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How the AI Bubble Bursts

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Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#141

Post by adjejmxbdjdn »

joshstrange wrote: post #53

> RAM prices are crashing because new models won’t need as much Reality begs to differ [0] and following the link for that text goes to an article [1] where they talk about Google's TurboQuant which supposedly will lower the RAM requirements. Now if that means RAM prices come down (as speculated, not reported on, in the link) or the AI companies just do more things with their extra ram is yet to be determined. The fa…

I’m not disagreeing with you, but consumer RAM prices are lagging indicators. If commercial RAM prices are dropping then consumers will see those price drops last, especially given the fact that several consumer manufacturers turned to commercial only.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#142

Post by Throaway1975123 »

hirako2000 wrote: post #117
Aperocky wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demand of tokens is absolutely skyrocketing. And unlike the traditional "this will replace humans right away", I think what this introduce is a lot of incentive to spread those token in places where there was never any incentive to hire a software engineer for previously. In turn, that will drive a lot of business activity in those area that will potentially fail given the current quality of the output. This feels li…

Tulips sales also skyrocketed. Seriously, what value are tokens providing other than justifying layoffs. Concretely. Today. Not in the speculating scenario that cardiologist could be replaced with models. We see this new trend of agentic coding, again a promise software will be written that way going forward, despite the number of fiasco already experienced when trusting a model turned bad. The use case may provide v…

Tulips had literally no economic value. LLM's do.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#143

Post by guzfip »

SirensOfTitan wrote: post #56
infecto wrote: post #30

It’s incredible how polarizing the AI rush is. I keep the perspective that the technology is an absolute step change but I have no idea where the cards will fall. I take a lot of issue with these style of articles. I get a sense that the authors are being overly defensive. The cost to serve tokens is absolutely profitable today and that’s been true for at least a year. What’s unclear is how R&D and capex fit into the…

This is a classic HN mistaking the map for the territory. R&D and capex absolutely figure into de-facto profitability and sustainability for AI labs, despite their separate treatment in accounting. > well most of us here on HN have benefited from decades of overinflated engineering salaries being paid by often companies that were not profitable and not only unprofitable This is a really concerning perspective: people…

> Software is or was one of the few remaining arenas wherein a person can find a consistently.

I want to add something additional to this: it is one of the few fields that can afford middle or upper middle class lifestyle and is accessible.

I have no doubt if I could redo my life with the necessary resources I’d be more than capable of putting myself through med school and gone with a secure career that paid more than I ever made in software.

But at this stage of life? I don’t have the time or money to spend a decade+ paying some institution tens of thousands of dollars to hopefully maybe have a real career.

Once software as a career dies, I suspect many will find themselves locked out the middle class for generations.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#144

Post by piker »

tapoxi wrote: post #122
piker wrote: post #31

> They lose a big customer for their cloud services. Even worse considering that now, using the AI they helped fund, everyone can compete with their sub-par products. GitHub is a good candidate for disruption, and that’d be just the start. Look, I'm a Microsoft hater like the rest of us, but calling Microsoft's products sub-par discredits the author a good bit. I invite anyone who thinks this to try and compete with…

The state of GitHub and Windows 11 certainly qualify as sub-par.

There are some frustrating parts, but subpar is an odd way to describe GitHub to me. I’m pretty happy with what they’re doing, and find the UX super helpful. I do agree Actions needs a debug mode but otherwise I get a ton of value out of the service for $20/month?

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#145

Post by raincole »

monegator wrote: post #118
Aurornis wrote: post #60

This article tries to build upon a lot of half-truths or incorrect facts, like this: > OpenAI is struggling to monetize. They turned to showing ads in ChatGPT, The ads aren’t going into your paid plans (except maybe a highly discounted tier, depending on the market). The ads are a play to offer a free version. Having an ad-supported free tier isn’t new. The discussion about being unprofitable also repeats the reducti…

> Having an ad-supported free tier isn’t new having ads shoved in paid tiers isn't new either

And it usually doesn't result in a market crash.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#146

Post by Zardoz84 »

smt88 wrote: post #115
Izkata wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ads aren’t going into your paid plans (except maybe a highly discounted tier, depending on the market). The ads are a play to offer a free version. Having an ad-supported free tier isn’t new. Sounds like it is new for ChatGPT though. That's also how it started with TV and Youtube, first on the free tier then expanding to the paid ones.

YouTube, Spotify, and most video steamers have zero ads on paid tiers. I never see video ads.

I don't paid anything to YouTube and I don't see any ads. Because I block ads.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#147

Post by piker »

karolist wrote: post #105
piker wrote: post #31

> They lose a big customer for their cloud services. Even worse considering that now, using the AI they helped fund, everyone can compete with their sub-par products. GitHub is a good candidate for disruption, and that’d be just the start. Look, I'm a Microsoft hater like the rest of us, but calling Microsoft's products sub-par discredits the author a good bit. I invite anyone who thinks this to try and compete with…

You can have an opinion about a tool as a user, without ever having ability to create such a tool yourself, that's literally what every tech and auto reviewer does.

Sure, and the less you understand about the tool’s fundamental capabilities, the less useful your opinion is. The best reviewers have deep knowledge.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#148

Post by slfnflctd »

joshstrange wrote: post #53

> RAM prices are crashing because new models won’t need as much Reality begs to differ [0] and following the link for that text goes to an article [1] where they talk about Google's TurboQuant which supposedly will lower the RAM requirements. Now if that means RAM prices come down (as speculated, not reported on, in the link) or the AI companies just do more things with their extra ram is yet to be determined. The fa…

> almost as bad as when LLMs link things to prove their point, you visit the link, and find it says nothing of the sort or even the opposite

To be fair, they got it from us. This happened to me plenty of times long before modern LLMs.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#149

Post by hirako2000 »

est31 wrote: post #55
mrbungie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lab executives insist that serving tokens is profitable. Maybe marginally profitable, but right now they need to give out subsidies for people to use their products (Antigravity, Codex, Claude Code et al) in an actually useful manner that prevents churn and at the scale they need to justify usage growth forecasts, which they need to keep the wheel turning. Probably if you look at the users who exclusively use the s…

It's a loss leader but this is normal. Same has happened with Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, etc. Using VC money to buy marketshare and once you have it, you can milk it. The question is more around the moats that these companies have and it seems to me while their models are amazing technology, they don't really have a moat. The open/chinese models still continuously catch up to the american ones.

And what possible moat. It isn't hard to foresee that in just a couple of years, models outpacing the latest frontier tech we have today will run on consumer hardware. With open source workflows anyone can pull in to run, providers won't see a penny.

Another scenario is that dense models get replaced entirely, in which case the likelyhood of OpenAI and co pioneering the concept is pretty slim. They will be left with billions worth of infrastructure which cost them 10 times that 2 years earlier, faced with the reality touched by the article: liquidate.

Re: How the AI Bubble Bursts

#150

Post by butlike »

owlmirror wrote: post #119
faangguyindia wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the gains are real why the limits are so bad? Google can barely serve Anti-gravity.

Isn't that at the moment still a free product? Of course they will not prioritize serving those requests. That tells you nothing.

It tells you there's no clear path to monetization.
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