Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

honest-broker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 90 posts

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#61

Post by xanderlewis »

alexvoda wrote: post #47
xanderlewis wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The AirPods were also roundly mocked and described as so weird looking no one would want to be seen dead wearing them when first announced. A few years later, it seems like we all have them (or a very similar-looking competitor) in our ears.

What makes one mocked product succede while another fails? Google Glass and its users were mocked and it was a complete failure. The iPad was mocked and ended up as an underperforming division, yet still the market leader because everyone else dropped the ball really badly. AirPods were mocked but they are a wild success helped of course by the removal of the 3.5 jack.

Well, Google Glass probably failed either because it didn’t work sufficiently well (the technology just wasn’t there yet) or because the purported utility it provided wasn’t actually that desirable.

AirPods probably succeeded because (despite the at-first weird aesthetic decisions) they turn out to be far more convenient than wired earphones and nice to use. If the battery life and the rate of charging, for example, had not been as good, I don’t think they would have taken off.

So I think mockery doesn’t really have anything to say about the potential success of a product; it fades rapidly anyway whether it succeeds or not. Humans get used to things incredibly quickly and are very adaptable. It’s both a virtue and a curse (because the other side of the coin is that we get bored quickly).

If I were (even) more of an Apple fanboy I might argue that AirPods succeeded because Apple knows how to make fun, decidedly non-clunky products and Google doesn’t because it’s not in that business — it sells eyeballs to advertisers whereas Apple sells beautifully crafted hardware/software combinations to creative individuals. If Google had been first to try wireless earphones, they might have flopped and put everyone off the idea.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#62

Post by maxerickson »

doktrin wrote: post #58
maxerickson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the idea is that a massive increase in productivity will reduce economic production? Or is the idea that we will continue to organize our society around the ever more pointless concentration of wealth?

Are you asking me what I personally believe, or what the GP meant? I don't want to put words in their mouth, but stating that bartending is future-proof while white collar work isn't paints the picture of a future with more inequality and concentration of wealth rather than less. Maybe I'm being overly broad in my interpretation, because they did specifically single out "coding" - but having personally worked both in…

I was making a snide remark about bizarre belief that the macroeconomic effect of increased automation will be poverty.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#63

Post by keiferski »

grujicd wrote: post #33
keiferski wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not that cynical, and I do think that a lot of tech has done good things for people. Even something like Facebook was useful at the beginning, even if that is obviously no longer the case.

Facebook can still be useful. I'm using it as a centralized portal for all local events (concerts, festivals...). Smaller events are very hard or impossible to discover or track any other way. But you have to train fb a bit, and ignore irrelevant stuff you'll still see. But there is a value in it, at least for me.

Yeah I meant more that when it started, it was simply useful in a straightforward sense, whereas today it's been optimized for extracting ad revenue and engagement.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#64

Post by Stranger43 »

I don't think it's that people fear that AI will make everyone live in luxury while the machines do all of the hard work, it's that people realize that LLM's and ML models have enough limitation and caveats to be of limited value outside of a few niche's where they are treated as statistical models and not "The AI Revolution".

The last 2 decades have seen a stagnation at the front end of technology and while this have led to a commodification it's also demonstrated that web 2.0 and crypto was mostly grifts by companies and organizations that don't really have an usefull vision. so as the web 2.0 revolution that originally inspired people at conferences like SXSW turned into an dystopia in the hands of companies like Twitter, Facebook and google, new grifts are going to get a whole lot more scrutiny going forwards.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#65

Post by tivert »

happymellon wrote: post #40
keiferski wrote: post #5

I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but in the last decade or so, the message coming from the tech industry has been less "technology will improve your life and help you be a better human being" and more "technology will replace you as a human being and make you obsolete." I think this is a big, big mistake and a large reason why AI specifically and the tech industry in general is being perceived negatively. S…

One of the other things is that all the automation appears to be extracting all the joy out of life. Why paint a picture or take a photograph when AI will do it for you? Why design and build an application that will solve creative problems when an AI will do it? You should just review automated PRs. Rather than, why go into the asbestos removal business and destroy your lungs when we have AI to do it and you can spen…

> One of the other things is that all the automation appears to be extracting all the joy out of life.

> Why paint a picture or take a photograph when AI will do it for you?

Yeah the tech fetishists think everyone should be awed and happy with the "beautiful" pictures the "AI" they made can generate, and reward them with copious back-pats (nevermind the output is crap and the tech boosters like them because they have no taste), but all they actually accomplish is to turn once-enjoyable things to ash. It's like how you can't even buy good quality basic clothes anymore, even if you want to, because everything is either flimsy cost-reduced crap or a Veblen good.

For instance, I'm starting to actively loathe header images, because they're getting replaced with "AI" generated garbage that (if it grabs my attention) always disappoints. People used to either not not have one or at least search around for a good photo or art image or something, but now many just throw up "AI" generated botshit to check a box one some "increase engagement" guide.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#66

Post by tivert »

xanderlewis wrote: post #61
alexvoda wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes one mocked product succede while another fails? Google Glass and its users were mocked and it was a complete failure. The iPad was mocked and ended up as an underperforming division, yet still the market leader because everyone else dropped the ball really badly. AirPods were mocked but they are a wild success helped of course by the removal of the 3.5 jack.

