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AI is slowing down

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Re: AI is slowing down

#61

Post by d33d »

JesseTG wrote: post #49
sumeno wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dont really understand the criticism either way.

He's in the media business... its in his interest to amp things up.

Re: AI is slowing down

#62

Post by freejazz »

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?

[flagged]

Re: AI is slowing down

#63

Post by bdangubic »

frisbee6152 wrote: post #41
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 evalu…

anyone that takes him seriously at this point... I don't want to say very bad words here...

Re: AI is slowing down

#65

Post by tom_ »

adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #35

Ed is an interesting character. His financial analysis of the AI industry makes logical sense to me (though I am not knowledgeable enough to actually know if it is correct .) However, he seems to be so angry at AI in general, that he misses the obvious areas where LLMs are actually changing the State of the Art. Coding seems to be one of the core use-cases for LLMs (as Simon Willison pointed out recently) and even if…

He's got subscribers. Maybe the attitude is one he's found plays well with them.

I find it quite refreshing in some ways. Lots of people, when they start complaining about this or that aspect of this AI stuff, are wont to add in a little disclaimer that, despite all of the above, they actually really like AI and use it all the time. I assume this is to avoid the scenario of a bunch of pragmatic builders turning up and calmly shipping nuance in the comments (or whatever you call it these days when you get brigaded by a pile of angry keyboard warriors with chips on their shoulder) - and it sure is tiring having to wade through the equivocation.

That's a criticism that'd be hard to level at Zitron! Say what you like about the man, but he's unafraid to appear to take a side.

Re: AI is slowing down

#66

Post by nyeah »

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.

Agreed. If the arguments seem sound and well supported, then all we can do is attack the tone.

Re: AI is slowing down

#67

Post by simianwords »

root_axis wrote: post #25
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.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447549

Re: AI is slowing down

#68

Post by dist-epoch »

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…

> Zitron is begging for a collapse at this point

No, he's not, he's making tons of money every month from his Substack subscriptions. In fact, the AI bubble popping would be the worse thing ever for him, he would be out of a job.

Just like the who have predicated the US dollar will collapse any-moment-now and which pushed gold for decades.

Funny how people always say "oh, you are an AI lab, of course you are going to hype AI", but never "oh, you make sooo much money from predicting the collapse of the AI bubble..."

Re: AI is slowing down

#69

Post by nyeah »

JesseTG wrote: post #49
sumeno wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's tuned to the audience. Bloomberg was traditionally for people who actually wanted information. People who were fallible and had limited knowledge.

Of course that mentality is obsolete. Now we all have infinite access to perfectly correct information via the internet.

Re: AI is slowing down

#70

Post by oudlys »

nyeah wrote: post #56
oudlys wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That's possible, sure. But I think the answer is more likely in the numbers, not in just qualitatively saying AI isn't worth anything. Like if I pay $30k for an ounce of gold, I got value. Gold is worth something. But that amount of gold wasn't worth what I spent. EDIT: In fact, parent comment has a link to some numbers. [EDIT: Most] people don't want to go through the numbers. Ok. But there's a history here. When pe…

I've posted numbers that indicate that productivity is becoming decoupled from value delivery. If you follow the link in my comment it reviews a pretty robust study of 4000 teams over 2 years. There is no product throughput increase.
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