AI is slowing down • Hacker News Board

Re: AI is slowing down

#311

Post by asveikau » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #297

mike_hearn wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, you can find HN posts predicting that literally everything will destroy privacy/society/trust/etc. Predicting doom is a popular pasttime. What I remember from that time period is people predicting that we were in a tech bubble driven by social media, that obviously Facebook and LinkedIn were overvalued because social media was a trivial fad, and so on. Example article pulled at random: https://theconversation.com…

They weren't wrong. We were in a tech bubble driven by social media. Digg, StumbleUpon, Kongregate, MySpace, Orkut, Slide, Meebo, Mahalo, Bebo, Justin.TV, etc. aren't exactly around anymore. Facebook and YouTube are the winners. Anyone remember this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I How many of the logos that scroll by there still exist?

I was definitely around when that video was current, but I don't remember it. It's pretty amusing.

Ironically I feel like it captures the spirit of the then-coming 2010s boom more than the climate in 2007, though some of the language it's using is decidedly pre-mobile and more "web 2.0"-ish.

Re: AI is slowing down

#312

Post by Yizahi » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:08 PM UTC

dofm wrote: post #239

Today Apple launched its revamped AI offering. Judging by several reports, Apple pays Google a mere billion dollars a year to operate it. Essentially just licensing the IP. Google are (allegedly) happy to turn over the right to operate and distill their models for only a billion a year. Consumer revenue is only a smallish share of the puzzle, but still: If you are a consumer and you have a Mac or an iPhone, what do y…

Let's imagine for a second that this a few billion dollars per year to Google is correct. Why do you assume that it covers everything to be done by Google itself - from hosting to running actual servers? Apple may very well pay Google a licensing fee, take a trained LLM and run inference themselves locally or even at a yet another 3rd party for example a datacenter corporation or any mix of these. And then a true real cost of running just the inference on every Apple device would be separated into a completely different org payment flows, very obscured and higher than just a license fee.

I'm not saying that this is what really happens. I'm saying that believing a CEO is as foolish and as grounded in reality as believing Ed Zitron.

Re: AI is slowing down

#313

Post by vineyardmike » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:09 PM UTC

The obvious answer to where the AI Labs get customers is Cloud GPUs. Most users (globally) have cheap phones with poor CPUs and small amounts of RAM. They can't run usable models locally, and it's not clear from the Google-Apple deal if G is selling access to their cloud compute as part of that $1B, or just sharing the weights/IP.

Apple themselves have said there is usage limits, with a subscription upgrade for more usage. So clearly AI Labs are directly competing on that front, it's just a normal default/chosen decision. Considering there are defaults and still successful competitors (eg. safari v chrome), there's no reason to think that competition can't handle this too.

Edit: I want to add that Google is also probably willing to give the model away at a discount to its true value in exchange for guaranteeing that their primary competition (who has tons of cash) won’t have an economic incentive to enter the foundation model training arms race.

Most users who actually want these features for anything more serious than summarization and style updates will probably find value in a modest subscription or ad-supported tier of higher quality models, even if just for occasional usage. Apple can provide this, but once you're comparing features, for many Gemini/Claude/ChatGPT may be a better fit.

Oh, and I think there is an unfortunate but real risk that once again, apple totally over-promises here, and their AI models that they ship end up being pretty poor, and that drives users further into subscriptions.

Re: AI is slowing down

#314

Post by Leynos » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

dkobia wrote: post #9

Zitron is begging for a collapse at this point. Yes, his macro analysis correctly identifies a massive financial risk but his incessant pessimism completely misses the incredible ground-level utility that many of us on HN celebrate every day through undeniable, massive productivity gains. At this point I'm trying to believe there's a middle ground where the level of individual capability this unlocks, leads to major…

I quite like my mechanical spider from Wild Wild West and the coffee it makes with a 50% success rate

Re: AI is slowing down

#315

Post by 0000000000100 » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #240

putzdown wrote: post #136

One of the "smells" that gives away a quacky ranter is they speak in impassioned, "Why doesn't everyone understand this?" tones, but in fact their argument just doesn't flow. If Zitron's argument were as solid as he keeps saying it is, you would read it and understand it and see that it is solid. He would begin somewhere–statistics on AI demand, say–and then walk the calculations carefully over to the next step–maybe…

> He would begin somewhere–statistics on AI demand, say–and then walk the calculations carefully over to the next step–maybe revenue needed for profitability by AI companies–and you could follow the argument. That's exactly what the first (titled) section does?

Haha thought you were referring to the upsell at the start asking to subscribe to the newsletter for $70 / year. But yes it does call out the unprecedented amount of money getting dumped into AI.

What turned me off though was this paragraph:

> This is a hysterical era perpetuated by liars, cowards, imbeciles, craven boosters and the easily-fooled. Those excited about generative AI are either the victim or the perpetrator of a con centered around a technology to ingratiate at the highest cost possible.

