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The (real) dead economy theory

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Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#41

Post by inigyou »

HerbManic wrote: post #27
ggm wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously yes. On evidence alone the path to profit doesn't exist for most of the massive capital sinks. A small number of players At best MAY return on investment, but in the cycle time capital needs a return, most are functionally incapable AGI isn't happening. So, it's incremental improvements on LLM and Generative methods. Any advance which requires more tech inputs demands more capital. Any advance which require…

I have noticed that those that are the most optimistic about AI almost always talk in a future-tence. It WILL do this, it COULD achieve that etc.

I think Ed Zitron challenged us all to talk to an AI booster without letting them use future tense.

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#42

Post by lionheart »

inigyou wrote: post #39
lionheart wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. Just based on personal experience of using these tools for the last several years and how they’ve progressed.

What about the tools makes you think we've hit the singularity? My experience with them is that they've memorized a lot of stuff, but can't make anything fundamentally new. Most of the useful things LLMs do amounts to semantic search.

They’re discovering previously unknown mathematical theorems.

How is that not new?

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#43

Post by lionheart »

koe123 wrote: post #36
lionheart wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. Just based on personal experience of using these tools for the last several years and how they’ve progressed.

So, what your saying is that there is a perhaps linear, perhaps exponential increase, and that you are projecting that increase forward indefinitely. Let me know if this is unfair. Counter argument: does anything else work this way? E.g. Moores law had an end too right? I would argue that the core tech breakthrough (Transformer-based LLM) has been improved, but no fundamental further innovation seems to have been mad…

Not indefinitely but at least to the point where they’re smarter than humans.

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#44

Post by koe123 »

lionheart wrote: post #42
inigyou wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the tools makes you think we've hit the singularity? My experience with them is that they've memorized a lot of stuff, but can't make anything fundamentally new. Most of the useful things LLMs do amounts to semantic search.

They’re discovering previously unknown mathematical theorems. How is that not new?

They are new proofs and for sure useful but as far as I’ve understood mainly interpolative. E.g. an LLM can “create” a poem about a purple chicken as it has datapoints for “purple” and “chicken”, so it can create something plausible inbetween.

Similarly, in my mind it can interpolate proofs by interpolating between data points for technique A and technique B. This is novel and brute-forcing proofs this way is useful. It is analogus to how sometimes it can generate programs that pass unit tests, I think.

However, creating fundamentally new concepts outside of the interpolated datapoints is not something I am convinced of. Maybe it can extrapolate some things, if correct add it as a data point, continue. Essentially a search, and it would be amazing if this works and maybe we can get some recursive improvement this way. But the “ideas” it will use to conduct this search are a function of the input data points as well, and thus in my view fundamentally limited in novelty. I am not discounting the usefulness, but I am not convinced you can just keep doing this indefinitely scaling intelligence exponentially.

Of course nobody can know yet really and I am just speculating just like you. But I also think the “experts” Sam and Dario also don’t know, and given their incentives I am not really convinced by them.

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#45

Post by bigbadfeline »

rokob wrote: post #13

> something is valuable because some people think other people will pay more for it in the future, and not because it does useful things This has been the definition of finance for hundreds of years. I don't know why it comes across here like this is a new phenomenon.

>> something is valuable because some people think other people will pay more for it in the future, and not because it does useful things > This has been the definition of finance for hundreds of years. I don't know why it comes across here like this is a new phenomenon.

I don't think so. However, you can convince me by providing a reference to that definition in a textbook used by top schools, I'm honestly curious to see something like this.

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#46

Post by bigbadfeline »

civilian wrote: post #3

> That's the logic of the whole market today. AI – the world's money-losingest technology – attracts investment at the expense of everything else. I expect Cory to have skepticism about technology that can be exploited for dystopian purposes, but calling AI "the world's money-losingest technology" is out of touch. If AI can support/replace some intellectual work, it'll be revolutionary, and that's what the investment…

> I expect Cory to have skepticism about technology that can be exploited for dystopian purposes, but calling AI "the world's money-losingest technology" is out of touch.

