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The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

wsj.com

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Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#11

Post by louwrentius »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #6

GenAI really is the new grift following crypto. It is as wasteful, and barely more useful. And I say that as someone who is shipping features that use GenAI at work because it's the current hype in the eyes of directors and will get me promoted. Turns out something 95% right is as good as something 0% right.

It seems you get downvoted but I think you're right, that 95% means we can't trust it. We don't know where the 5% is where it went wrong, and we spend more time checking the output than just creating it ourselves.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#12

Post by dpflan »

louwrentius wrote: post #10

My photo editor tool now has a button to automatically remove backgrounds, a cool trick. It's at least more useful than crypto. Chat GPT is a fun party trick, but I'll never trust the output. That's the problem with AI: you can't trust the output. Maybe generative AI is useful for the rich so they can fire even more people in the creative space, generating shareholder value. Let's play a game: what do you think the n…

AI lets executives sell vision of cheaper yet more productive futures which is what all stock price really depends upon short term.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#13

Post by iLoveOncall »

louwrentius wrote: post #10

My photo editor tool now has a button to automatically remove backgrounds, a cool trick. It's at least more useful than crypto. Chat GPT is a fun party trick, but I'll never trust the output. That's the problem with AI: you can't trust the output. Maybe generative AI is useful for the rich so they can fire even more people in the creative space, generating shareholder value. Let's play a game: what do you think the n…

> My photo editor tool now has a button to automatically remove backgrounds, a cool trick. It's at least more useful than crypto.

Okay but this has nothing to do with the "AI revolution" the article talks about. This is not related to GenAI at all and is something that has existed for close to a decade.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#14

Post by wawayanda »

Maybe AI is "losing steam" but this is an opinion column masquerading as news, with one or two quotes (from e.g. noted AI skeptic Gary Marcus) or anecdotes supporting each section.

It would be equally possible to collect a series of similar but opposite data points to assert that AI is in fact gaining steam.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#15

Post by [deleted] »

wepple wrote: post #9
threeseed wrote: post #5

There’s an AI Backlash happening now in the enterprise in particular. Many vendors have promised big results and not delivering, especially in automation. Promising to automate 50% of your contact center with AI, of your interactions with AI, etc. No one is hitting it. The genie isn’t going back in the bottle, customers are committed to the goal. But vendors have way over promised across the board. https://x.com/jaso…

> Has been shocking to see YC double down on LLMs so much in the last two batches. They also doubled down on blockchain sufficiently late in the game that it was obvious to most that there was zero value in all of it. Either they’re really getting high on their own supply, or there’s some kind of model where you hedge against missing out on a unicorn, even if all indicators point to the fact it’s vaporware.

[deleted]

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#16

Post by gardnr »

https://archive.is/R5zkq

It is relevant to point out that NYT is engaged in a legal battle with OpenAI.

This article refers to "AIs like ChatGPT" which clearly shows who it is targeted at. For people thay don't read arxiv every day, the actual advancements are difficult to sift out of all the hype.

The dilution of the meaning of AI will contribute to the bubble's contraction when the general public realises that "AI" doesn't mean anything specific and definitely doesn't mean what they have in their imaginations.

Regardless of where we are today, it is undoubtedly worth the effort to continue the research. This hype cycle has kick started a lot of ideas that will benefit humanity. We still do have that pesky problem of corporations innovating while simultaneously ruining everything.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#17

Post by ArtTimeInvestor »

To me it seems that AI is not even priced into the market cap of the big tech companies yet.

Since GPT-3 came out in mid 2020:

Alphabet's market cap doubled. But their earnings more than doubled.

Same for Microsoft.

In other words: Their p/e ratio did not increase. The future potential of AI is not yet priced in.

The cost of all human labor is something like $70 trillion per year. Automating 1% of that per year would increase the revenue of tech companies by $700B per year. Let Microsoft capture 10% of that and have 20% margin, that's an increase in profit of $14B per year. Assign a p/e of 30 to that, and its's $420B of additional market cap per year. That would be about 15% growth in market cap per year for Microsoft.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#18

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #6

GenAI really is the new grift following crypto. It is as wasteful, and barely more useful. And I say that as someone who is shipping features that use GenAI at work because it's the current hype in the eyes of directors and will get me promoted. Turns out something 95% right is as good as something 0% right.

No downvote from me.

Cryptocurrencies were no solution and AI will always be at best a heuristic, so no solution either. The hypesters dont (want to) understand the foundation of the problem they claim to solve.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#19

Post by ghaff »

wepple wrote: post #9
threeseed wrote: post #5

There’s an AI Backlash happening now in the enterprise in particular. Many vendors have promised big results and not delivering, especially in automation. Promising to automate 50% of your contact center with AI, of your interactions with AI, etc. No one is hitting it. The genie isn’t going back in the bottle, customers are committed to the goal. But vendors have way over promised across the board. https://x.com/jaso…

> Has been shocking to see YC double down on LLMs so much in the last two batches. They also doubled down on blockchain sufficiently late in the game that it was obvious to most that there was zero value in all of it. Either they’re really getting high on their own supply, or there’s some kind of model where you hedge against missing out on a unicorn, even if all indicators point to the fact it’s vaporware.

Probably some of each.

To me I see a lot of similarities to cloud computing early on (broadly defined). There were a lot of twists and turns in the road and a lot of things didn't tuen out as many predicted--and it was, naturally, much messier than earlier visions. But companies that decided to sit back and see how things played out mostly paid for it while the winners--so far--have mostly been companies that made bets and course-corrected.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#20

Post by threeseed »

pfdietz wrote: post #7
threeseed wrote: post #5

There’s an AI Backlash happening now in the enterprise in particular. Many vendors have promised big results and not delivering, especially in automation. Promising to automate 50% of your contact center with AI, of your interactions with AI, etc. No one is hitting it. The genie isn’t going back in the bottle, customers are committed to the goal. But vendors have way over promised across the board. https://x.com/jaso…

> Going to be a brutal reckoning coming for many startups. Isn't that like asserting water is going to be wet? The great majority of startups fail, in any field.

It's more the fact that many of those startups are seeing traction because everyone is interested in seeing what AI can offer. If there is a reckoning and we see the rug pulled then it would be far worse than if your startup never had any traction to begin with.
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