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Technical Deflation

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Re: Technical Deflation

#31

Post by aleph_minus_one »

mr_toad wrote: post #11
Zigurd wrote: post #8

Technology has always been deflationary. But you don't put off buying a computer because it will be cheaper next year. Nobody seems to be putting off buying GPUs despite scary depreciation and a blistering pace of new product introductions that are ever cheaper faster and better.

Some people do put off buying cellphones and laptops when they know a new model will come out every year.

> Some people do put off buying cellphones and laptops when they know a new model will come out every year.

Don't confuse technical deflation with the Osborne effect:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

Re: Technical Deflation

#32

Post by philipallstar »

hahajk wrote: post #9
darkerside wrote: post #5

Does anyone else agree with this the premise of this article? Is it sensible to put off building things now because it will get even cheaper and faster later? Maybe the time value of time is only increasing as we go.

The conclusion that you should wait to build anything is an illustration of the danger of economic inflation that the author started with. I'm not sure why he thinks the economic version is toxic but the technological version is a good idea though. The answer to should we just sit around and wait for better technology is obviously no. We gain a lot of knowledge by building with what we have; builders now inform where…

> I think the more interesting question is what would happen if we induced some kind of 2% "technological inflation" - every year it gets harder to make anything. Would that push more orgs to build more things? Everyone pours everything they have into making products now because their resources will go less far next year.

Government bonds already do this for absolutely everything. If I can put my money in a guaranteed bond at X%/year then your startup that's a risky investment has to make much better returns to make it worth my while. That's why the stock market is always chasing growth.

Re: Technical Deflation

#33

Post by Aurornis »

vrighter wrote: post #13
Zigurd wrote: post #8

Technology has always been deflationary. But you don't put off buying a computer because it will be cheaper next year. Nobody seems to be putting off buying GPUs despite scary depreciation and a blistering pace of new product introductions that are ever cheaper faster and better.

only really faster and better if you don't use them for gaming, unfortunately. Upscaling and frame generation is not a better GPU, it's one with a band-aid applied to hide the fact that it actually did not get much faster. RTX doesn't count to me either, because that's some bullcrap pushed by gpu manufacturers that requires the aformentioned upscaling and frame generation techniques to fake actually being anywhere cl…

> only really faster and better if you don't use them for gaming, unfortunately. Upscaling and frame generation is not a better GPU, it's one with a band-aid applied to hide the fact that it actually did not get much faster.

The generations gains haven’t been as great as past generations, but it’s getting silly to claim that GPUs aren’t getting faster for gaming.

Intentionally ignoring frame generation and DLSS up scaling also feels petty. Using those features to get 150-200fps at 4K is actually a very amazing experience, even if the purists turn their noses up at it.

The used GPU market is relatively good at calibrating for relative gaming performance. If new GPUs weren’t actually faster then old GPUs wouldn’t be depreciating much. Yet you can pick up 3000 series GPUs very cheaply right now (except maybe the 3090 which is prized for its large VRAM, though still cheap). Even 4000 series are getting cheap.

Re: Technical Deflation

#34

Post by cootsnuck »

JacobiX wrote: post #28

In the end, the article says: > writing functioning application code has grown easier thanks to AI. > It's getting easier and easier for startups to do stuff. > Another answer might be to use the fact that software is becoming free and disposable to your advantage. For me, the logical conclusion here is: don't build a software startup!

Yup. I'm starting to wonder if the startup space has a pretty big blind spot not realizing that how easy it is to build mostly/semi functioning software is not a unique advantage...

I left an AI startup to do tech consulting. What do I do? Build custom AI systems for clients. (Specifically clients that decided against going with startups' solutions.) Sometimes I build it for them, but I prefer to work with their own devs to teach them how to build it.

Fast forward 3+ years and we're going to see more everyday SMBs hiring a dev to just build them the stuff in-house that they were stuck paying vendors for. It won't happen everywhere. Painful enough problems and worthwhile enough solutions probably won't see much of a shift.

But startups that think the market will lap up whatever they have to offer as long as it looks and sounds slick may be in for a rude surprise.

Re: Technical Deflation

#35

Post by vrighter »

"But building the same functionality has undoubtedly become simpler."

I disagree with this statement. It has become simpler, provided you don't care about it actually being correct, and you don't care about whether you really have tests that test what you think you asked for, you don't care about security, and other things.

Building the same thing involves doing the things that LLMs have proved time and again that they cannot do. But instead of writing it properly in the first place, you now need to look for the needle in the haystack that is the subtle bug that invariable get inserted by llms every single time I tried to use them. Which requires you to deeply understand the code anyway. Which you would have gotten automatically (and easier) if you were the one writing the code in the first place. developing the same thing at the same level of quality is harder with an LLM.

And the "table stakes" stuff is exactly the thing I would not trust an LLM with for sure, because the risk of getting it wrong could potentially be fatal (to the company, not the dev. Depends on his boss' temperament) with those.

Re: Technical Deflation

#37

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

vrighter wrote: post #35

"But building the same functionality has undoubtedly become simpler." I disagree with this statement. It has become simpler, provided you don't care about it actually being correct, and you don't care about whether you really have tests that test what you think you asked for, you don't care about security, and other things. Building the same thing involves doing the things that LLMs have proved time and again that th…

And subtle bugs don’t get inserted by humans? Did security flaws in software just start happening after LLMs were introduced?

Re: Technical Deflation

#38

Post by detourdog »

Ray20 wrote: post #15
Zigurd wrote: post #8

Technology has always been deflationary. But you don't put off buying a computer because it will be cheaper next year. Nobody seems to be putting off buying GPUs despite scary depreciation and a blistering pace of new product introductions that are ever cheaper faster and better.

> But you don't put off buying a computer because it will be cheaper next year. Why not? Sounds like a pretty reasonable strategy. > Nobody seems to be putting off buying GPUs Many people doing exactly that.

Back when I was first started wrestling with this issue it the question was “how much faster will the daily photoshop operations be with a new computer?”

Now a new computer barely does anything faster for me.

Re: Technical Deflation

#39

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #31
mr_toad wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people do put off buying cellphones and laptops when they know a new model will come out every year.

> Some people do put off buying cellphones and laptops when they know a new model will come out every year. Don't confuse technical deflation with the Osborne effect: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

The Osborne affect has been heavily disputed over the years - it says so in your own citation.

But at least with iPhones, there is a deflationary affect because Apple has since the 3GS in 2009, kept the old phone around and reduced the price. For instance my son wanted an iPhone 16 Plus. I told him to wait until the 17 was announced and he bought one cheaper from T-Mobile

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