Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits • Hacker News Board

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#181

Post by Analemma_ » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 1:56 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #163

RoyTyrell wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those companies are also likely still in the red. They're banking on the hope that one day they will be profitable. I'm sure one of them will be.

HN said the same thing about Uber forever.

Uber sold something like $50 billion in equity and debt before it went public, and although they're profitable now, to me it doesn't seem like they have answer to Waymo coming up fast in the rear-view mirror. I think Uber is still a scam, just one where the earlier investors fleeced the later ones who are never going to see the returns they paid for.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#182

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 1:58 AM UTC

Retric wrote: post #178

amscanne wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you being objective or just romanticizing the past? Just to use your example: YouTube is filled with talented writers and storytellers, who would have never been able to share their content in the past. *And* the traditional media complex is richer than ever. I don’t think average quality matters. Just what you want to consume. If anything, I’d be more open to the opposite argument. Media is so much richer and mo…

I was trying to be objective which is why I didn’t try to compare individual shows. Thus average production quality seems like a useful metric. There’s currently a handful of “traditional media/streaming” shows with absolutely crazy budgets today and if you happen to like them then that’s great. However, if you don’t things quickly fall off a cliff in terms of production quality. The same is true of YouTube. The qual…

It's worth noting that due to advances in technology, it is possible to deliver the same show for less money and time.

The average "how to cook on a food network" show was, ultimately, one person in the kitchen of a large home cooking for the camera, produced once a week. There are plenty of people delivering that style of cooking show with high production quality today. Obviously it's not the same because some things are less deliverable with smaller or one-person teams (Miss Piggy is not going to visit some Youtube show the way she visited Martha Stewart) but there are people making this content ranging from big shops like NYT Cooking to smaller outfits like Binging with Babish, Glen and Friends Cooking, etc. and there are even outfits like this dedicated to more niche topics like Tasting History or Emmymade.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#183

Post by twoodfin » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 1:59 AM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #176

twoodfin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Thought experiment - Startrek replicators are real. This basically means almost everything can be built without human involvement. The guy who owns the replicators is the richest. The wealth gap is so massive you get revolts (because we're educated, not serfs, right?) So then government needs to step in. Either tax->ubi?, socialize it, or make it a state asset? Regardless, that's the goal of AGI/robotics/etc.

But these aren’t replicators owned by a monopolist. There are a number of highly funded, highly competitive vendors at every level of the stack.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#184

Post by kelseyfrog » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:00 AM UTC

amscanne wrote: post #147

Retric wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the average person actually better off after the late 90’s internet is probably a harder question than it might seem. The long tail may be closer to what I want, but the quality is also generally lower. YouTube just doesn’t support a team of talented writers, Amazon is mostly filled with junk, etc. Social media and gig work is a mixed bag. Junk e-mail etc may not be a big deal, but those kinds of downsides do erod…

Are you being objective or just romanticizing the past? Just to use your example: YouTube is filled with talented writers and storytellers, who would have never been able to share their content in the past. *And* the traditional media complex is richer than ever. I don’t think average quality matters. Just what you want to consume. If anything, I’d be more open to the opposite argument. Media is so much richer and mo…

I wish this argument would die. We're asking for a better future among futures, not a better future compared to the past.

It's like buying a car, receiving a bike, and then being told, "A bike is great because you don't have to walk anymore." If you feel like that's unfair and the response misses the point, that's how that lands. I don't know who, when hearing that, feels better. It feels out of touch and dismissive.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#185

Post by moralestapia » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:01 AM UTC

twoodfin wrote: post #183

irjustin wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought experiment - Startrek replicators are real. This basically means almost everything can be built without human involvement. The guy who owns the replicators is the richest. The wealth gap is so massive you get revolts (because we're educated, not serfs, right?) So then government needs to step in. Either tax->ubi?, socialize it, or make it a state asset? Regardless, that's the goal of AGI/robotics/etc.

But these aren’t replicators owned by a monopolist. There are a number of highly funded, highly competitive vendors at every level of the stack.

Sure, but you're not one of them.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#186

Post by rogerrogerr » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:05 AM UTC

irjustin wrote: post #176

twoodfin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Thought experiment - Startrek replicators are real. This basically means almost everything can be built without human involvement. The guy who owns the replicators is the richest. The wealth gap is so massive you get revolts (because we're educated, not serfs, right?) So then government needs to step in. Either tax->ubi?, socialize it, or make it a state asset? Regardless, that's the goal of AGI/robotics/etc.

If you can make many replicators, money stops making much sense. You probably end up with energy (if these devices take a lot of energy to operate) as the new currency.

My gut says that _somehow_ the middle class will get screwed as always, but I struggle to articulate the way that abundant cheap goods lead to that outcome.

Maybe because the very few that control the replicators will be able to cut people they don’t like out of partaking from them? That’d make some sense.

If replicators were replicatable, that control evaporates quickly. Remember how nervous we all were about LLM censorship, then suddenly a $2000 MacBook Pro could run pretty great open source models that seem a few months behind SOTA?

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#187

Post by rogerrogerr » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:06 AM UTC

moralestapia wrote: post #185

twoodfin wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But these aren’t replicators owned by a monopolist. There are a number of highly funded, highly competitive vendors at every level of the stack.

Sure, but you're not one of them.

Sure, but who do they sell stuff to if no one has a job? We’re on the brink of some _very_ unexplored branches of human behavior.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#188

Post by DangitBobby » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:08 AM UTC

Foxhuls wrote: post #179

gtowey wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and maybe it would be better still if we all tried heroin!

Are you legitimately trying to compare alcohol to heroin?

I think they are legitimately mocking the notion that we wouldn't all be better off without alcohol.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#189

Post by ok_dad » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:11 AM UTC

rogerrogerr wrote: post #187

moralestapia wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you're not one of them.

Sure, but who do they sell stuff to if no one has a job? We’re on the brink of some _very_ unexplored branches of human behavior.

Imagine a few billionaires pay big bucks to keep AGI to themselves and let the rest of us die on the vine.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#190

Post by irjustin » Sat, Oct 04, 2025, 2:14 AM UTC

rogerrogerr wrote: post #187

moralestapia wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but you're not one of them.

Sure, but who do they sell stuff to if no one has a job? We’re on the brink of some _very_ unexplored branches of human behavior.

This is why revolts happen.

If you scratch under the hood of UBI, it's a mechanism to keep revolutions at bay. The balance of tax the ultra wealthy vs giving people enough to "live comfortably" is always the job of governance.