The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy • Hacker News Board

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#61

Post by indeedmug » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

opportune wrote: post #41

nologic01 wrote: post #31

People have short memories. A few years ago hypes like big data and machine learning, blockchain and autonomous cars were pushed relentlessly . The consultants would confidently predict 300 gazillion profits by 2030, everybody would lose their job etc. Then the pandemic happened, momentarily some candid voices admitted that all this digi-crap does not help an iota with our quality of life (or life, period) but the di…

Big data and AV were overhyped buzzwords at the time, but they’re both actual technology that are slowly reaching normalcy. Plenty of people are using Spark and Databricks, plenty of people are using more abstracted products like Bigquery. No, people developed the good sense not to try to run clusters of janky and poorly documented Apache big data software as if it were “free” (except in maintenance… and bugs… and la…

The biggest lesson I took away from all of these hype cycles is how unpredictable they are in their arc. Some trends like AV seem like they were going to take over the world, but they died down as quickly as they rose when we realize how hard safety is.

VR seem like it was dead with Google Glasses and Meta. But recent releases show that the [vision of VR is more real than I thought](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVYrJJNdrEg). Apple releasing their VR definitely provides more legitimacy to the idea.

Technology is always hard to actually implement in the real world. I think have expectations that the world would flip over with new innovations in a matter of months. But it actually takes years of hard work to get people to adopt it. The internet and mobile phones are good examples where the promise was clear but the journey being universally adopted was not easy. *

* For the internet, you have the massive struggle of web standards, getting implementations web browser to align, and achieving acceptable performance. Internet Explorer still haunts the dreams of many web devs. It's remarkable how many fully featured web apps there are like Onshape and Google Maps.

* For mobile phones, they require a massive amount of technology investment and unit economics to get the price cheap enough for normal people. It's amazing how wireless technology gotten to the point where we can stream videos on phones.

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#62

Post by zelon88 » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:41 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #34

There was a desperate attempt to find something, anything, which was a "must have" item. This fueled the VR boom of 2019 and the metaverse boom of 2021. Both sort of worked technically but turned out to not be that compelling. It's not yet clear how the "AI" boom works out. It may just be too soon. VR is stuck because the headgear remains clunky. The metaverse is stuck because the initial implementations were crap an…

> AI is now running into the problem that large language models are expensive enough to run that they can't be ad-supported.

You mean the 3 large companies that tricked everyone into handing over their data and processing capability to the "cloud" have almost reached a point of diminishing returns due to the amount of processing they are trying to do on it?

Oh the humanity.

Oh well. Maybe stop post-processing everything?

I think it's time to design an open-source federated processing platform where we amortize costly processing tasks to large batches of devices. We have never had more powerful computers, and less control over code or data.

I pitched something like this to YC years ago. I guess I should have known better than trying to pitch a cloud computing alternative to a bunch of VC's who regularly tell people that infra is a liability. Maybe if I started my pitch with "rent a bunch of AWS services and..."

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#63

Post by opportune » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:54 PM UTC

indeedmug wrote: post #61

opportune wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big data and AV were overhyped buzzwords at the time, but they’re both actual technology that are slowly reaching normalcy. Plenty of people are using Spark and Databricks, plenty of people are using more abstracted products like Bigquery. No, people developed the good sense not to try to run clusters of janky and poorly documented Apache big data software as if it were “free” (except in maintenance… and bugs… and la…

The biggest lesson I took away from all of these hype cycles is how unpredictable they are in their arc. Some trends like AV seem like they were going to take over the world, but they died down as quickly as they rose when we realize how hard safety is. VR seem like it was dead with Google Glasses and Meta. But recent releases show that the [vision of VR is more real than I thought]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M…

I think the time to value between the Internet’s hype cycle and real utility was relatively short compared to most other technology hype cycles, because it was like the OG computer hype cycle and so was naturally a bit more delayed than subsequent hype cycles that had as their rationale “better not miss out in case this as big as the Internet”. It only took about 5-10 years to go from the beginning of the bubble to the modern incarnation of the internet and early versions of the products that now underpin trillion dollar businesses.

But, a lot of internet standards had been in the works for a long time at that point. Not so for AV and VR. I think we’re looking at 2+ decades for a lot of technology like that. It’s such a long time it really shakes out the hypemen with short attention spans.

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#64

Post by Animats » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

wussboy wrote: post #42

Animats wrote: post #34

There was a desperate attempt to find something, anything, which was a "must have" item. This fueled the VR boom of 2019 and the metaverse boom of 2021. Both sort of worked technically but turned out to not be that compelling. It's not yet clear how the "AI" boom works out. It may just be too soon. VR is stuck because the headgear remains clunky. The metaverse is stuck because the initial implementations were crap an…

> VR is stuck because the headgear remains clunky It could be stuck for more than one reason. I would find VR repugnant even if it were as easy to wear as a contact lens.

