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Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

martinalderson.com

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Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#31

Post by kristianc »

The thing that keeps on getting glided past in most discussions of this is the distinction between systems of record and systems of workflow.

If you're SAP, Workday, Procore, maybe even HubSpot, you have a shout. Growth won't be fast, but you're okay for now and might even be able to position yourself as an integrator.

If you've raised large rounds and you're just a system of workflow that won't trigger a years long political fight to get you out - a document review startup, good luck.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#32

Post by QuantumNoodle »

It is not my intention to offend anyone in particular, but that sell-off has really colored my perception that investors are such _sheep_ when it comes to AI. Serious FOMOs. Not a shred of independent, nuanced, or critical thinking; just black or white opinions.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#33

Post by ajkjk »

H8crilA wrote: post #11
krupan wrote: post #4

I clicked and starting reading this expecting some actual connection between said markdown files and losing money. There was nothing at all like that in this blog post.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

phase change

edit: specifically, I imagine that macroscopic political and economic changes can be aptly modeled as phase changes due to changes in correlation distance[0] holding the system together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_function_(statisti...

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#34

Post by fullshark »

H8crilA wrote: post #11
krupan wrote: post #4

I clicked and starting reading this expecting some actual connection between said markdown files and losing money. There was nothing at all like that in this blog post.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

Humans seek to understand phenomena and they use narratives to accomplish that. Accepting that there are multiple factors always involved and chaos reigns is disturbing.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#35

Post by wat10000 »

H8crilA wrote: post #11
krupan wrote: post #4

I clicked and starting reading this expecting some actual connection between said markdown files and losing money. There was nothing at all like that in this blog post.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

It generates clicks. Correctness is irrelevant, especially when it’s impossible to prove wrong.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#36

Post by dragonwriter »

H8crilA wrote: post #11
krupan wrote: post #4

I clicked and starting reading this expecting some actual connection between said markdown files and losing money. There was nothing at all like that in this blog post.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

> I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down.

Inferring overly generalized and usually incorrect causal relations from extremely limited data and treating them as conclusive is a very strong human tendency; the idea of avoiding that and taking a systematic, structured, and conditional approach to assessing causal claims is fairly recent and, even among people who generally support it, often adhered to more as an aspirational principal than a consistent practice. And it certainly doesn't sell clicks the way the old way does.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#37

Post by motoboi »

H8crilA wrote: post #11
krupan wrote: post #4

I clicked and starting reading this expecting some actual connection between said markdown files and losing money. There was nothing at all like that in this blog post.

I don't understand why people think they know why stocks move up or down. There are clear cases from time to time, but in general the market doesn't explain itself. The reasons may not even be explainable in a way that's comprehensive to a human. Reminds me of this question - why did the USSR collapse? You can describe dozens of influences which acted all at the same time, but there isn't a one paragraph summary answ…

There are two perfect explanations for that. It’s just that people won’t believe in them and keep saying we have no good explanations.

Re: Wall Street just lost $285B because of 13 Markdown files

#39

Post by munk-a »

moi2388 wrote: post #5
techblueberry wrote: post #3

One of the things about this whole death of SAAS thing is - People buy SAAS to offload the cognitive load of understanding the problem space, not just because it’s hard to write for loops. But writing code probably is a cost. I think there will be an impact but I wonder if - these big companies keep selling to big companies because no one wants to hire a whole ass compliance team to ensure the business logic is consi…

Indeed. Management is excited about AI now, until they figure out the problem is not, and has never been, writing the initial code. It’s maintenance, compliance and support that is the reason they bought instead of built.

I am convinced that the AI boom is indistinguishable from offshoring - there are neat tools to assist development that are now available but imaging your company can be serviced by one underpaid prompt engineer is just ignoring that software solutions need to be evolved over time and planning for that evolution is most of the work in software engineering.
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