Well, Google Glass probably failed either because it didn’t work sufficiently well (the technology just wasn’t there yet) or because the purported utility it provided wasn’t actually that desirable. AirPods probably succeeded because (despite the at-first weird aesthetic decisions) they turn out to be far more convenient than wired earphones and nice to use. If the battery life and the rate of charging, for example,…

> Well, Google Glass probably failed either because it didn’t work sufficiently well (the technology just wasn’t there yet) or because the purported utility it provided wasn’t actually that desirable.

> AirPods probably succeeded because (despite the at-first weird aesthetic decisions) they turn out to be far more convenient than wired earphones and nice to use. If the battery life and the rate of charging, for example, had not been as good, I don’t think they would have taken off.

You're missing the social aspect to the rejection of Google Glass. IIRC the term "glasshole" was also a reaction to the privacy-invading aspect (little to no indication if the person is recording or not). AirPods had none of that, so if you liked how they worked, you could use them and not really bother anyone.

I think the Apple Vision Pro will fail for similar reasons, at least as something that people take out and about except in very limited circumstances. I had the additional downside over Google Glass that obscures the wearers facial expression (even despite their overwrought attempts at a technical solution).

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#67

Post by tivert »

red_admiral wrote: post #14
lovich wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask truckers about this with the nearly decade long plus narrative that the second self driving is mastered they will be laid off, combined simultaneously with complaints about how no one is entering the lucrative trucking industry. I’ve had non tech family and friends who are currently dealing with the result of American cutthroat capitalism and barely able to cover living expenses despite having two people working…

Having your serfs' basic needs met was very rarely a care of the ruling classes in any state form that deserves the name "serfdom". Serfs dying in a famine was just one of those things that happened. There was perhaps a brief reversal after the Black Death, when so many serfs had died there was almost a competition for the labor of the survivors. My counter-argument to C: (I almost typed C:\> there, sorry) is that mo…

>> And lastly the one I think is most likely C: AI automates all this knowledge work for the benefit of company owners and we end up either accepting it as a group and falling back to pre industrial serf like social structures or every rises up in a social revolution.

> My counter-argument to C: (I almost typed C:\> there, sorry) is that money in tech, in the end, still comes from people. Even if your business is using AI to optimise ad targeting, those ads still get paid for because the advertisers expect humans to hand over money at some point to buy products or play games or something.

I think the real risk of C is that the economy changes to something radically different, where everything is capital and labor is (basically) no longer required. The whole B2C economy just withers and dies, and is replaced by an economy centered on elite fantasy fulfillment (e.g. Elon Musks monopolizing resources to build mega-projects for themselves, perhaps with a smallish community of human pets kept as an audience).

There wouldn't be any serfs, because serfs had economic value to the medieval elites. But there may be a population of marginal people scraping by squatting and subsistence farming at the margins, hoping a mega-project doesn't displace them.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#68

Post by JumpCrisscross »

doktrin wrote: post #43
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineering at the CTO level, sure. Coding? It’s looking like the chess versus go of jobs. My bartender and ski instructors’ careers are secure. My friend whose ten year old stayed indoors for a few years to play around on REPL, less surely.

> My bartender and ski instructors’ careers are secure. Both of these jobs - particularly the latter but where I live also the former - rely on a heavy surplus of disposable income sloshing around the economy. Once the money stops flowing the home stills start and the ski trips stop. > My friend whose ten year old stayed indoors for a few years to play around on REPL, less surely. The broad point you're conveying is…

> broad point you're conveying is reasonably clear

Let me further clarify it: winemakers, lobbyists, charismatic artists and anyone else whose job is based on relationships will also be fine. (Or folks like plumbers and electricians.)

The roles being automated away look like the quiet, tinkering alone genius types. First at the commodity level. But increasingly at the highest ones. The preserved jobs will be both high and low, and exist in the context of a more-productive society.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#69

Post by dakial1 »

I think the author might be mixing the tech with the capitalist model that governs tech nowadays. All new innovations eventually get corrupted by the need of making the shareholders happy and that’s the danger here with AI.

Not saying we should go full socialism here but there might be a smarter way of giving incentives (and punishments) to companies so that we can reach an equilibrium of all stakeholders interests (including the shareholders of course).

Otherwise there is no good intentioned (don’t be evil) tech/AI that will resist the ruthless capital markets.

Re: They Praised AI at SXSW–and the Audience Started Booing

#70

Post by slowmovintarget »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #37
keiferski wrote: post #5

I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but in the last decade or so, the message coming from the tech industry has been less "technology will improve your life and help you be a better human being" and more "technology will replace you as a human being and make you obsolete." I think this is a big, big mistake and a large reason why AI specifically and the tech industry in general is being perceived negatively. S…

> I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened, but in the last decade or so, It's not really the last decade or so. You can go back 20 years or more and find people really quite dissatisfied with tech companies like IBM and Oracle and Microsoft. What really happened is that "you either die the hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" came for Google and Apple and what we need is to recognize that th…

Google leaned into it by removing their motto "Don't be evil" when they realized it was holding them back from heretofore unseen levels of extraction^h^h^h profit.
Post reply on HN