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Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

theatlantic.com

11–20 of 97 posts

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#11
post #4

The ultra wealthy will out compete you for the resources you need if we don’t start taxing them has been a discussion from the left for quite some time. It seems to keep coming true in new and disastrous ways, we are going to see more and more extreme concentrations of capital and power distort things and pretty soon it won’t just be middle and poor people who cannot afford anything, the whole value chain is being re…

Instead of just rejecting the future like a Roman fatalist because you've decided that it's just going to be someone else controlling you, maybe a better plan is to adopt emerging technology when it comes into play (like for example when the Internet came into play) and use it to start your own company, or make yourself more productive, or disrupt an industry that desperately needs it. I shouldn't have to explain the…

"All everybody has to do is work and there will be no unemployment" --throwaway323929

Wow, you just solved economics!

Your argument is so incredibly reductive as to be nonsensical. The understanding of the allocation of capital is seemingly below grade school level. Even moreso, your understanding of the business cycle and how it interacts with governments and banks seems to be even more immature.

"manufacturing" didn't "go away", it moved to China so investors could capitalize on lax environmental laws and cheap labor. This engineered trade off of wealth had devastating results to massive parts of the US. On top of that, not every city can become Seattle. There isn't enough 'service economy' to go around and do that, especially as technology tends to concentrate wealth.

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#12
post #4

The ultra wealthy will out compete you for the resources you need if we don’t start taxing them has been a discussion from the left for quite some time. It seems to keep coming true in new and disastrous ways, we are going to see more and more extreme concentrations of capital and power distort things and pretty soon it won’t just be middle and poor people who cannot afford anything, the whole value chain is being re…

Instead of just rejecting the future like a Roman fatalist because you've decided that it's just going to be someone else controlling you, maybe a better plan is to adopt emerging technology when it comes into play (like for example when the Internet came into play) and use it to start your own company, or make yourself more productive, or disrupt an industry that desperately needs it. I shouldn't have to explain the…

> disrupt an industry that desperately needs it.

Why is the primary tech people impulse to disrupt, destroy and harm other industries? Maybe that is why we dont produce useful tech anymore. The primary impulse is always hostile, rarely something like "lets create and sell a useful thing for them".

> adopt emerging technology when it comes into play (like for example when the Internet came into play) and use it to start your own company, or make yourself more productive,

Funny, the strategy of creating a company entirely dependent on mercy of another company, vulnerable to destruction with any simple change in TOS has been criticized on HN previously.

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#13
post #4

The ultra wealthy will out compete you for the resources you need if we don’t start taxing them has been a discussion from the left for quite some time. It seems to keep coming true in new and disastrous ways, we are going to see more and more extreme concentrations of capital and power distort things and pretty soon it won’t just be middle and poor people who cannot afford anything, the whole value chain is being re…

Instead of just rejecting the future like a Roman fatalist because you've decided that it's just going to be someone else controlling you, maybe a better plan is to adopt emerging technology when it comes into play (like for example when the Internet came into play) and use it to start your own company, or make yourself more productive, or disrupt an industry that desperately needs it. I shouldn't have to explain the…

it's really funny when people advise the fix for widespread sociological problems as "just become an entrepreneur and disrupt an industry bro"

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#15
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of just rejecting the future like a Roman fatalist because you've decided that it's just going to be someone else controlling you, maybe a better plan is to adopt emerging technology when it comes into play (like for example when the Internet came into play) and use it to start your own company, or make yourself more productive, or disrupt an industry that desperately needs it. I shouldn't have to explain the…

"All everybody has to do is work and there will be no unemployment" --throwaway323929 Wow, you just solved economics! Your argument is so incredibly reductive as to be nonsensical. The understanding of the allocation of capital is seemingly below grade school level. Even moreso, your understanding of the business cycle and how it interacts with governments and banks seems to be even more immature. "manufacturing" did…

This has strong shades of BoJack Horseman's "We solved America's gun problem by giving everyone guns"

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#17
It is, in some ways, but no matter your opinion, AI in engineering will continue unabated.

Wrote about this recently (from a vibe coding perspective) [1]. This applies to corporations, too, as they're betting their futures on fewer engineers, more AI.

[1] https://graybearding.bearblog.dev/they-got-something-on-the-...

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#18
post #10
post #3

Comparing how traditional tech companies scale to how frontier AI companies scale doesn't seem very fair to me. AI is still relatively new territory, in comparison traditional software companies benefit from decades of investment in cloud infrastructure, networking, and hardware. I'm certain those technologies also went through periods of heavy investment before they became scalable. The author also talks about advan…

> They create value for many people, which is why they've been adopted so quickly. A lot of that adoption is completely useless crap tho. Like ai in vacuum cleaner that ads absolutely nothing useful to anything. AI buttons intentionally at places I randomly click at, so that I am forced to open it. Google search that defaults to ai, so that we have to use it after then nerfed real search. There are useful usages of L…

Yeah there's a huge part of it that is "the investors want tulips, so we will plant tulips"

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#19
post #10
post #3

Comparing how traditional tech companies scale to how frontier AI companies scale doesn't seem very fair to me. AI is still relatively new territory, in comparison traditional software companies benefit from decades of investment in cloud infrastructure, networking, and hardware. I'm certain those technologies also went through periods of heavy investment before they became scalable. The author also talks about advan…

> They create value for many people, which is why they've been adopted so quickly. A lot of that adoption is completely useless crap tho. Like ai in vacuum cleaner that ads absolutely nothing useful to anything. AI buttons intentionally at places I randomly click at, so that I am forced to open it. Google search that defaults to ai, so that we have to use it after then nerfed real search. There are useful usages of L…

Which happens for every new technology. Blue LED's in everything, capacitive buttons on everything, car buttons replaced with ipads, et cetera. Some of the random placements will prove out useful but most won't and will disappear.

Re: Generative AI Is an Engineering Disaster

#20
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They create value for many people, which is why they've been adopted so quickly. A lot of that adoption is completely useless crap tho. Like ai in vacuum cleaner that ads absolutely nothing useful to anything. AI buttons intentionally at places I randomly click at, so that I am forced to open it. Google search that defaults to ai, so that we have to use it after then nerfed real search. There are useful usages of L…

Yeah there's a huge part of it that is "the investors want tulips, so we will plant tulips"

Thanks. You're comment made me laugh.
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