That's a very bold claim. Really anyone excited about generative AI dude? That's just an absurd claim, and makes it sound like he hasn't used an LLM since GPT 3.5. It's just the language is so hyperbolic and angry that it's giving me more rant vibes that really hurt the tone and damage the (many valid) claims he's trying to make.

Really tried to read through this all the way, but man I'm just not in love with this guy. I feel like the frustration is clouding his judgement. This line is another one with a fact that isn't really grounded:

> so, you know, they only need to grow by 496% by the end of 2029!

Which isn't wrong, but also Anthropic's revenue increased from $1 billion in Dec. 2024 to $47 billion May of 2026. Which of course doesn't guarantee that it will continue to grow at that scale, but it's clear that there is a strong demand for what they are creating.

Idk, not really sure what my point is here. There are just so many facts and numbers quoted in here... It's a bit exhausting to refute a piece like this, when parts are genuinely correct, and parts are maybe subconciously exaggerated due to some emotional leaking into the argument.

Re: AI is slowing down

#316

Post by dofm » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:13 PM UTC

Yizahi wrote: post #312

dofm wrote: post #239

Today Apple launched its revamped AI offering. Judging by several reports, Apple pays Google a mere billion dollars a year to operate it. Essentially just licensing the IP. Google are (allegedly) happy to turn over the right to operate and distill their models for only a billion a year. Consumer revenue is only a smallish share of the puzzle, but still: If you are a consumer and you have a Mac or an iPhone, what do y…

Let's imagine for a second that this a few billion dollars per year to Google is correct. Why do you assume that it covers everything to be done by Google itself - from hosting to running actual servers? Apple may very well pay Google a licensing fee, take a trained LLM and run inference themselves locally or even at a yet another 3rd party for example a datacenter corporation or any mix of these. And then a true rea…

> Why do you assume that it covers everything to be done by Google itself - from hosting to running actual servers?

I don't, and that's the point, isn't it?

It's the keys to a substantial chunk of the kingdom for $1B a year. Literally they are getting, for a very small price, the right to distill their own models from Gemini.

Is there money in this for someone with a data centre? Possibly. Is there money in it for NVIDIA? Possibly.

But either way, that's not OpenAI or Anthropic, is it?

Re: AI is slowing down

#317

Post by Der_Einzige » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

dofm wrote: post #232

ccamrobertson wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Phrases like "journalists are currently gooning over OpenAI and Anthropic" really put me off. It's a poor attempt at modern muckraking; cheeky yet offering little substance.

He's just a Brit, writing in a style we write in. Sweary, comical, red-top. The Register did it for years.

[flagged]

Re: AI is slowing down

#318

Post by dofm » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

famouswaffles wrote: post #281

dofm wrote: post #239

Today Apple launched its revamped AI offering. Judging by several reports, Apple pays Google a mere billion dollars a year to operate it. Essentially just licensing the IP. Google are (allegedly) happy to turn over the right to operate and distill their models for only a billion a year. Consumer revenue is only a smallish share of the puzzle, but still: If you are a consumer and you have a Mac or an iPhone, what do y…

>If you are a consumer and you have a Mac or an iPhone, what do you need from AI that Apple's new offering won't provide? Why would you pay for ChatGPT, or even tolerate its inevitably increasingly desperate ad placements? Probably the same reason the Gemini app is still well behind ChatGPT in consumer usage and adoption despite being preinstalled on android phones worldwide ? Why are people using GPT on Windows. The…

> Will Apple's offering be providing any meaningful/significant benefit over just using GPT ? If not, don't expect any miracles.

Judging by the announcements today about its integration into the OSes? They are offering useful things ChatGPT cannot offer unless they write an "everything app".

One can (maybe should) make the argument that this is the browser monopoly again, but given that the USA has seemingly no intention of ever litigating that question again even if the EU does, there are clearly features here that OpenAI is effectively locked out of offering.

Re: AI is slowing down

#319

Post by nicoburns » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:16 PM UTC

thewebguyd wrote: post #298

Whats a bit wild to me is Google's only selling point for their Pixel phones are increasingly Gemini. Now that you can get Gemini, operated by Apple (with the Apple privacy features that come along with that), why would you ever consider going Android/Pixel (outside of running GrapheneOS, but I'm talking regular consumers here)? Google isn't even making anything on the deal with Apple. They pay $20B/year to be the de…

Android phones are also quite a bit more capable than iPhones in a number of ways due to being more open. Plenty of people just straight up prefer the experience (and plenty of others prefer the cheaper prices).

Re: AI is slowing down

#320

Post by parrellel » Mon, Jun 08, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

brindleth wrote: post #29

Whenever I read these kind of articles about AI financials, I'm reminded of identical screeds I read about Uber a few years ago. They were angrily insistent that Uber was a scam company run by criminals and charlatans and could never, ever become profitable or make money for its investors. It was a house of cards that would come crashing down sooner or later, and take everyone's money with it. Now it's 2026. Uber sti…

I mean, do you really want to compare AI to the "do crimes hard and fast enough we become a monopoly before anyone can properly respond" model.