AI Market Clarity • Hacker News Board

Re: AI Market Clarity

#101

Post by bertil » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 12:42 PM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #23

bmau5 wrote: post #3

Customer Service keeps being touted as a success story of LLMs, but as a business owner and user I'd be very curious to see if it actually improves any UX CS metrics (NPS, CSAT) - as my experiences with AI chatbots are almost always negative. It can certainly frustrate visitors into using email or abandoning their efforts altogether, but at least for my business we've found current platforms aren't able to navigate t…

My experience has been pretty great: I regularly chat with the Dott support robot because their shitty app lets you book a ride without camera access, but then the in-app flow doesn't let you end the ride without camera access. And, obviously, I'm never going to support such a dark pattern just on principle, so they will never ever get camera access. That means after every trip, I copy&paste "dear robot, no camera, p…

That summarizes a common pattern where chat bots are not fixing the cost of having humans handle your problems, but the fact that either the app or the human process doesn’t have the permission it needs, and chatbots have not been optimized against those yet.

It’s an indictment of how decisions are made at those companies, not a vote for the relevance of chatbots.

Re: AI Market Clarity

#102

Post by 9rx » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 1:25 PM UTC

grafmax wrote: post #100

9rx wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is that there is no motivation for balance There is motivation, though! The wealthy don't want another wealthy guy to have it — they want it for themselves. That's why we have property tax, so that the owner actually has to find a good use for it, else be compelled to give it up to other other wealthy guy who wants it even more. > since you have the people with the wealth and power determining the laws. Th…

The average Joe doesn’t make the laws. The wealthy class do. Consider for a moment whether Elon Musk and his millions financing elections or Rupert Murdoch and his media empire have the same influence over the political process and you or I. The power imbalance seems obvious to me. You mention that wealthy people support property tax because it harms their competitors even though it harms themselves. I haven’t heard…

> Consider for a moment whether Elon Musk and his millions financing elections

Yeah, and look where that got him. He got to play pretend politician for a short while, but soon realized that it wasn't going to get him anywhere. Everything he wanted to change — including eliminating IP laws, as it happens — failed and it wasn't long before he ran away crying.

Trump is a stronger example of someone who is successfully, at least to some degree, usurping power from the Average Joe. However, I am not sure you have made a good case for his wealth being behind it. Hitler (Godwin's law, yeah, yeah) seized power away from Average Joe in a similar fashion while he was rather poor.

But Trump is an unusual case anyway. His behaviour is quite unlike what has been seen in the past (in the USA). It is not like being wealthy is a new invention.

> Why wouldn’t elites just write laws that benefit themselves and hurt others instead?

Exactly! If the wealthy had all the power, why wouldn't they just enact laws that say they get everything and everyone else must become their slaves? Why beat around the bush with all kinds of stupid half-measures? The reason is because the silly half-measures come from Average Joes trying to improve things, but to not compromise their personal situation (e.g. harming their job) in the process.

> This explanation for property tax seems incomplete to me.

Sure. I'll let you know when my series of textbooks on the subject is finished. But, there is only so much room in an HN comment.

Re: AI Market Clarity

#103

Post by mindslight » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 3:38 PM UTC

9rx wrote: post #97

mindslight wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trying to treat it as capital is how you get all these bizarre (and, to many, horrible) outcomes. Yes, it seems like you're trying to deny that this is exactly what capitalism has become. It started off as a descriptive model for real scarcity. Then once that stopped being exciting, capital owners and their intellectual supplicants came up with rationalizations to create new forms of capital to be owned and control…

> it seems like you're trying to deny that this is exactly what capitalism has become. How so? Yes, that's what capitalism has become. That idea serves as the entire basis of the discussion. If it were denied as you now suggest, what on earth are we talking about? > The only sensible thing to do is regroup at a different metric/term besides capitalism. Right. As before, this is what HN in the olden days would have do…

The definition of "capitalism" has not changed. Rather, capitalism has progressed at its logical conclusion - turning more and more things into capital. This is frustrating when we want to champion the progress that capitalism has brought, but it is what it is.

It seems like you're trying to invoke some pure version of capitalism that wasn't corrupted by imaginary property and other government giveaways [0], wasn't corrupted by money printing debt treadmill demanding ever-more assets to collateralize, didn't result in ever-increasing wealth concentration, etc. But this isn't what we have, and it's not clear that we could have even possibly had something different. Thinking that a problem can be solved merely by applying more vigilance is the fallacy of fundamentalism.

By regroup at another term, I mean describing the things we like about capitalism, so we can hopefully have some of those things even as the modern distaste for capitalism as a whole grows. Hence the reference to free markets in my original comment [1]. Things like private ownership, decentralization, competition, individual liberty, a stomach for some inequality, and so on.

[0] radio spectrum is another good example. Turning most of it into exclusive privately-administered slices definitely solved real problems, especially of technology at the time. But this was blessed by academic hand-waving away the downsides (Coase) to support the lucrative agenda. And it has certainly created real entrenched problems in the current day - now most innovation is being done in the tiny slices of unlicensed spectrum.

[1] FWIW "free market" is still probably not a good term to rally around given how much it's already been staked out by people interested in control rather than freedom, only looking to apply "freedoms" that increase their own power

Re: AI Market Clarity

#104

Post by 9rx » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 5:07 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #103

9rx wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it seems like you're trying to deny that this is exactly what capitalism has become. How so? Yes, that's what capitalism has become. That idea serves as the entire basis of the discussion. If it were denied as you now suggest, what on earth are we talking about? > The only sensible thing to do is regroup at a different metric/term besides capitalism. Right. As before, this is what HN in the olden days would have do…

The definition of "capitalism" has not changed. Rather, capitalism has progressed at its logical conclusion - turning more and more things into capital. This is frustrating when we want to champion the progress that capitalism has brought, but it is what it is. It seems like you're trying to invoke some pure version of capitalism that wasn't corrupted by imaginary property and other government giveaways [0], wasn't c…

> Rather, capitalism has progressed at its logical conclusion - turning more and more things into capital.

In actuality, what we really have is feudalism — with us turning more things into land!!!

You can play that silly semantic game all day long, but the reality is that, in practice, intellectual property is not considered to be the same as capital. It has its own set of rules that are unique to it and, especially in the USA, it is considered something extra special in way that is entirely unlike capital. Actions speak louder than words.

Yes, it is capitalism because that's what we've decided to call it, but that is possible because the definition of capitalism has changed over time to accommodate. Take your time machine back in time and tell the people that capitalism is made up of the random ideas you came up with on the spot and they will look at you like you have three heads.

Re: AI Market Clarity

#105

Post by District5524 » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 7:24 PM UTC

throwawayoldie wrote: post #55

District5524 wrote: post #48

Although there is a part on the use of AI in the legal market, but it is neither comprehensive, nor informative. A much better view of the law-specific state of the art models is available at https://www.vals.ai/vlair (although registration is needed to access the report). That benchmark in the report clearly shows that there is not much added value or moat in the custom training of Harvey (costing supposedly ~5M$),…

I think what the public really wants to know about Harvey is, is it named for Harvey Birdman, Attorney-At-Law?

that would be fun, but what i've heard that it's named after Harvey Specter, from Suits. But that's not something they'll officially ever deny or confirm...