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AI is slowing down

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Re: AI is slowing down

#21

Post by gdcbe »

dkobia wrote: post #9

Zitron is begging for a collapse at this point. Yes, his macro analysis correctly identifies a massive financial risk but his incessant pessimism completely misses the incredible ground-level utility that many of us on HN celebrate every day through undeniable, massive productivity gains. At this point I'm trying to believe there's a middle ground where the level of individual capability this unlocks, leads to major…

I do not disagree with what you are saying, but I honestly still believe that most of the utility we experience are honestly gonna become very boring very soon that we can just run local... Even if it's a bit more slow who cares, can just run in background while you work on other stuff yourself, read up on things, review other work...

It's not that the utility of it put in question. What is however a giant question mark is how the heck any of the big AI companies are ever gonna get that ROI? Given how many of us are becoming more and more fine with local models that run just fine especially on a good enough computer which most developers have anyway...

Re: AI is slowing down

#22

Post by enraged_camel »

dkobia wrote: post #9

Zitron is begging for a collapse at this point. Yes, his macro analysis correctly identifies a massive financial risk but his incessant pessimism completely misses the incredible ground-level utility that many of us on HN celebrate every day through undeniable, massive productivity gains. At this point I'm trying to believe there's a middle ground where the level of individual capability this unlocks, leads to major…

Yes. Zitron has been predicting and begging for collapse since 2024. It's not just his brand at this point. It's his entire identity. As such, he cannot back down, he cannot question himself, and he cannot accept any other viewpoint. And he will keep moving his goal posts until something happens that can make him go "aha! I told you guys!!"

This, combined with his extreme ignorance, makes him unreadable. The only reason people read his stuff is because it validates and confirms their own anti-AI beliefs. It's why every time he publishes an article, it reaches the front page in an hour or less.

Re: AI is slowing down

#23

Post by ericmcer »

zachthewf wrote: post #15

Before you spend 20 minutes reading this article, it's worth understanding that the writer has been posting popular but consistently wrong takes for 2+ years (e.g. https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ from March 2024) arguing that AI is failing, is a waste of money, is bad, will never work, etc.

Yeah they seem clickable because anything Anti-AI is a bit soothing right now, but he is constantly wrong and usually is pushing the angle of "these businesses aren't even profitable!"

Instantly close the tab as soon as the popup to subscribe to his newsletter pops up.

Re: AI is slowing down

#24

Post by __alexs »

zachthewf wrote: post #15

Before you spend 20 minutes reading this article, it's worth understanding that the writer has been posting popular but consistently wrong takes for 2+ years (e.g. https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ from March 2024) arguing that AI is failing, is a waste of money, is bad, will never work, etc.

The quality of AI doomerism takes is matched only by the quality of AI boosterism takes. Ed's kind of interesting as a temperature sensor but I don't feel like you can really take anything he writes seriously.

Re: AI is slowing down

#25

Post by root_axis »

zachthewf wrote: post #15

Before you spend 20 minutes reading this article, it's worth understanding that the writer has been posting popular but consistently wrong takes for 2+ years (e.g. https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ from March 2024) arguing that AI is failing, is a waste of money, is bad, will never work, etc.

Can you point to anything specific from the article that you'd describe as consistently wrong? Not disagreeing with you, but nothing popped out to me after skimming the article.

Re: AI is slowing down

#26

Post by gdcbe »

zachthewf wrote: post #15

Before you spend 20 minutes reading this article, it's worth understanding that the writer has been posting popular but consistently wrong takes for 2+ years (e.g. https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ from March 2024) arguing that AI is failing, is a waste of money, is bad, will never work, etc.

What if you phrase the question from "will AI ever be useful" (a term as utterly vague as "IT") to "will it ever be able to promise the financial gains these companies are hoping? Especially with local models eating their lunch :shrug:

Re: AI is slowing down

#27

Post by AlexandrB »

dkobia wrote: post #9

Zitron is begging for a collapse at this point. Yes, his macro analysis correctly identifies a massive financial risk but his incessant pessimism completely misses the incredible ground-level utility that many of us on HN celebrate every day through undeniable, massive productivity gains. At this point I'm trying to believe there's a middle ground where the level of individual capability this unlocks, leads to major…

> undeniable, massive productivity gains

How are they undeniable? They're very deniable. One example is the (seemingly) increasing maintenance costs for AI-generated code[1]. Another is the cost incurred by everybody reading AI slop instead of actual communication.

I don't have hard data as to whether these cancel out the benefits, but it's not as rosy as some seem to think.

[1] After years of people understanding that LOC is not only a poor productivity metric but also a negative indicator of code quality (shorter code for the same thing is better), we now have people touting how many LOC their LLM agent is generating. It's like everyone forgot what LOC actually represents and what it means for long term maintenance costs.

Re: AI is slowing down

#28

Post by partiallypro »

aogaili wrote: post #16

Some people seem to see the world only through bubbles. But if you look at human history, despite the ups and downs, we have a trajectory; generally speaking, human-created systems evolve toward ever-increasing complexity, impact, and efficiency. The current wave of AI unlocked language - the tools are now speaking and understanding. This, on its own, is astonishing progress. Language is the foundation of our culture…

The only "bubble" with AI is that the initial build out is cyclical, and many of the high flying chip stocks with no software arms (ala Nvidia's CUDA) will come back to Earth. I think anyone that thinks AI is going away or won't have massive impact (though maybe not in the doomsday scenario) are in complete denial.

Re: AI is slowing down

#29

Post by brindleth »

Whenever I read these kind of articles about AI financials, I'm reminded of identical screeds I read about Uber a few years ago. They were angrily insistent that Uber was a scam company run by criminals and charlatans and could never, ever become profitable or make money for its investors. It was a house of cards that would come crashing down sooner or later, and take everyone's money with it. Now it's 2026. Uber still exists, has revenues of $50bn and is apparently a highly profitable business. I don't know if the original investors have made their money back yet, but Uber certainly hasn't collapsed.

Maybe AI is different. Certainly, the level scale of investment is on a different order of magnitude. But I'm wary of believing anything about the financial impossibility of AI being sustainable when I've seen such similarly confident arguments proved wrong in the past.

Re: AI is slowing down

#30

Post by jimmaswell »

ericmcer wrote: post #23
zachthewf wrote: post #15

Before you spend 20 minutes reading this article, it's worth understanding that the writer has been posting popular but consistently wrong takes for 2+ years (e.g. https://www.wheresyoured.at/peakai/ from March 2024) arguing that AI is failing, is a waste of money, is bad, will never work, etc.

Yeah they seem clickable because anything Anti-AI is a bit soothing right now, but he is constantly wrong and usually is pushing the angle of "these businesses aren't even profitable!" Instantly close the tab as soon as the popup to subscribe to his newsletter pops up.

Why is anti-AI soothing?
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