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AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

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Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#201

Post by sdsd »

nerptastic wrote: post #54
barrkel wrote: post #37

The lack of robotics mention somewhat undermines this article. I don't think it's intrinsically wrong, we are in a late stage of a transformation. Software is eating the world and AI is (so far) most profitably an automation of software. There is plenty of money to be made along the way. I don't really buy the article's seeming confusion about where the money is going to come from. Anthropic is making billions and si…

Anthropic today, who next week? If locally run models ever get to the point where they can reliably solve... 85% of what the frontier cloud models can do, I think many would be willing to accept slightly less problem solving ability and just run the thing locally. All hypothetical, but if compute + AI research continues at pace, in 5 years we should see extremely good local models.

As a user of local models, it's well above 85% already. I use frontier models at work and local models for home use because my day to day tasks are well within what DeepSeek can handle.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#202

Post by maartenh »

queenkjuul wrote: post #194
wanderingstan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Continuing on thoughts of LLM compression, I'm now convinced and amazed that economics will dictate that all devices contain a copy of all information on the Internet. I wrote a post about it: Your toaster will know mesopotamian history because it’s more expensive not too. https://wanderingstan.com/2026-03-01/your-toaster-will-know-...

Fairly certain the least expensive option will always be a dumb toaster that just plugs into the wall

But in that case, it won't be subsidized by the manufacturer!

I'm sure people would get a cheaper toaster in exchange of an ad being burned in your bread.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#203

Post by animuchan »

gilleain wrote: post #124
malfist wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Einstein famously refused to learn people's phone numbers, stating that he could look them up in the phonebook whenever he needed it. I don't think there is that much value in memorizing rarely used, easily looked up information.

Agreed, it interests me how much some people emphasise knowing facts - like dates in history or dictionary definitions of words. Facts alone are like pebbles on a beach, far better (IMO) to have a few stones mortared with understanding to make a building of knowledge. A fanciful metaphor but you know ...

This is an entirely false dichotomy though, is it not? One can both know facts and understand logic behind them, it's not like you're creating an RPG character and need to make a choice with limited character points.

(Can't say time is the limiting factor either -- we're both in HN comments, valuing our own time at zero.)

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#204

Post by bandrami »

sph wrote: post #189
bandrami wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This conversation keeps missing me because I don't think I've typed out boilerplate in like 20 years. Were people actually physically typing every character of the software they were writing before a couple of years ago?

Interesting. I don’t think my brother has written boilerplate in 20 years either. He’s a chef. I on the other hand am a software engineer, so writing code is part of the job title.

Right but, were you really not using snippets and templates before LLMs?

Company? Helm? Whatever vi uses that's like company and helm? Haven't IDEs written function calls for you for like decades now?

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#205

Post by queenkjuul »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #125
bdangubic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the "boilerplate" in that comment as "basic" meaning "I don't know how to center a div" or "I do not know how to remove duplicates from a collection"

Does anyone know how to centre a div? Last time I looked there were at least seven ways to do it.

Flexbox, mate

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#206

Post by wanderingstan »

queenkjuul wrote: post #194
wanderingstan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes! Continuing on thoughts of LLM compression, I'm now convinced and amazed that economics will dictate that all devices contain a copy of all information on the Internet. I wrote a post about it: Your toaster will know mesopotamian history because it’s more expensive not too. https://wanderingstan.com/2026-03-01/your-toaster-will-know-...

Fairly certain the least expensive option will always be a dumb toaster that just plugs into the wall

I chose a toaster specifically because it's about the simplest electrical device out there, and thus pushes the thesis to the extreme. But smart toasters are pretty common: https://revcook.com/products/r180-connect-plus-smart-toaster...

And as other commenter pointed out, a smart toaster with ads or data collection can be subsidized and thus be more profitable. (Oh what a world we're headed for!)

In any case, I think the LLM-everywhere thesis holds even strong for even moderate-complexity devices like power plugs, microwaves, and mobile phones.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#207

Post by leoedin »

jimbokun wrote: post #114
wanderingstan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine as well. 2 years ago my mind was blown that I could code in a language I didn’t know (scala) while on a log train ride with no internet (Amtrak) using a local model on a laptop. Couldn’t believe it.

The staggeringly effective compression of LLMs is still under appreciated, I think. 2 years ago you had downloaded onto your laptop an effective and useful summary of all of the information on the Internet, that could be used to generate computer programs in an arbitrarily selected programming language.

I got excited about that, until I actually tried to download a model and run it locally and ask it questions. A current gen local LLM which is small enough to live on disk and fit in my laptop's RAM is very prone to hallucination of facts. Which makes it kind of useless.

Ask your local model a verifiable question - for example a list of tallest buildings in Europe. I did it with Gemma on my laptop, and after the top 3 they were all fake. I just tried that again with Gemma-4 on my iphone, and it did even worse - the 3 tallest buildings in Europe are apparently the Burj Khalifa, the Torre Glories and the Shanghai Tower.

I wouldn't call that effective compression of information.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#208

Post by vel0city »

addandsubtract wrote: post #143
zemo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

full disclosure I work at Whatnot but that sort of thing is a large part of the appeal of Whatnot to me, that people are showing off the stuff live on stream and you can ask questions about it

This whole concept of selling things in video format seems so alien to me. I didn't believe when someone told me they shop on TikTok now. It already takes me ages to browse through a gallery of items, I couldn't imagine going through items video by video.

Some people watch TV channels which do nothing but present things to buy with a phone number to order. Lots of live shows as well, its not just non-stop pre-recorded infomercials. It doesn't surprise me in the slightest such an idea would move to short form video content as well. People trying on makeup or showing off clothing with their affiliate links down below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSN

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#209

Post by bluefirebrand »

awongh wrote: post #16

I think it's clear to me that AI will be both things: 1) as in the article it's a contraction of work- industrialization getting rid of hand-made work or the contraction of all things horse-related when the internal combustion engine came around but- it will also be 2) new technologies and ideas enabled by a completely new set of capabilities The real question is if the economic boost from the latter outpaces the los…

> But also, the AI pessimism is hard to understand in this context- do people really believe no novel things will be unlocked with this tech? That it's all about cost-cutting?

I frankly do not care how much novel stuff is "unlocked" with AI tech if it means I become unemployable due to it replacing all of my skills

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#210

Post by bluefirebrand »

Jcampuzano2 wrote: post #130
sweezyjeezy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is HN so a lot of us are pretty terrified of your 1). We went from 'you have a good job for the next couple of decades' to 'your job is at extreme risk for disruption from AI' in the space of like 5 years. Personally I have a family, I'm a bit old to retrain, but I never worked at a high-comp FAANG or anything so I can't just focus on painting unless my government helps me (note - not US/China). That's extr…

I'm 33 and I feel sort of lucky that I'll still potentially have time to retrain. I'm fully prepared to within the next 5 years or so (and potentially much less) I'll probably need to retrain into a trade or something to stay relevant in any sort of field. Many people claim its going to become a tool we use alongside our daily work, but its clear to me thats not how anybody managing a company sees it, and even these…

> I'm 33 and I feel sort of lucky that I'll still potentially have time to retrain. I'm fully prepared to within the next 5 years or so (and potentially much less) I'll probably need to retrain into a trade or something to stay relevant in any sort of field.

The problem is that there are not many fields that are going to be immune to AI based cost cutting and there surely will not be enough work for all of us even if we all retrain.

If we all do, then it will create a n absolutely massive downward pressure on wages due to massive oversupply in other lines of work too

So there's really just no good way out

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