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AI is slowing down

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Re: AI is slowing down

#321

Post by dofm »

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…

Yes. And there is only one other major phone brand in the West with this kind of clout: Samsung. Who I think will want their own thing that isn't Google's, and who do have some connections to OpenAI.

But given how dependent OpenAI are on Samsung, it's hard to believe they will see a radically better deal in material terms.

Re: AI is slowing down

#322

Post by Tanjreeve »

0000000000100 wrote: post #315
SlinkyOnStairs wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 perpetr…

So basically you can't find fault with the numbers but you find the tone annoying?

Re: AI is slowing down

#323

Post by dofm »

iknowstuff wrote: post #301
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…

ChatGPT has >1B users globally a mere 3 years in. iPhone is at 1.5B mostly concentrated in rich areas.

Only maybe fifty million of them are paying, though.

Re: AI is slowing down

#324

Post by dofm »

vineyardmike wrote: post #313

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…

> 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.

OK, that I would concede is a possibility. Though Gemini is clearly capable, and the (alleged) story is that they have licensed a one-trillion parameter form of Gemini. I don't think they are making the same mistake.

ETA: I also concede they could make a different mistake ;-)

Re: AI is slowing down

#325

Post by irishcoffee »

marcosdumay wrote: post #289
irishcoffee wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I thought there were some actual small cabal of people running the global economy, this is almost like a novel: massive amounts of money entered the economy starting in 2008 and 2020-2023, the rich became insanely wealthy. Their wealth is now all tied up in the 2020s version of the railroad/fiber, we're going to essentially erase trillions of dollars from the global economy and reset. We sure do need a reset.

I really doubt the US will erase any money any time soon. The reset is prone to happen by other means.

I consider myself of average intelligence, and I see this coming. Maybe I assume too much.

Re: AI is slowing down

#326

Post by aoeusnth1 »

techblueberry wrote: post #6
ElFitz wrote: post #2

I find it difficult to separate this piece’s tone from its content. The tone puts me off and makes it hard for me to judge it on its merits, despite some of the arguments seeming sound and well supported.

Given the way tone has been intentionally abused, particularly in this industry, I’ll take a few f bombs and the truth.

What about all his other articles that had f-bombs and the predictive utility of used toilet paper?

Re: AI is slowing down

#327

Post by techblueberry »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #53
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, supposed productivity gains are dubious. I personally experience at best no productivity gains when using LLMs to write code, and sometimes it's an active drain on my productivity. There was that one study a year or so ago showing similar results. People are trying to say the productivity gains are there and undeniable, but that is not true. It is very much a subject of controversy whether AI helps productivity…

I can see an argument that the productivity gains are illusory / don’t translate to economic productivity. I’m not denying the possibility. However, most of the engineers I respect have gone from being skeptics a year ago to convinced today. I don’t personally know any true holdouts any more. If there are studies that disprove productivity gains more than six months ago, I’m happy to believe that it was true of the A…

I’m going back to being a holdout, but it’s nuanced - My theory into why LLMs don’t lead to the colloquial definition of productivity would be something like - if code was never the bottleneck than generating code faster doesn’t result in more meaningful output.

Even if you take for granted that AI is as good as the best people say in writing code. And Ive spent a lot of time generating codes, I won’t disagree - Then the question becomes - does this change your daily incentives such that you reach for code as the solution to your problems rather than something else (coordinating with your colleagues? Product management? Planning and Design?

So from a holistic perspective, I think intentionally limiting your own AI usage is the best approach for maximum long-term productivity.

Re: AI is slowing down

#329

Post by brap »

It always seemed very natural to me that AI will move “down the stack”, where Open AI and Anthropic don’t really have a foot in the door.

Who makes consumer devices? Google

Who makes operating systems? Google

Who makes browsers? Google

Who makes the world’s most popular websites? Google

By the time 90% of average internet users get to chatgpt.com or whatever, they already went through several Google chokepoints, each layer is one more place Google can answer their questions.

And that’s not even getting into the chips, the data centers, the data, the talent, the consumer apps, the enterprise apps, the cloud platform, the brand, and of course the biggest cash printing machine in human history.

You would honestly have to be insane to bet against G.

Re: AI is slowing down

#330

Post by famouswaffles »

dofm wrote: post #318
famouswaffles wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 inten…

Just because Apple said they're 'integrating into the OS' (which can really mean a lot of things) doesn't mean they'll offer something users will actually care about that Open AI can't match.
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