That may be a generational thing. There are "VR natives". See Phia's Virtual Reality Show.[1] There was a time when people didn't walk around with little screens in their hand. There was a time when only women used keyboards.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMMBpWfWUd3xlcOxrot_neA

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#65

Post by mrtksn » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 5:57 PM UTC

nologic01 wrote: post #31

People have short memories. A few years ago hypes like big data and machine learning, blockchain and autonomous cars were pushed relentlessly . The consultants would confidently predict 300 gazillion profits by 2030, everybody would lose their job etc. Then the pandemic happened, momentarily some candid voices admitted that all this digi-crap does not help an iota with our quality of life (or life, period) but the di…

> big data and ML

Became a big thing after Amazon predicting someone is pregnant before they know it, hype died off after actual implementations predicted that people drink coffee in the morning.

The hype died but those with actual use cases are using it.

> blockchain

Became a big thing after it made crypto millionaires, died off after people figured out that it doesn't help with anything other than gambling and illegal operations because its not better at anything that has an established legal infrastructure

The hype died but people still need the gambling and hope to be rich on the next hype cycle by jumping on something like NFTs.

> autonomous cars

Tesla, although never delivered the thing they promise, it was able to propel them to the top as a car company. Now Tesla is a serious brand.

Mercedes actually delivered autonomous driving car you can purchase and others actually were able to offer self driving taxi services but nobody seems to care that much. For some reason, Musk won this one without actually delivering it.

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#66

Post by demondemidi » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #39

demondemidi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a dime for every conference I went to from 20010-2015 that said "IoT will be a 20 trillion dollar market in 10 years", I'd be retired.

I can't remember the name of the company, but they sponsor CPR(Colorado-area NPR affiliate), but they went from being "an IoT company", to "an IoT blockchain company", to an "IoT blockchain with AI" company.

That is really funny. I wonder what it is like to be that audacious?

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#67

Post by huijzer » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 7:17 PM UTC

lelanthran wrote: post #17

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And i wouldn't even say VCs are dumb because they keep hitting success chasing that money. It's why they have this money to throw around. The labor market is USD$144 trillion worldwide in salary. Automate a fraction of a percentage of the worldwide labor? You have a company with more annual revenue than Apple. Is it that hard to understand? Can people not think of scenarios where the current generation of AI may be a…

> The labor market is USD$144 trillion worldwide in salary. Automate a fraction of a percentage of the worldwide labor? You have a company with more annual revenue than Apple. What makes you think that AI/LLM tech is going to result in a single winner? That revenue might be split between a few hundred thousand companies. Unlike the product from the current tech giants, there is no network effect AI stacks, there is n…

> That revenue might be split between a few hundred thousand companies.

That’s not how power laws work. Over time, many niches will be created but usually it starts with one big winner taking it all. For example, first there where many half baked solutions, then there was Netflix and now we have all kinds of streaming providers, many of which are trying to find a niche such as Apple-owners or Disney fans. Similarly, we first had an iPhone and now small phones, big phones, tablets, touch laptops etc etc.

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#68

Post by mustafa_pasi » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 7:34 PM UTC

giraffe_lady wrote: post #24

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #20

But that is a good! Contrast that with other countries where the financial landscape is super conservative when it comes to investment and innovation, like in many EU countries. Economic growth is lower, jobs are fewer, and salaries are lower, and there are less exciting jobs where you can truly build the future. Americans do not appreciate what they have. You do not want the alternative! Appreciate your overly optim…

I don't want to build the future I just want dental care for my children.

I grew up in (western, to be clear) Europe and never received adequate dental care either.

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#69

Post by mustafa_pasi » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

KittenInABox wrote: post #21

mustafa_pasi wrote: post #20

But that is a good! Contrast that with other countries where the financial landscape is super conservative when it comes to investment and innovation, like in many EU countries. Economic growth is lower, jobs are fewer, and salaries are lower, and there are less exciting jobs where you can truly build the future. Americans do not appreciate what they have. You do not want the alternative! Appreciate your overly optim…

And yet, despite having less jobs and lower salaries, many countries of europe tend to have less signs of poverty: women are less likely to die in childbirth, there's less gun violence, less homeless and child hunger...

What I see is that the underclass in Europe is better taken care off than the underclass in the US. But the working and middle classes in America are richer and have more opportunities than their counterparts in Europe.

All of this, is completely orthogonal to whether or not private capital is willing to invest in risky ventures rather than hoard their capital in very secure incremental investments.

Re: The real engine behind "AI" is the bad tech economy

#70

Post by mustafa_pasi » Mon, Oct 16, 2023, 7:40 PM UTC

waffletower wrote: post #53

lalaithion wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universal health care is important, necessary, cheaper than our current system, and I support it. But it's a completely orthogonal concern to the state of the tech economy.

I see an argument in this thread for laissez faire capitalism; its political ramifications are entirely relevant to the state of universal health care in the United States. The economy is interconnected -- the mathematical concept of orthogonality is rarely appropriate when describing broad economic complexities. But perhaps you should simply suggest that a health care discussion here is off-topic?

Culture might be a link between risk taking venture capitalists and less publicly financed social security. However I do not think there is an economic lock that forces a society to be either or. I can easily imagine a society that provides both a good safety net and where capitalists are willing to invest and innovate.

I guess what is missing is the right mentality and attitude, so like, our cultures have not evolved to that level yet.