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How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

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Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#141

Post by Karrot_Kream »

lbreakjai wrote: post #126
almostgotcaught wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm starting a new trend: ask every person that is so certain about the negative outlook how big their short position is. so how big is your short position? please let us know.

That's a dishonest argument. For a short to work, you need to be right about the direction _and_ the timing. Being right too soon amounts to being wrong, and the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

Well yeah because in the end we're all dead. There will be a day when AI companies are like GE, IBM, or maybe even Intel. All innovative companies in the fullness of time stop being innovative. The question is when. It's not a bubble if it deflates in 20 years.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#142

Post by knowaveragejoe »

watwut wrote: post #112
literatepeople wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ed has constantly done this, and it's a shame because it has taken the air out of the room for real AI criticism. Most of Ed's criticism comes from a place of giving a narrative to people who are wishing for a magic bullet that makes ChatGPT vanish tomorrow rather than actually pressuring companies about the harms this technology can cause. This in part is why his writing so often focuses on perceived financial issue…

Zitron is too much of a small player to "suck the air off other criticism of ai". Claiming that a single journalist blog has power to stop others from criticiaing ai for different reasons ia kind of absurd.

I can't think of an AI critic with more detailed writing on the subject.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#143

Post by Attrecomet »

almostgotcaught wrote: post #131
lbreakjai wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a dishonest argument. For a short to work, you need to be right about the direction _and_ the timing. Being right too soon amounts to being wrong, and the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

> market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. This is more mantra - professional shorts exist and they make money. So either you know something (in which case you'd be mum about it and just placing your bets) or you know nothing.

Actually, anyone with a brain can see that it's a huge and massively inflated bubble, but can also see that it's a fools game to try to time it without professional insight into the market. What we can do is make sure we're not overextended on the bubble participants, but that's about it.

No amount of hype from your side can make it a non-bubble market when OpenAI and other companies make wild and impossible to fulfill promises for infrastructure buildup that rely on vague promises of circular money lending between AI SaaS and infra companies.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#144

Post by edstarch »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #106
ai-x wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If 1 Billion people voluntarily use a product and many claim to be productive, there must be something good about the product right? But I guess Ed Zitron has found his audience

His argument is not that AI is not useful, it's that it's not financially sustainable at the current prices being charged for it - and additionally AI start-ups have 0 moat. Both of which likely are true.

Unfortunately, his argument very often happens to be that AI is not useful, that there are no customers for it, that AI coding agents do not work...

I happen to agree with the overall sentiment (that AI buildout is overextending the tech sector and the financial markets), but he is utterly fixated on the evils of AI and unable to admit either the current usefulness or the future potential of the technology. This does not make him look like an honest broker.

The rambling nature of his posts also makes it harder to properly argue against them as he keeps repeating the same points over and over; some of them are decent but there is certainly a gish gallop feeling to the whole thing.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#145

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

ai-x wrote: post #81
tecleandor wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he is level-headed, show me an Ed article that is positive about AI Why should those two things go together?

If 1 Billion people voluntarily use a product and many claim to be productive, there must be something good about the product right? But I guess Ed Zitron has found his audience

> If 1 Billion people voluntarily use a product and many claim to be productive, there must be something good about the product right?

Not necessarily. That METR study was interesting in that participants reported that they were more productive, but the hard data disagreed. This is incredibly common when looking at humans, we're generally bad at knowing what hurts or helps us in this sphere.

And personally, I think LLMs are super useful, but I'm pretty sceptical about valuations and returns in this space over the short to medium term.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#146

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

edstarch wrote: post #144
fred_is_fred wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His argument is not that AI is not useful, it's that it's not financially sustainable at the current prices being charged for it - and additionally AI start-ups have 0 moat. Both of which likely are true.

Unfortunately, his argument very often happens to be that AI is not useful, that there are no customers for it, that AI coding agents do not work... I happen to agree with the overall sentiment (that AI buildout is overextending the tech sector and the financial markets), but he is utterly fixated on the evils of AI and unable to admit either the current usefulness or the future potential of the technology. This does…

> Unfortunately, his argument very often happens to be that AI is not useful, that there are no customers for it, that AI coding agents do not work...

He definitely changed his mind on AI coding agents based on reader feedback. Ultimately though, you need incredible productivity growth/massive layoffs to make the numbers work for the current spending and RN, I don't see large signs of this.

> I happen to agree with the overall sentiment (that AI buildout is overextending the tech sector and the financial markets), but he is utterly fixated on the evils of AI and unable to admit either the current usefulness or the future potential of the technology. This does not make him look like an honest broker.

I think this is probably because he feels like he's taking crazy pills when he hears what CEOs/leaders are saying about this. It's some kind of mind virus. Like, I was at a meetup a few months back where a senior data/code person was saying that nobody would write code in 5 years, which (if you've used the tools heavily) seems pretty absurd.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#147

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

dist-epoch wrote: post #89
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. And yet, he's provided some of the most level headed takes on the current LLM boom, to the point where FT Alphaville link to his analysis of the economics.

FT Alphaville dissed bitcoin and Tesla for 10 years. Not the greatest track record.

They also dissed Fyre festival, We Work and basically all of the frauds in the last ten years. Would I use them as my only source? Of course not, but they're definitely useful and (importantly for my point), in the professional finance space.

FWIW, I personally think they're correct on both bitcoin and Tesla, but apparently people disagree.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#148

Post by gloosx »

ai-x wrote: post #81
tecleandor wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he is level-headed, show me an Ed article that is positive about AI Why should those two things go together?

If 1 Billion people voluntarily use a product and many claim to be productive, there must be something good about the product right? But I guess Ed Zitron has found his audience

A classic "billion flies can't be wrong"-style argument :)

A billion people drink Coke every day, yes, and billions also have cavities, obesity, and diabetes.

Majorities also once thought the Earth was flat.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#149

Post by almostgotcaught »

Attrecomet wrote: post #143
almostgotcaught wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. This is more mantra - professional shorts exist and they make money. So either you know something (in which case you'd be mum about it and just placing your bets) or you know nothing.

Actually, anyone with a brain can see that it's a huge and massively inflated bubble, but can also see that it's a fools game to try to time it without professional insight into the market. What we can do is make sure we're not overextended on the bubble participants, but that's about it. No amount of hype from your side can make it a non-bubble market when OpenAI and other companies make wild and impossible to fulfi…

> Actually, anyone with a brain can see that it's a huge and massively inflated bubble, but can also see that it's a fools game to try to time it without professional insight into the market.

"The bubble is both obvious and also completely unpredictable".

Makes sense.

Re: How much Anthropic and Cursor spend on Amazon Web Services

#150

Post by watwut »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #142
watwut wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zitron is too much of a small player to "suck the air off other criticism of ai". Claiming that a single journalist blog has power to stop others from criticiaing ai for different reasons ia kind of absurd.

I can't think of an AI critic with more detailed writing on the subject.

Per number of words in article possibly. But I do not think he "sucks air out of other critics".

I mostly assume that most people end reading his articles somewhere in first third and go on reading something easier to read. His articles are not exactly casual read material and they are loooong. You have to have certain kind of personality to get over first few paragraphs.

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