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Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

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Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#561

Post by qudat »

dmix wrote: post #64

I'm paying for 3 different AI services and our company and most of my team is also paying money for various AI stuff. Sounds like a real industry to me. There's just going to be VC losers as always, where usually "losing" is getting bought by a bigger company or aquihires instead of 100xing or going public.

The problem is the hype machine that is claiming it will replace human labor which justifies the insane losses.

These companies are burning cash to support the current formulation of AI services.

These services will survive because they are useful but probably not at its current cost

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#562

Post by abdullahkhalids »

the_other wrote: post #332
xmprt wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're ever been to a third world country then you'd see how this is completely untrue. The dotcom boom has revolutionized the way of life for people in countries like India. Even for the average person in America, the ability to do so many activities online that would have taken hours otherwise (eg. shopping, research, DMV/government activities, etc). The fact that we see negative consequences of this like social…

I think you’re putting too much weight on cost (time, money), and not enough weight on “quality of life”, in your analysis. For sure, we can shop faster, and (attempt) research and admin faster. But… Shopping: used to be fun. You’d go with friends or family, discuss the goods together, gossip, bump into people you knew, stop for a sandwich, maybe mix shopping and a cinema or dinner trip. All the while, you’d be aware…

Recall that the arXiv was established in 1991, many years before the dotcom bubble. Many scientists still use arXiv prominently for research.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#563

Post by raincole »

dmix wrote: post #64

I'm paying for 3 different AI services and our company and most of my team is also paying money for various AI stuff. Sounds like a real industry to me. There's just going to be VC losers as always, where usually "losing" is getting bought by a bigger company or aquihires instead of 100xing or going public.

A real industry can be a bubble too. Not every bubble looks like tulips.

For example:

- Dotcom bubble. Of course making website was and is a real industry.

- Japanese real estate bubble. Of course building houses was and still is a real industry. It's so real people call it real estate, right.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#564

Post by bigbadfeline »

blast wrote: post #29

He's (unsurprisingly) making an analogy to the dotcom bubble, which seems to me correct. There was a bubble, many non-viable companies got funded and died, and nevertheless the internet did eventually change everything.

> [At dotcom time] There was a bubble, many non-viable companies got funded and died, and nevertheless the internet did eventually change everything.

It did, but not for the better. Quality of life and standard of living both declined while income inequality skyrocketed and that period of time is now known as The Great Divergence.

> He's (unsurprisingly) making an analogy to the dotcom bubble, which seems to me correct.

He's got no downside if he's wrong or doesn't deliver, he's promising an analogy to selling you a brand new bridge in exchange for taking half of your money... and you're ecstatic about it.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#565

Post by pRusya »

sspiff wrote: post #479
palmotea wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will benefit all people but it will disproportionally benefit more rich people. Yes: you'll be homeless and living under a bridge, but you'll have an LLM therapist on your phone to console you. That's a benefit!

For just $19.99/mo no doubt.

And covered by universal basic income.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#566

Post by AfterHIA »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #564
blast wrote: post #29

He's (unsurprisingly) making an analogy to the dotcom bubble, which seems to me correct. There was a bubble, many non-viable companies got funded and died, and nevertheless the internet did eventually change everything.

> [At dotcom time] There was a bubble, many non-viable companies got funded and died, and nevertheless the internet did eventually change everything. It did, but not for the better. Quality of life and standard of living both declined while income inequality skyrocketed and that period of time is now known as The Great Divergence. > He's (unsurprisingly) making an analogy to the dotcom bubble, which seems to me corre…

Thank you for acknowledging this. The internet was created around a lot of lofty idealism and none of that has been realized other than opening up the world's information to a great many. It made society and the global economy worse (occidental west; Chinese middle class might disagree) and has paralleled the destabilization of geopolitics. I am not luddite but until we can, "get our moral shit together" new technologies aren't but fuel on the proverbial fire.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#567

Post by AfterHIA »

startupsfail wrote: post #534
the_other wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you’re putting too much weight on cost (time, money), and not enough weight on “quality of life”, in your analysis. For sure, we can shop faster, and (attempt) research and admin faster. But… Shopping: used to be fun. You’d go with friends or family, discuss the goods together, gossip, bump into people you knew, stop for a sandwich, maybe mix shopping and a cinema or dinner trip. All the while, you’d be aware…

Yes, this is true. There used to be a lot of local book stores, for example. Amazon optimized that away, while ruining social fabric.

RIP literacy in America. We hardly knew ye.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#568

Post by AfterHIA »

BurningFrog wrote: post #535
intended wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the crux is that we needed X people to produce goods, and we had Y demand. Now we need X*0.75 people to do meet Y demand. However, those savings are partially piped to consumers, and partially piped to owners. There is only so much marginal propensity to spend that rich people have, so that additional wealth is not resulting in an increase in demand, at least commensurate enough to absorb the 25% who are une…

> Now we need X 0.75 people to do meet Y demand.* This is how GDP/person has increased 30x the last 250 years. What always happens is that the no longer needed X*0.25 people find new useful things to do and we end up 33% richer.

"we end up."

It's actually, "they end up" and the 33% gains you're talking about aren't realized en masse until all the coal miners have black lung. It's really quite the, "dealy" as Homer Simpson would say. See, "Charles Dickens" or, "William Blake" for more. #grease

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#569

Post by tmaly »

zerosizedweasle wrote: post #36
blast wrote: post #29

He's (unsurprisingly) making an analogy to the dotcom bubble, which seems to me correct. There was a bubble, many non-viable companies got funded and died, and nevertheless the internet did eventually change everything.

The biggest problem is the infrastructure left behind from the Dotcom boom that laid the path for the current world (the high speed fiber) doesn't translate to computer chips. Are you still using intel chips from 1998? And the chips are such a huge cost, and being backed by debt but they depreciate in value exponentially. It's not the same because so much of the current debt fueled spending is on an asset that has ve…

my 486sx with math co-processor is long gone.

Re: Jeff Bezos says AI is in a bubble but society will get 'gigantic' benefits

#570

Post by foxglacier »

tliltocatl wrote: post #419
cladopa wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very important difference: real investors risk their own money, the money they saved over their entire life making decisions. Under socialism bureaucrats risk someone else's money. We are not in a pure capitalistic society, we also have States, central Banks with central planning expending over half the money in Europe and USA and more than half in Asia. As a European myself that see the public money being…

>> There is a very important difference: real investors risk their own money, the money they saved over their entire life making decisions. Except for the "institutional investors".

Even then, the people the money came from voluntarily chose those institutions. If you don't like risky investments, there are lower risk institutions or products you can put your money in. It's still ultimately the will of the individual what they do with their money, and the consequences of bad choices are still mostly contained to the individuals who make them. But when it's done with tax money, everyone's dragged into it and has no personal choice in the matter. Even worse, when it's tax money without democracy, even if the majority of people don't like how it's used, they even collectively have no choice in the matter.
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