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AI is slowing down

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Re: AI is slowing down

#41

Post by frisbee6152 »

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…

He’s been continuously predicting that the collapse was just around the corner, that progress was slowing, and that there was no market for inference, since 2024.

The fact he’s never reflected on the glaring failures in his analysis tells what we need to know about his intellectual integrity. There’s truth in some of his words about financial risk, but if you can’t acknowledge that there’s upside too, you can’t evaluate risk properly either.

I find it difficult to take him seriously.

Re: AI is slowing down

#42

Post by bigstrat2003 »

oudlys wrote: post #13
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…

Productivity is not value. It's quite possible for you to experience productivity improvements, and actual value to not be created. That is what I think the most robust data is showing. https://unessays.substack.com/p/talk-is-cheap

Also, supposed productivity gains are dubious. I personally experience at best no productivity gains when using LLMs to write code, and sometimes it's an active drain on my productivity. There was that one study a year or so ago showing similar results. People are trying to say the productivity gains are there and undeniable, but that is not true. It is very much a subject of controversy whether AI helps productivity.

Re: AI is slowing down

#43

Post by hungryhobbit »

partiallypro wrote: post #28
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.

RTFA; it's not about AI's massive impact or lack thereof ... it's about these businesses not having a viable business model that will sustain them (beyond the next couple years).

Re: AI is slowing down

#44

Post by kunai »

brindleth wrote: post #29

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 sti…

Uber used the classic triple-E philosophy of Microsoft and entered a market that was ripe for disruption -- many cities lacked reliable taxi service entirely, others were cartels that fixed prices. They undercut prices to an extreme degree, subsidized fares, and when it either drove local taxi companies out of business and spurred widespread adoption as the default, it had a captive market and duopoly with Lyft which allowed them to raise fares without losing any market share whatsoever.

It's a pretty classic business strategy, and not directly comparable to any of the AI companies. There's a reason people compare the current situation to the dotcom era and not Uber. Also, don't take Uber as an example of a slam-dunk VC success story and leave it at that -- plenty of dumb ideas get pitched and funded and go bankrupt for every Uber.

Re: AI is slowing down

#45

Post by recursive »

jimmaswell wrote: post #30
ericmcer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For some of us it is, I suppose as an alternate view to AI booster-ism, particularly if you think the long term effects would be mostly negative.

Re: AI is slowing down

#46

Post by nozzlegear »

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 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 and society; it is the very technology that got us, as a species, to where we are today.

This is fire erasure

/s

Re: AI is slowing down

#47

Post by cogman10 »

partiallypro wrote: post #28
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.

What I suspect isn't that AI goes somewhere, but I do think that the cutting edge companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are in a very precarious position. They don't have very much of a moat and the competition has been catching up quick while spending a lot less doing so. IMO, the main thing keeping them alive right now is name recognition.

If I were to make a prediction, it's that ultimately these cheaper models are going end up eating their lunch. I don't think they'll make back the money they've invested and once that reality hits investors, those two companies are sunk.

That, however, is not the end of AI. Nor will it be the end of Nvidia/micron/etc. It will more just be a localized bubble pop that doesn't eliminate the product from the market.

Re: AI is slowing down

#48

Post by freejazz »

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…

Every day people here debate whether or not there are any actual productivity gains from LLM, and it's only in the limited context of software development. While I understand that this place obviously skews heavily towards the software industry, the notion that LLMs are anywhere near as useful in other industries is hubristic (at best).

Re: AI is slowing down

#49

Post by JesseTG »

sumeno wrote: post #8
ElFitz wrote: post #2

I find it difficult to separate this piece’s tone from its content. The tone puts me off and makes it hard for me to judge it on its merits, despite some of the arguments seeming sound and well supported.

Ed's posts are peak preaching to the choir, they're usually factually correct but he is really bad at convincing anyone who doesn't already strongly agree with him.

Have you seen his recent Bloomberg appearance? He's calm, collected, and matter-of-fact -- the complete opposite of how he presents himself on his newsletter and podcasts, but with the same argument. You wouldn't know from listening to him how spicy he usually is.

Re: AI is slowing down

#50

Post by righthand »

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…

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