Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because due to that mindset now FB sucks and no one wants to use it anymore?
FB ad serve up 10% yoy but no is using it?
Correct, they don't know yet that their platform is dead, but it is. Most of those are bots.
Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
481–490 of 506 posts
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's a meaningless nonsense tautology? Is that the level of leadership there? I don't understand why everyone always likes to bitch about why their preferred wordsmithed version of a layoff announcement didn't make it in. Layoffs suck, no question, but the complaining that leadership didn't use the right words to do this generally shitty thing is pointless IMO. The words don't really matter much at that point anywa…
There's a segment of people convinced that leadership must somehow be able to perfectly predict the future or they're incompetent losers, like running a business is somehow the easy part of capitalism.
Running a business is definitely the easy part of capitalism. Most leadership isn't just bad, they're bafflingly incompetent. Most companies fail. Of those that fail, they usually fail in extremely obvious ways built off of fundamental character flaws, like stubbornness or greed.
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about the people who die because a safe and effective drug that could have saved their life got rejected? The problem is that there's a fundamental asymmetry here - those deaths are invisible but deaths from a bad drug that got approved are very visible.
I mean drugs are different than consumer technology. Instagram isn’t great but it doesn’t cause birth defects. Also things like the compassionate release of hiv drugs in study show the govt can see the nuance here with enough pressure.
Or, to cite a more recent example, fast-tracking COVID-19 vaccine approval.
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
Integrating LLMs with the actual business is not a fun time. There are many cases where it simply doesn't make sense. It's hard to blame the average developer for not enduring the hard things when nobody involved seems truly concerned with the value proposition of any of this. This issue can be extended to many areas in technology. There is a shocking lack of effective leadership when it comes to application of techn…
> Integrating LLMs with the actual business is not a fun time. There are many cases where it simply doesn't make sense. “You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re going to try and sell it.” — Steve Jobs
If you're a technologist who just invented some cool technology, of course you're looking for ways to sell that specific technology.
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look into the Laffer curve if you want to know why tax rates are what they are. Basically, using tax avoidance strategies have both a cost (accountants and lawyers) and a risk. Making the tax rate too high and the percentage of the wealthy that choose to utilize tax avoidance strategies increases (also the aggressiveness of those strategies increases). The change in this rate forms a curve with a maximum. There is a…
I frankly don't believe this. (edit for clarity: the proposition that our current rates are highly likely to be towards the top end of what's feasible, not the existence of such a curve) It's been cited as unshakable truth many times, including just before places like Washington State significantly raised their top tax brackets—and saw approximately zero rich people leave. There's a lot of widely-believed economic th…
Rich people don't have to leave a state to use tax avoidance strategies. I live in Washington state. The recent state tax increases have reduced total state tax revenue. That's the point of the Laffer curve, tax rate increases result in less tax revenue. Now exactly the shape of the curve, that's hard to say. But you are obviously past the maximum when a rate increase reduces tax revenue.
PS The last several CA (I used to live there) tax increases resulted in decreased tax revenue too.
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your intuition is right. I work at a big corp right now and the average age in the operations department is probably just under 50. That's not to say age is bad, however... these people have never worked anywhere else. They are completely stuck in the 90s. Almost nothing is automated. Everyone clicks buttons on their grossly outdated tools. Meetings upon meetings upon meetings because we are so top heavy that if they…
You know in the 90s we were saying the same thing: > They are completely stuck in the 70s. Almost nothing is automated. Everyone types CLI commands into their grossly outdated tools I'm sure 30 years from now kids will have the same complaints.
CLI would be an upgrade. You're misunderstanding what I'm saying.
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
FAIR? FAANG typo, or is there a new acronym?
> FAIR? > FAANG typo, or is there a new acronym? FAIR is the Meta AI unit (Fundamental AI Research) at issue, as spelled out in the second sentence of the article.
I skimmed and somehow missed this. Thanks.
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#488Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For example Google is in the amazing position that it's search can become a commodity that prints a modest amount of money forever as the default search engine for LLM queries, while at the same time their flagship product can be a search AI that uses those queries as citations for answers people look for. Search is not a commodity. Search providers other than Google are only marginally used because Google is so do…
Search, after Bert, is very much a commodity. I get better results than Google on segments of common craw using a desktop computer and a research model. Given that Google has decades of scrapes, and more than four gpus to work with, they can do a better job than me. That I beat them right now is nothing short of embarrassing, bordering on an existential threat.
> Search, after Bert, is very much a commodity.
> I get better results than Google on segments of common craw using a desktop computer and a research model.
For data which hasn't changed since knowledge cutoff - for sure, but for real life web search, being able to get fresh data is a hard requirement.
Re: Meta is axing 600 roles across its AI division
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stepping down vs mass layoffs reduces headcount by 1/20th, so the only other solution is to continue floundering until everybody loses their job. These people complaining about layoffs would prefer the whole plant to rot versus pruning a few wilting stems.
I’m not talking about solution. I’m talking about responsibility and aligning incentive. Management should take a painful paycut or resign to demonstrate some contrition.
Agreed on the pay cut - even if temporary - and aligning incentives. Resignation frees them from a chance to correct their missteps. Just making a guess here, but I would think that, in general, good people who actually hold themselves accountable for screwing up understand the situation better than a replacement. Unless there is a pattern, it is probably in the org’s best interest to give that manager a shot at redemption, especially considering the glut of incompetent managers, the learning curve for competent managers, and the likelihood that a replacement would do a better job.
If an engineer screws up hugely, do you want get rid of them immediately and find a replacement, or evaluate whether or not they learned a very important and expensive lesson that may happen again with a replacement?