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Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

404media.co

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Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#31

Post by exe34 »

reactordev wrote: post #14
heathrow83829 wrote: post #12

The argument that AI guys are making about the coming mass unemployment goes like this: those companies that are spending on AI rather than humans may have a huge competitive advantage that allows them to take marketshare from human run companies and thus there's less and less demand for human labor. But, how many businesses/sectors of the economy actually need to compete for marketshare? we assume it's nearly all of…

Without human labor, there’s no human economics. Without human economics, there is no market. So jokes on them.

As long as the handful trillionaires own everything by the end of the game, what does it matter to them?

Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#33

Post by jjmarr »

I'm spending more than my salary on AI, about $16k last month.

Employees at most companies are bottlenecked on things other than code, like manual testing or waiting to compile.

Companies like Meta, mentioned in the article, have invested billions into solving these problems with distributed build/test farms and custom review infra.

I'm personally seeing this, because my role shifted from "write GPU test code" last year to "rearchitect our build and review processes" this year as this bottleneck becomes obvious.

Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#34

Post by pixel_popping »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20
juancn wrote: post #17

Never outsource your core competency. That reliance on third-party AI is a huge risk, just saying.

The allure is too great. First we outsource manufacturing to China and now we outsource knowledge work to AI. Where does this end?

Why would it end? Next step is Humanoids.

Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#35

Post by deltoidmaximus »

reactordev wrote: post #29
threatofrain wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are materials and power, something which is more fundamental than the market.

who's going to get the materials? Robots?

Human slaves guarded by automated killer robots.

Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#37

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

pixel_popping wrote: post #34
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The allure is too great. First we outsource manufacturing to China and now we outsource knowledge work to AI. Where does this end?

Why would it end? Next step is Humanoids.

I'm wondering what American society or the economy would look like following the current trends.

An economy of capital owners and everyone else on govt assistance or working for scraps? Sounds like a recipe for "interesting" times. Unhinged people are already making attempts on Sama and we are just getting started.

Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#38

Post by dwedge »

What kind of independent journalism is this? Admittedly I only read the first half but it's just a load of advertising for AI companies based on LinkedIn posts with no fact checking. One of them is aiming for $10MM ARR. What's their current ARR? No mention. Did they really spend that much? Who knows.

I subscribed to 404media a couple of months ago and they added me to all of their newsletters. They were all definitely unticked/opted out but they added me anyway. I reported it to them, no reply, so I unsubscribed from the newsletters and they kept sending me podcast emails anyway. I cancelled totally based on that and wondered if it was too quick a decision but this article has convinced me.

Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#39

Post by Legend2440 »

brianwawok wrote: post #32
rebuilder wrote: post #9

It’s like a trucking company bragging about how much fuel they’re using.

If they aren’t wasteful it’s a reasonable measure of work. If they spend 18 hours in a traffic circle not so much.

As soon as you quantify something (lines of code, tickets closed, tokens spent, whatever) it starts to be gamed and therefore ceases to be a reasonable measure of work.

Re: Startups brag they spend more money on AI than human employees

#40

Post by sinnsro »

jjmarr wrote: post #33

I'm spending more than my salary on AI, about $16k last month. Employees at most companies are bottlenecked on things other than code, like manual testing or waiting to compile. Companies like Meta, mentioned in the article, have invested billions into solving these problems with distributed build/test farms and custom review infra. I'm personally seeing this, because my role shifted from "write GPU test code" last y…

Reading your post, it is clear to me that management and engineers will rediscover the theory of constraints at some point if they can connect the dots.
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