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The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

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Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#131

Post by mikewarot »

I see two overlapping audiences here on HN, the hackers (now called makers) and the VC profit driven crowd. The popping of the bubble is going to hit those two camps differently.

The hackers will be glad to see the price of AI compute and hardware drop like a rock once everyone in the VC world realizes they've overbuilt, and a sell-off happens. We'll be using those resources to build the next things almost immediately. In fact, I'd be surprised if planning for that hadn't already started.

The VC type will ... I have no idea, actually.. I'm not a profit driven person. But experience shows they'll be around to do it all again for the next bubble in a decade or so.

As for AI itself, it will continue to get better and deliver value for those who know how to use it. For me, ChatGPT5 is an amazing improvement for generating code.

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#132

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

jjmarr wrote: post #72
SkyPuncher wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also worked at McDonalds. You example is interesting because this specific issue came up often. Different people interpreted it to mean different things. The cashiers who'd been around the longest had learned to clarify exactly what the customer wants. Also, this is absolutely NOT a customer issue. It's a restaurant issue to clarify. Plain means different things at different restaurants, so the solution is to _alwa…

Every fast food place I've been to, a "plain cheeseburger" includes cheese. However, at every high-end burger place I've been to, "plain" does NOT include cheese. So there is a somewhat standard meaning. I have this conversation enough that I now call out "plain no cheese" and ensure "no cheese" is written on the ticket.

Wouldn't a "plain cheeseburger" in those high-end burger places where it means no cheese just be a hamburger?

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#133

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #105
jjmarr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every fast food place I've been to, a "plain cheeseburger" includes cheese. However, at every high-end burger place I've been to, "plain" does NOT include cheese. So there is a somewhat standard meaning. I have this conversation enough that I now call out "plain no cheese" and ensure "no cheese" is written on the ticket.

McDonald's main menu items aren't actually called "cheeseburgers"; they're called "burgers with cheese". To me, this reads that "cheese" is a "topping" on the burger. Further, they _only_ showcase the "burger with cheese variant" in their combos and special. This further drives home that you should be thinking about cheese in the same way as toppings.

I don't know exactly, anymore, because I haven't been to a McD for so long.

But one thing I know for sure, in Germany they are called Cheeseburger, not only called, but written as such on the menu.

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#134

Post by Garlef »

jacinabox wrote: post #103
jqpabc123 wrote: post #2

One of the lowest level jobs in the market is taking orders at a fast food drive thru. If AI can't do this job, it probably can't do yours either. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c722gne7qngo Bottom line: AI has very poor grasp of reality --- because (surprise, surprise) it has zero real world experience.

I just did a captcha the other day that asked the user to select which items can fit inside the sample item (which was a handbag). You'd think that a multimodal deep learning model could figure out what objects fit inside other objects if it's going to cure cancer or whatever, but no I'm assuming that it needs to be taught explicitly.

There's a fun experiment with toddlers where they re-enter a room but the car they just sat in was replaced by a tiny version: They will try to get into the car even though only their foot fits in.

So size/scale is not as easy a concept to model in our minds as we might assume.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OtngSHtz-cc

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#135

Post by diggan »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #106
mh- wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strange source of confusion. A plain cheeseburger without cheese has a different name: a plain hamburger. I can't imagine saying "cheeseburger", no matter what qualifying words around it, and being surprised it included cheese.

Even more confusing when McDonalds calls them "burgers with cheese". Cheese seems to be a uniquely distinct event. Also "I'll take a number 3 meal plain" is void of an actual subject for the type of burger.

> Even more confusing when McDonalds calls them "burgers with cheese".

That's a fun regional difference with McDonalds it seems, we definitely have (literally) "Cheeseburger" as a independent item on the menu compared to "Hamburger" here in Spain: https://i.imgur.com/XDNuiUW.png

That's quite funny actually, Spain tends to translate everything and have everything in English, dubbed, but apparently the McDonalds Cheeseburger got to remain, and wasn't renamed to "Hamburguesa con Queso" as one would have expected :)

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#136

Post by jfengel »

mh- wrote: post #130
belZaah wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it has. Aircraft have long stopped getting faster or bigger or having a longer range. They get marginally more efficient, but not better for consumers. Cars are mostly the same. Audio codecs. Everything has a balancing loop somewhere. With AI there are several, eg. the better it is, the more content is made using AI, the worse AI is

In no particular order: Air travel (thanks to efficiencies) costs a fraction of what it used to, look up what % of people have traveled by air and compare that to previous decades. Cars are safer than ever, per mile driven, for their occupants and substantially more comfortable. They're also more efficient, but we've consciously traded that for heavier cars for crash safety. Lossless audio codecs are ubiquitous, and…

The efficiencies in air travel don't come from the airplanes. They come from optimizing routes, eliminating competition, and cramming far more people on an airplane.

That saves a lot of money, and despite complaining people seem to accept the tradeoff of cheaper flights for an unpleasant experience. That comes from using basically the same technology as a half-century ago, with more customers.

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#137

Post by mh- »

jfengel wrote: post #136
mh- wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In no particular order: Air travel (thanks to efficiencies) costs a fraction of what it used to, look up what % of people have traveled by air and compare that to previous decades. Cars are safer than ever, per mile driven, for their occupants and substantially more comfortable. They're also more efficient, but we've consciously traded that for heavier cars for crash safety. Lossless audio codecs are ubiquitous, and…

The efficiencies in air travel don't come from the airplanes. They come from optimizing routes, eliminating competition, and cramming far more people on an airplane. That saves a lot of money, and despite complaining people seem to accept the tradeoff of cheaper flights for an unpleasant experience. That comes from using basically the same technology as a half-century ago, with more customers.

This is just factually incorrect. Yes, business efficiencies have come from all sorts of tactics, but this being HN: the engine on the 737 MAX uses >30% less fuel at cruise than the JT8D from the 1970s-era 737s.

Not to mention airframe improvements in both aerodynamics and materials.

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#138

Post by p0w3n3d »

fknorangesite wrote: post #125
p0w3n3d wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was this joke at some point of time: Expectations: AI will deliver food to you and your high-paid programmers colleagues Reality: You and your colleagues work at Mac because AI took your high-paid programmers jobs

Or, similarly: > I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do laundry and dishes. https://twitter.com/AuthorJMac/status/1773679197631701238?la...

Precisely

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#139

Post by wood_spirit »

NKosmatos wrote: post #73
wood_spirit wrote: post #14

This post from earlier today was imo a better take https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45008209

Thanks for posting this and yes you’re right, it’s a more detailed and well written post, giving a better explanation of the AI situation. We “old timers” love TheRegister but it has a certain style and way of writing, especially the original UK version (where BOFH gained fame).

I’m an old timer who used to read el reg religiously back before the inq split and it jumped the shark. It is a shadow of it’s former quality and integrity imo :(

Re: The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

#140

Post by votepaunchy »

saratogacx wrote: post #111
petralithic wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it does seem like progress has plateaued considerably. The leaps from GPT 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and 4 to 5 shrinks with each one, with 5 being particularly disappointing.

I, with no evidence, feel like GPT-5 was an efficiency release. Save as much power/compute while mitigating the quality loss leaving only the top model (using similar compute as previous models) to show real improvement.

We should remember that Moore’s law was not just about the number of transistors but also the unit cost. GPT-5 works like any modern CPU with both power and efficiency cores.
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