Since when stating facts is "out of touch"? Currently AI is losing many billions of dollars, it's a fact.

> If AI can support/replace some intellectual work, it'll be revolutionary, and that's what the investment bet is about.

"replace some intellectual work" says nothing about the cost of doing it, the losses keep piling up and "revolutionary" pies in the skies come and go without real economic or financial improvement - on the contrary, the economic situation is getting worse mostly due to AI because of the fake urgency of the "AI race". A slower pace of development would cost a lot less and might be economically viable but that's not what we have.

> but it's dissapointing to see mistakes like this in Cory's thinking.

Again, what mistakes? He's stating facts, you're hyping expectations based on marketing propaganda - who and what is mistaken here?

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#47

Post by Schiendelman »

inigyou wrote: post #37
rokob wrote: post #13

> something is valuable because some people think other people will pay more for it in the future, and not because it does useful things This has been the definition of finance for hundreds of years. I don't know why it comes across here like this is a new phenomenon.

It used to be only a few steps removed from actual value. Like an empty lot is worth an amount because when you plant trees it's worth an amount because when it has fully grown trees it's worth an amount because when you cut down the trees the timber is worth an amount. That's an acceptable function of finance, it allocates the value of a logging plantation between several different people who may own it at different…

We needed to develop long-term value instruments to incentivize long-term planning. Bonds are necessary for large public projects, for instance. There are many complexities in deriving instruments from that basic concept. What makes you think a particular one shouldn't be acceptable and why?

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#48

Post by Schiendelman »

pooploop64 wrote: post #29
rokob wrote: post #13

> something is valuable because some people think other people will pay more for it in the future, and not because it does useful things This has been the definition of finance for hundreds of years. I don't know why it comes across here like this is a new phenomenon.

There used to be much more of a belief that the reason this stuff has an appreciable value to speak of is because it's either creating a channel for society's productivity or it's creating a position to skim pennies off of society's productivity. But less and less does it feel like productivity is even in the equation anymore. What the quoted statement describes is much closer to a Ponzi scheme than what finance is a…

Is there a particular instrument or transaction you feel creates a scheme? What specifically would you disallow, and what would be the downstream impact you imagine of doing so?

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#49

Post by Schiendelman »

Grombobulous wrote: post #26
civilian wrote: post #3

> That's the logic of the whole market today. AI – the world's money-losingest technology – attracts investment at the expense of everything else. I expect Cory to have skepticism about technology that can be exploited for dystopian purposes, but calling AI "the world's money-losingest technology" is out of touch. If AI can support/replace some intellectual work, it'll be revolutionary, and that's what the investment…

I share your feeling that LLM-based AI is a high-potential technology. The issue is the objective dollars and cents financials of the situation. It’s literally the technology that is the money-losingest at this time. The commercial utility of the technology can’t become viable just by being really useful. There’s a good accounting argument to be made for AI IPOs happening out of a serious need for capital. I wouldn’t…

The economy gets bigger every year. Therefore, any similarly proportioned large "thing" becomes the largest of all time. Uber lost tons of money for years, I remember the complaints about them. Investors made lots of money because they believe in future value. You're not being forced to make that bet - "money losing" is great for us if we aren't invested!

Re: The (real) dead economy theory

#50

Post by Schiendelman »

MaysonL wrote: post #5
civilian wrote: post #3

> That's the logic of the whole market today. AI – the world's money-losingest technology – attracts investment at the expense of everything else. I expect Cory to have skepticism about technology that can be exploited for dystopian purposes, but calling AI "the world's money-losingest technology" is out of touch. If AI can support/replace some intellectual work, it'll be revolutionary, and that's what the investment…

AI is currently a massive money sink. Yes or No?

Not for me, it means I don't have to hire an engineer right now.
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