Throwing a few millions to buy a GPU cluster is enough to be able to "generate" a relatively high quality movie or series, the barrier to entry will be incredibly low. The cost will be driven down, the amount of production will be very high and overall it might not be a trillion dollar industry no more.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the kind of question that takes into account that people thinking that they are more productive does not imply that they actually are. This happens in a wide range of contexts, from AI to drugs.

It isn’t a question asked by people generally suspicious of productivity claims. It’s only asked by LLM skeptics, about LLMs.

As a counterexample to your assertion, I've seen it a lot on both sides of the RTO discourse.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand what you’re saying. You know the AI is incapable of reading your mind, right? Can you provide more information?

Well there was that example a while back of some store's product recommendation algo inferring that someone was pregnant before any of the involved humans knew.

The ~woman~ teenager knew she was pregnant, Target's algorithm noticed her change in behavior and spilled the beans to her father.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#305

The most frustrating thing to me about this most recent rash of biz guy doubting the future of AI articles is the required mention that AI, specifically an LLM based approach to AGI, is important even if the numbers don't make sense today. Why is that the case? There's plenty of people in the field who have made convincing arguments that it's a dead end and fundamentally we'll need to do something else to achieve AGI…

Likely not true re adoption. According to McKinsey November 2024 12% of employees in the US used AI for >30% of their daily tasks. I saw another research early this summer, it said that 40% of employees use AI. Adoption is already pretty relevant. The real question is: number of people x token requirement of their daily tasks equals how many tokens, and where are we there. Based on McK, we possibly around 17% unless remaining 50% of tasks requires just way more complexity, because then that would obviously mean the incremental tasks require maybe exponentially more tokens and then penetration will be indeed low. But for this we need to know total token need of daily tasks of average office worker.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#306
post #217
post #123

I feel kind of like a Luddite sometimes but I don't understand why EVERYONE is rushing to use AI? I use a couple different agents to help me code, and ChatGPT has largely replaced Google in my everyday use, but I genuinely don't understand the value proposition of every other companies offerings. I really feel like we're in the same "Get it out first, figure out what it is good for later" bubble we had like 7 years a…

I think text is the ultimate interface. A company can just build and maintain very strong internal APIs and punt on the UX component. For instance, suppose I'm using figma, I want to just screenshot what I want it to look like and it can get me started. Or if I'm using Notion, I want a better search. Nothing necessarily generative, but something like "what was our corporate address". It also replaces help if well int…

If you haven't gotten an LLM to write you Google/Firefox/whatever extensions to customize Gmail the rest of the Internet, you're missing out. Someday your programmable web apps will arrive, but making Chrome extensions with ChatGPT is here today.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#307
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're working under the assumption that punching a prompt into ChatGPT and getting up to grab some coffee while it spits out thousands of tokens of meaningless slop to be used as a substitute for something that you previously would've written yourself is a net upgrade for everyone involved. It's not. I can use ChatGPT to write 20 paragraph email replies that would've previously been a single manually written paragra…

> And yes, ChatGPT is kinda like an addictive drug here. If someone "can't work without ChatGPT anymore", they're addicted and have lost the ability to work on their own as a result. Come on, you can’t mean this in any kind of robust way. I can’t get my job done without a computer; am I an “addict” who has “lost the ability to work on my own?” Every tool tends to engender dependence, roughly in proportion to how much…

There's a big difference between needing a tool to do a job that only that tool can do, and needing a crutch to do something without using your own faculties.

LLMs are nothing like a computer for a programmer, or a saw for a carpenter. In the very best case, from what their biggest proponents have said, they can let you do more of what you already do with less effort.

If someone has used them enough that they can no longer work without them, it's not because they're just that indispensable: it's because that someone has let their natural faculties atrophy through disuse.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh if Claude is smarter than average person, and it is, then 50% of the population is not even a glorified auto complete. Imagine that, all not very bright.

That "if" is doing literally all the work in that post. Claude is not, in fact, smarter than the average person. It's not smarter than any person. It does not think. It produces statistically likely text.

Well, I disagree completely. I think you have no clue how’s the average person or below. Look at instagram or any social media ads, they are mostly scams, AI can figure out but most people don’t. Just an example.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? The maximum possible benefit of fusion (aside from the science gained in the attempt) is cheap energy. We'll get very cheap energy just by massively rolling out existing solar panels (maybe some at sea), and other renewables, HVDC and batteries/storage. Fusion is almost certain to be uneconomical in comparison if it's even feasible technically. AI, is already dramtically impacting some fields, including scien…

Cheap, _limitless_ energy from fusion could solve almost every geopolitical/environmental issue we face today. Europe is acutely aware of this at the moment and it's why China and America are investing mega bucks. We will eventually run out of finite energy sources. Even if we do capture the max capacity possible from renewables with 100% efficiency, our energy consumption rates increasing at current rates will event…

There is zero reason to assume that fusion power will ever be the cheapest source of energy. At the very least, you have to deal with a sizeable vacuum chamber, big magnets to control the plasma and massive neutron flux (turning your fusion plant into radioactive waste over time), none of which is cheap.

I'd say limitless energy from fusion plants is about as likely as e-scooters getting replaced by hoverboards. Maybe next millenium.

Re: How the AI Bubble Will Pop

#310

I keep seeing articles like this but does anyone actually think we're not in a bubble? From what I've seen these companies acknowledge it's a bubble and that they're overspending without a way to make the money back. They're doing it because they have the money and feel it's worth the risk in case it pays off. If they don't spend, another company does, and it hits big they will be left behind. This is at least insura…

>They're doing it because they have the money and feel it's worth the risk in case it pays off.

If the current work in AI/ML leads to something more fundamental like AGI, then whoever does it first gets to be the modern version of the lone nuclear superpower. At least that's the assumption.

Left outside of all the calculations is the 8 billion people who live here. So suddenly we have AGI--now what? Cures for cancer and cold fusion would be great, but what do you do with 8 billion people? Does everybody go back to a farm or what? Maybe we all pedal exercise bikes to power the AGI while it solves the Riemann hypothesis or something.

It would be a blessing in disguise if this is a bubble. We are not prepared to deal with a situation where maybe 50-80% of people become redundant because a building full of GPUs can do their job cheaper and better.

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