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AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

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Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#181

Post by siwatanejo »

zx0r23 wrote: post #158
siwatanejo wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, so our buildings' windows will be solar panels, what's wrong with that? And all our floors can be data centers, what's wrong with that?

You may want to lay off the LLM and practice your reading comprehension.

Ok I guess my mind didn't think "entire surface of the earth" would really mean entire surface of the earth because that's just abhorrently stupid. I mean, in order to cover the entire surface of the earth with datacenters, we would first need to build stuff on the entire surface of the earth... Which would take... thousands of years? And I'm sure we would grow some trees on top of the data-centers along the way.

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#182

Post by aurareturn »

danny_codes wrote: post #177
aurareturn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like how starting a chip fab was relatively easy back in the 80s and 90s. There were dozens of chip fab companies in the 80s. It turns out that fabs follow Rock's Law which is that the capital cost to build a new fab doubles every 4 years. This means it will quickly get rid of the less competitive players. This is not dissimilar to the LLM scaling laws where you need a magnitude more compute to get unlock a new…

I doubt it. Compute costs tend to crater over time, and LLMs will almost certainly plateau. So the opposite is almost certainly the case: over time, it becomes cheaper to train.

By that time, there would be a clear monopoly or duopoly that controls the revenue, distribution, and compute.

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#183

Post by benedictevans »

camillomiller wrote: post #179
benedictevans wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no duplicate slides.

Ben, I follow you and think you’re brilliant, but boy you can’t take feedback like ever. Duplicate slide is there clearly to add the question, but it has a glaring typo—- “predications” instead of “predictions”. A random internet stranger read to page 51, which is already a rare occurrence, and helped you find a typo that you can now edit. But sure, the answer to that is “your comment is wrong”.

Ah, that’s different. Your question confused me because you said they were duplicate slides and they are not, and your word ‘predication’ looked like a typo by you.

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#184

Post by Viliam1234 »

pingou wrote: post #145
libraryofbabel wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the summary. I do love Benedict‘s work; I find he’s one of the few commentators who consistently strikes a balance between taking the transformative potential of AI seriously while not falling over into hype. Some things that stand out: * He’s really good with his historical analogies, especially looking at previous transformations like the early Internet and mobile; no surprise given that he has a history…

I just got a bit triggered by the "hype" word. What if the hype was real? It is easy to say that nobody knows how all of this is going to work, and I would say it is a prudent thing to say, but there is value in making a bold prediction from the start instead of just updating your view to respond to change. In one case you are predicting stuff, in the other, just reacting. But I absolutely agree that in hindsight we…

I agree, especially the juxtaposition of "we have still have no idea how all of this is going to work when the dust settles" and "hype". If we don't know, then there is a chance it isn't a hype.

For example, now it may seem that the models are becoming mere infrastructure, and the value moves up to apps and data. But if the models of tomorrow become able to write the apps themselves, then the value moves back. I won't need to pay some to write me a wrapper for the LLM, if the LLM will be able to write the same wrapper, maybe even better because it will be customized for my needs. The app providers are currently profiting from the gap between "what a software company can do using the AI" and "what the AI can do unaided", but that gap is going to shrink, possibly to zero.

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#185

Post by Viliam1234 »

seesawtron wrote: post #174

>"We see a future where intelligence is autility like electricity or water and people buy it from us on a meter” Sam Altman I always considered jokingly that I am "selling" my intelligence when I work for a company. This clarifies that my perception wasn't far off.

Hopefully you are renting your intelligence to the company, not selling it.

(Unless the job gets you burned out, in which case it was selling indeed.)

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#186

Post by Viliam1234 »

dist-epoch wrote: post #81
hansmayer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To quite Ilya Sutskever: Who made Ilya Sutskever, or any other LLM-bonehead the Grand Prophet of Humanity? Why the fuck is his opinion on that relevant? Of course he will shill for data centers.

when someone gives their opinion about AI, one typical retort is "are you an AI/LLM expert? we should let the experts talk"

it is silently assumed that only the experts who agree with me are the true experts

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#187

Post by paigerank »

benedictevans wrote: post #183
camillomiller wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ben, I follow you and think you’re brilliant, but boy you can’t take feedback like ever. Duplicate slide is there clearly to add the question, but it has a glaring typo—- “predications” instead of “predictions”. A random internet stranger read to page 51, which is already a rare occurrence, and helped you find a typo that you can now edit. But sure, the answer to that is “your comment is wrong”.

Ah, that’s different. Your question confused me because you said they were duplicate slides and they are not, and your word ‘predication’ looked like a typo by you.

The slides say "predication" and not "prediction." Just a typo :) I think the AI slop comment was excessive, and I liked your deck, but there is indeed a typo you could fix!

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#188

Post by danny_codes »

aurareturn wrote: post #182
danny_codes wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. Compute costs tend to crater over time, and LLMs will almost certainly plateau. So the opposite is almost certainly the case: over time, it becomes cheaper to train.

By that time, there would be a clear monopoly or duopoly that controls the revenue, distribution, and compute.

Possible, but only if there’s regulatory capture. Which will be difficult since any country could produce a SOTA model that everyone can use for free

Re: AI eats the world (Spring 26) [pdf]

#189

Post by jp57 »

camkego wrote: post #180
jp57 wrote: post #155

Wait. There were 10000 elevator attendants in the USA in 1990?

Supposedly, in 1990, there was somewhere between 132,000 and 270,000 travel agents. Consider that.

That’s far more believable than 10,000 elevator attendants. I was an adult in 1990 and used travel agents. But I can’t remember ever encountering an elevator attendant.
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