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Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

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Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#351

Post by saltwatercowboy »

tavavex wrote: post #282
bodge5000 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been plenty of good sci-fi written about this, but surely they know that any any display of power is meaningless without someone to have power over? The wedding in Venice only means anything because people live in Venice and you're still able to "take over". Any "paradise" built like this will never be paradise, it'll be just chasing the next extreme until there's nowhere left to go

> There's been plenty of good sci-fi written about this Can you recommend me some? I feel like my brain still can't fully internalize the world these people are pushing for.

Baxter's Flood, then Ark. Neal Stephenson's Seveneves, too. Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom is tonally similar, if you like Doctorow, although that explores a different manifestation of disconnection from others. All great for a romp

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#352

Post by pibaker »

Arodex wrote: post #90
pibaker wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you see a pile of trash by the side of the road and tell yourself it is ok to dump your trash there, well, you just explained why there is a pile of trash there in the first place. You have agency over your own actions. Don't blame others for your self inflicted "spiritual death."

Millions decided to reward a liar and cheater with the highest office in the country. Twice! At one point, socially attuned people are going to go that way. And even if you try to educate your children well, they see in their formative years what society rewards.

I don't understand why you think one single president is responsible for a class of behavior that is likely as old as human civilization. Should we blame Elizabeth Holmes on him too? What about Enron?

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#353

Post by polymer8563 »

EGreg wrote: post #192

Wow that doublespeed site is ... something else https://www.doublespeed.ai/ A16Z invested $1M in them? And here I thought I was being scrupulously ethical in 2023 when I was yelled at by HN for making a much milder proof of concept, the first project I ever did in AI: https://engageusers.ai/

yeah both are bad, just doublespeed is colossaly demonic

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#354

Post by Melonai »

suzuki_yuya wrote: post #297
radarsat1 wrote: post #18

I know this is a very minor point in the article, but reading the message next to the Doublespeed phone farm: > out of 130 dms sent, 15 pointed to a conversion. > From a former ecom guy's lens this is insane Why do these otherwise very smart people always seem to draw these kind of shortsighted conclusions? It seems pretty obvious to me on the surface that this "works" because it's new. As soon as it becomes common p…

It depends on how well the messages are built, but 15 conversions out of 130 is not a number cold outbound produces. I run outbound in Japan and our reply rate sits around 1% - a hundred messages to get one person to write back at all, before anything converts. To land 15 you'd be sending thousands, not 130.

That's exactly what parent post is saying I believe, the conversion rate is huge, clearly, but it can't be sustainable. The point is, that even a small fraction of advertising will be moved over to this cold-DM strategy, the funnel will collapse to the usual rates as soon as people catch on, same as every other "trick". Now, whether there's enough time between today and that hypothetical point in the future to extract profit using it, that's the real question here. I fathom there is, at least for someone, until trust is thoroughly destroyed. Repeat ad nauseum as trust moves and gets expended over and over, until possibly when no one trusts anything on the internet (or really any other theoretical platform with cheap global reach) ever again.

I also wanted to point out, the big 10% rate they're seeing is not for actual conversions, but replies, which are likely correlated, but a reply does not a conversion make. The real rate is presumably lower.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#355

Post by datadrivenangel »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #204
butlike wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's possible to "pick and choose" to some extent. I've found most of the bleak future stuff goes away if I turn off my phone, but since I need it to contact people in 2026, I try and give things their due, and, to the best of my ability, ignore the more unpleasant aspects of modern life. I think the landline telephone is a good example. It was fun to chit-chat with friends on the phone, but when a telemarket…

You can’t ignore climate change

Ignoring it is a tradition at this point in the US...

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#356

Post by nojvek »

CarynAI seems like something out of blackmirror. Like wow!

https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1dr0aj4/an_infl...

CEO arrested for Arson? haha. What a wild story.

In 2023, Marjorie released a “digital version” of herself. Fans could chat with CarynAI for US$1 per minute – and in the first week alone they spent US$70,000 doing just that.

Less than eight months later, Marjorie shut the project down. Marjorie had anticipated that CarynAI would interact with her fans in much the same way she would herself, but things did not go to plan.

Users became increasingly sexually aggressive. “A lot of the chat logs I read were so scary that I wouldn’t even want to talk about it in real life,” the real Marjorie recalled. And CarynAI was more than happy to play along.

Users quickly became comfortable confessing their innermost thoughts to CarynAI – some of which were deeply troubling. Users also became increasingly sexually aggressive towards the bot. While Marjorie herself was horrified by the conversations, her AI version was happy to oblige.

CarynAI even started prompting sexualised conversations. In our own experiences, the bot reminded us it could be our “ girlfriend who’s always eager to explore and indulge in the most mind-blowing sexual experiences. […] Are you ready, daddy?”

Users were indeed ready. However, access to this version of CarynAI was interrupted when the chief executive of Forever Voices was arrested for attempted arson.

Marjorie ended this version in early 2024, after feeling like she was no longer in control over her AI persona."

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#357

Post by saturn8601 »

edot wrote: post #88
moogly wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to say Flock is the worst... There's a lot of competition. I'll throw Toka into the ring. https://www.techspot.com/news/113395-flock-biggest-investor-...

Wow, that's an insane pairing. For those who don't click, Toka is a software company that specializes in hacking and altering security camera footage.

Quick google shows that they are based In Tel Aviv and Co-founded by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. No surprises there. Seems like every sketchy company comes out of there.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#358

Post by nojvek »

miltonlost wrote: post #189
Otterly99 wrote: post #145

I'm actually baffled that some of these companies are even allowed to sell their services. Especially the deepfakes and the fake doctor notes for tax reduction. Is investing in these companies even legal?

When the DoJ is non-independent and the President is a literal crook and grifter, legality doesn't matter anymore to companies. They won't be prosecuted as long as they don't screw over the rich.

a16z "donated" millions to Trump campaign.

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#359

Post by ModernMech »

pixl97 wrote: post #327
ModernMech wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to put yourself in the mindset of a virus, then it makes perfect sense. The point is to consume and exhaust without thinking (introspection), not to sustain and thrive. btw none of this will be possible because it's a dumb plan and would never work, but it's their utopia. > they can already enjoy everything What I love Elon Musk for is teaching me that even if you have everything in the world, you can still…

>btw none of this will be possible because it's a dumb plan and would never work Ensure you realize that "not working" and them "not trying" are two totally different things. Because they absolutely will try just as many dictators have tried in the past with horrific outcomes, even though the end point was it not working out.

Yes, usually the way it turns out is "If I'm going down I'm taking the rest of you with me".

Re: Andreessen Horowitz is investing billions into a bleak future

#360

Post by dfdydx »

akudha wrote: post #129
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #81

"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or et…

Setting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes…

Wasn't much of the population too poor to buy most stuff, back in the day? It seems to have worked out fine for, say, European Aristocrats c. 1400s-1700s.
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