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Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

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Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#661

Post by zmmmmm »

lionkor wrote: post #557
zmmmmm wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are plenty of people who basically believe this is the end of the human economy - there will be nothing left that isn't done by AI in the future. Even the bits left that humans do will be human facades on AI driven activity (like your hairdresser will be viewing you through AI powered glasses using AI powered scissors etc). So from that point of view you can indeed look at it as the entire value of the economy…

But let's be real, the AI output today is largely complete and utter shit. Like, really, without careful promoting and oversight, it's not fun to read, it's not smart, it's not accurate, it's not thorough, and it's certainly not yet over the massive show stopping hurdle that is lying and hallucinating all the time.

To me the bigger point is, the nature of humans is they seek out signals of value, and we will rapidly hone in on whatever unique attributes still differentiate something from being AI generated and those will become what people value. Or to put it another way, no matter how good AI gets, "shit" will be redefined to that.

Already in posting here you have to actively avoid using language that could be mistaken for AI generated text or people instantly devalue your comment if not outright call you on it and try to have your account banned etc. It's not about the content of the comments - it's because they don't think AI content carries value.

Which is all to say IMHO a surprisingly large slab of the economy is going to resist AI automation, because people will instinctively reject anything that IS automated as low value (because it actually will be, in the long run).

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#662

Post by netcan »

grafmax wrote: post #625
netcan wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So yes, but that doesn't negate the circular investment aspect, for most intents and purposes. The risk is from this structure is mostly to do with how this affects market cap. Companies using the value of their shares to fund demand for their services. That's a risk.

The tech industry goes through investment phases to produce oligopolies it turns around and enshittifies, parasitizing income off what it has built. Venture capital, acquisitions, acquihires, circular investments - It’s been incestuous for years. The question is whether competition from China’s sophisticated tech sector, which already surpasses the US in many areas, will put a pin in these plans this time round.

I don't agree with the "full cynicism" POV, but I do agree that TechnoChina's existence is a potential paradigm shifter.

But generally speaking, AI is currently pretty competitive and robust. Straightforward business model where users pay money and select the best deal are central. Market power is relatively dispersed.

So... Idk. Nvidia doesn't have competition. But Intel didn't have much competition either, and they drive the Moore's law bus for a long time.

Hardware has been less prone to enshitification. Maybe it's because the demand curve for compute doesn't have natural limits. Drive down price, and demand grows by enough that the total market grows.

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#663

Post by therobots927 »

dragandj wrote: post #592
nmilo wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Valuations are based on future expected earnings, not revenue. It cost Ford a lot of money to make that $60k car. The margins for AI companies are unknown but the market is pricing that they’ll be higher at one point. Not that they’ll attract more revenue from the average person.

Now let's think about how much money it costs Anthropic to make that $60k. :)

Oh we don’t want to talk about that.

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#664

Post by 4ndrewl »

datavirtue wrote: post #620
netcan wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just hard to tell the difference between "real" demand and "circular." That's the concern. PG had an essay about this during the dotcom, when he worked at yahoo. Iirc...Yahoo's share price and other big successes in the space attracted investment into startups. Startups used that money to advertise on yahoo. Yahoo bought some of these the startups. So... a lot of the revenue used to analyze companies for investm…

I'm starting to transition how we build software at our company due to the power of AI. No more: five code monkey contractors under a lead. Two top-notch devs are all that is needed now, unrestrained by sprints and mindless ceremonies. There is going to be a giant sucking sound in India. I can't continue the current model. The dev that gets AI is done in five hours, the ones that don't are thrashing for the next two…

Except the dev that gets AI done in 5 hours will have a poorer mental model of the code. Whether that's important might or might not depend on whether that bites you in the ass at some point.

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#666

Post by luke727 »

fnoef wrote: post #579

$40B. Insane. Imagine what could be done with this money to improve humanity. Instead, it’s spent on a fancy text generator that promises to eliminate most of the non mundane and physical jobs, as well as create autonomous killing machines, on top of burning the entire worlds electricity. Crazy.

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders."

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#667

Post by cmrdporcupine »

urba_ wrote: post #28

I consider them competitors… This reminds me of Microsoft in 1997 investing $150 million in Apple, saving it from near bankruptcy

It was more complicated than that. Microsoft was only kind of a competitor to Apple. Apple was also a platform for them. They shipped software that was popular on the Mac (mainly Word).

Especially in those days Microsoft was both a platform for software to run on, and a maker of software, and being flexible to emphasize one or the other aspect depending on the way the market is... has been good for them.

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#668

Post by _zoltan_ »

svieira wrote: post #623
_zoltan_ wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not going away. Even right now the difference with working with 'AI native' developers or with regular developers is day and night. I certainly wouldn't want a non-clause enabled developer on my team now.

> I certainly wouldn't want a non-clause enabled developer on my team now. You only want to work with people who are hip with the North Pole?

Typo obviously :-)

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#669

Post by gjsman-1000 »

4ndrewl wrote: post #664
datavirtue wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm starting to transition how we build software at our company due to the power of AI. No more: five code monkey contractors under a lead. Two top-notch devs are all that is needed now, unrestrained by sprints and mindless ceremonies. There is going to be a giant sucking sound in India. I can't continue the current model. The dev that gets AI is done in five hours, the ones that don't are thrashing for the next two…

Except the dev that gets AI done in 5 hours will have a poorer mental model of the code. Whether that's important might or might not depend on whether that bites you in the ass at some point.

But does it matter?

If you write a program in Python or JavaScript, you have a terrible mental model for how that code is actually executed in machine code. It's irrelevant though, you figure it out only when it's a problem.

Even if you don't have a great mental model, now you have AI to identify the problems and generate an explanation of the structure for you.

Re: Google plans to invest up to $40B in Anthropic

#670

Post by ramesh31 »

stingraycharles wrote: post #440
zmmmmm wrote: post #206

It feels like Anthropic is everybody's insurance policy against someone else winning the AI race. So you have Amazon, Google, Microsoft basically every major tech company pushing their own tech hard but simultaneously ensuring they have a survival level stake in Anthropic if they can't build or acquire their way to stay at frontier level performance themselves.

I find it interesting that Anthropic is in this position and not OpenAI. Where did OpenAI go wrong? Lack of focus and overambitious in some of their spending commitments?

>Where did OpenAI go wrong?

OpenAI was Anthropic. Anyone involved in actually developing GPT jumped ship when Altman performed his coup.

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