Live data from Hacker News

Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

bbc.com

561–570 of 752 posts

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intuitively, the whole economy cannot be B2B SAAS companies funded by VCs. At some point you need to provide value to consumers or the government. If those consumers don’t have any money and/or aren’t willing to spend a paycheck making studio ghibli profile pics, you have a problem. I guess Sam Altman has been asking for a government bailout so maybe he is going for the b2g option in a backwards sort of way.

These consumers will have to stop being entitled salaryman and show some entrepreneurship to survive. I think that's good thing.

And to whom do you sell stuff if nobody else has money either?

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#562
post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western employment has survived because automating and outsourcing labour has pushed people to take up knowledge/services work. If AI is somewhat successful at automating knowledge work, what feasible job could exist that doesn't require your mind or body? Services like healthcare and plumbing aren't going away of course, but there's not enough demand to support an economy on those jobs. In my opinion the whole econo…

> If AI is somewhat successful at automating knowledge work, what feasible job could exist that doesn't require your mind or body? Very few office jobs in bigcos, but it does mean that you'll not need as much capital as before to start a business and compete with existing incumbents.

In a world where AI automates jobs, arguably any business services you could offer would likely have no customers because those potential customers can automate the services you offer themselves just like AI automates the employment skills employees offer. Not sure why people keep bringing up entrepreneurship as if that couldn't be automated.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the AI bubble pops it's just another bubble like the many ones that have occurred throughout history and the market eventually recovers. In the AGI Succeeds scenario, the situation is unprecedented and it's not clear how it ever gets better.

Tbh, the answer is simple: if we truly get AGI, the government would nationalize it because it's a matter of national security and prosperity for that matter. Everything will change forever. Agriculture, Transportation, Health... Breakthrough after breakthrough after breakthrough. The country would hold the actual key to solve almost any problem.

> Tbh, the answer is simple: if we truly get AGI, the government would nationalize it

If you truly get AGI, you are highly unlikely to be able to reliably control it let alone nationalise it. And it is highly unlikely that only a single country would reach it. Chances at least one other country would. And AGI would be eventually weaponised against other countries successfully or not.

the changes of AGI causing huge damage in the world would be very real. Unlike a WMD, the damage isn't necessarily visible, immediate or obvious.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by ”Nordics” you mean the rich oil kingdom of Norway, sure. Everyone else has been cutting back on welfare for the last 20 years.

My former friend in Finland finished med school, "for free", while living in a really nice apartment "for free", receiving ADHD medications "for free", and then went to a business school "for free". He has not worked a single day in his life and he is in his very late 20s.

Your former friend is leaving something out from that story: family financial support. Working class kids rarely go to med school and business school.

Besides, it is not possible to finish med school without working a couple years as an intern.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#566
post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men are workers. Not all work needs to be a "worker-drone", but yes, all men are built towards some form of work, and that work typically is around an item of sorts. Men can work all sorts of ways, and that can include raising kids. Women tend to be a lot less happier leaving their kids to go toil with the dirt.

> Men are workers What are women, then? Baby-machines, cooks and cleaners, which I guess you don't see as work? I mean it's not the first time I encounter a dude with the same opinion as you have, but every time I'm surprised by the casual reductionism of our societies. Men make work, Women make baby. Men hard, Women soft. Men strong and powerful. Women weak and emotional.

> Men make work, Women make baby. Men hard, Women soft. Men strong and powerful. Women weak and emotional.

On average those are true though, men work more, women take more care of children, men are harder than women, men are stronger than women, and women are more emotional than men. On average.

It is fine for women to be manly and men to be feminine, but that doesn't negate the fact that most women are feminine and most men are masculine.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then aren't most forms of investment based on a "gambler's argument"? A risky investment is obviously akin to gambling, but to get things built and make a profit you have no other choice.

> Then aren't most forms of investment based on a "gambler's argument"? Are you now equating an investor with some guy in a casino? Sorry, but that seems like a stretch.

You are quoting and responding to a rhetorical question from a person with essentialy the same criticism as you, to respond as if they are making the claim.. why??

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economics of it is what's the problem, not the power of LLMs.

So tell us the economics of it? The vast majority of AI doomers in the mass media have never used tools like v0 or Cursor. How would they know that AI is overvalued?

AI doomers are AI believers. You're referring to AI skeptics.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a (positive or negative) correlation between birth rates and dozens of factors, because over the period birth rates have been falling, the world has changed dramatically. Issue is we don’t know what is causal. education also correlates with all kinds of other factors like income, type of work, marital status, and political views, meaning birth rates are also likely correlated with all of these factors.

>Issue is we don’t know what is causal. Is it really true that this is not known? Although I only claimed correlation (and am thus surprised that I was downvoted twice, as that claim is obviously true), based on the famous "robustness" of this observation, I strongly suspect that confounding factors like those you mention have already been analysed to death, and found not to eliminate the explanatory power of women's…

> I strongly suspect that confounding factors like those you mention have already been analysed to death

I doubt it, because the xUSSR is an obvious counterexample.

Access to condoms is probably a bigger factor.

Re: Google boss says AI investment boom has 'elements of irrationality'

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's completely out of the realm of reality for many young people now and the plummeting birth rates show it. I'm skeptical of this explanation for falling birthrates just because birthrates are falling across the world and there seems to be no correlation between fertility and financial security. America has low birthrates. Scandinavia (usually considered to have generous welfare states) has low birthrates. Hung…

This documentary goes into a lot of detail on the causes worldwide: The Birth Gap - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2GeVG0XYTc

I just watched this. While I completely disliked the heavy emotional focus and bias of the presenter (for example: no interviews with people who don't want children were held, particularly not men), the data seemed solid. There's a peer review pending - I'd like to look at that when it comes out. If the conclusions are solid, we would have to change our societies and economies in such a fundamental way - I don't see that happening in the next 50 years, if at all.

Thanks for the link, it was interesting.

Post reply on HN