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

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

#681

Post by nradov »

jchallis wrote: post #667
nradov wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The uneven demographic curve shows that many elderly current homeowners will have to sell over the next couple decades due to death or moving into assisted living facilities. That will increase supply and reduce demand, although the impact will vary widely by region. Don't expect any major price reductions in popular areas but there may be further collapses in certain rural and economically stagnant areas. You can lo…

Tax planning can help here. By converting the house to ownership by a tax-advantaged trust , a family absolutely can continue to extract rent from a former property without selling. Doubly so if the mortgage is paid off.

Sure, that can help affluent families in some cases. But many elderly people will be forced to sell (or reverse mortgage) their real estate holdings in order to pay for long-term care. Fees at decent assisted living facilities are often in the $8K per month range now so the only way to afford it is to sell the family home.

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

#682

Post by marcosdumay »

saxenaabhi wrote: post #513
skydhash wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Productive how? If you’re not measuring the thing, how can you tell that the thing improved?

Feature velocity has increase manifold. And this is despite decreased team size. A small startup now has the chance to compete with incumbents without raising from VCs. Not talking about you, but I think cynics just look at it with too much pessimism and therefore can't see it.

> Feature velocity has increase manifold.

And yet, every time somebody not paid by the AI companies tries to measure it, they don't find it.

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

#683

Post by jcgrillo »

saxenaabhi wrote: post #678
jcgrillo wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without rigorous, controlled study I'm not ready to accept claims of velocity, efficiency, etc. I'm a professional software engineer, I have tried various AI tools in the workplace both for code review and development. I found personally that they were more harmful than effective. But I don't think my personal experience is really important data here. Just like I don't think yours is. What matters is whether these to…

> You have the opportunity here to convince me, I want to believe there is some merit to this latest AI summer. But I am not seeing the evidence for it. As I said the evidence is in companies not hiring anymore since they don't need as many developers as before. If you want rigorous controlled studies you'll get it in due time. In the meantime maybe just look into the workflows of how people are using re AI skeptics:…

> If you want rigorous controlled studies you'll get it in due time.

I hope so, because the alternative is grim. But to be quite honest I don't expect it'll happen, based on what I've seen so far. Obviously your experience is different, and you probably don't agree--which is fine. That's the great thing about science. When done properly it transcends personal experience, "common sense", faith, and other imprecise ways of thinking. It obviates the need to agree--you have a result and if the methodology is sound in the famous words of Dr. Malcolm "well, there it is." The reason I think we won't get results showing AI tooling meaningfully impacts worker productivity are twofold:

(1) Early results indicate it doesn't. Experiences differ of course but overall it doesn't seem like the tools are measurably moving the needle one way or the other. That could change over time.

(2) It would be extremely favorably in the interests of companies selling AI dev tools to show clearly and inarguably that the things they're selling actually do something. Quantifying this value would help them set prices. They must be analyzing this problem, but they're not publishing or otherwise communicating their findings. Why? I can only conclude it's because they're not favorable.

So given these two indications at this point in time, a placebo like effect seems most likely. That would not inspire me to sign a purchase agreement. This makes me afraid for the economy.

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

#684

Post by f1shy »

frm88 wrote: post #485
f1shy wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decent Flat in Germany, for example near Stuttgart, with good connections with train is about 300k. There are credit lines for 25 years with relative low interest rates. For that you are way lower than 3k per month (assuming 0 downpayment). With 2 people working in a household, you can afford that. Granted, you will not be the "typical" german doing 3 times a year nice vacations. But doing a "real" 1 or 2 week vaca…

The price you noted will not buy you a decent flat in the vicinity of Stuttgart with good train connections. At least not for a family. The prices are around € 4.4K/m2. And that's the median. For newer buildings it's up to € 5.5K.

A 30 second search: https://www.immowelt.de/expose/274a3450-a403-4cd8-9ca5-44dc9...

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

#685

Post by f1shy »

zwnow wrote: post #473
f1shy wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decent Flat in Germany, for example near Stuttgart, with good connections with train is about 300k. There are credit lines for 25 years with relative low interest rates. For that you are way lower than 3k per month (assuming 0 downpayment). With 2 people working in a household, you can afford that. Granted, you will not be the "typical" german doing 3 times a year nice vacations. But doing a "real" 1 or 2 week vaca…

I live in the middle of nowhere in Northern Germany. A house where you wont have to tear down the whole place starts at 400k. And that's a basic small sub 100m^2 house with no garden. Sorry but I wont get myself into 40 year debt for a bungalow. After my father's death we sold our old family home for ~70k€ 15 years ago. It would have been in the 300-400k range nowadays. My salary certainly did not double - triple in…

You are talking house… I did not say house. I said home, meaning anything, including a flat. Yes, owning land is expensive. So what?

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

#686

Post by f1shy »

zwnow wrote: post #679
hello_moto wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation and rich people buying asset class drives everything up

Ill just live for rent and let landlords leech my hard earned money. Gives me freedom to leave whenever I feel like it... I am already 30, wont have a good start capital at 40 and I for sure wont buy a house that late in life.

How much do you wxpend wvery year on vacation and “going out“

I know plenty of people in germany who repeat continuously that stance, and they recognize they spend well over 10k/year in vacacions.

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

#687

Post by satvikpendem »

marcosdumay wrote: post #677
satvikpendem wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will. - Steve Jobs

Eh... That's only worth anything if the new version of "you" is better than the original. I'm certain Jobs thought there's no need to point that detail, because nobody still living¹ would be dumb enough not to understand it implicitly. Too bad that we have evidence otherwise. 1 - At the worst case, selection bias should make it true.

I'm not really sure what you're saying. He was talking specifically about the iPhone vs the iPod, and anyway, people buy inferior products all the time in tech history so there's no guarantee a better product would succeed anyway.

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

#688

Post by marcosdumay »

satvikpendem wrote: post #687
marcosdumay wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... That's only worth anything if the new version of "you" is better than the original. I'm certain Jobs thought there's no need to point that detail, because nobody still living¹ would be dumb enough not to understand it implicitly. Too bad that we have evidence otherwise. 1 - At the worst case, selection bias should make it true.

I'm not really sure what you're saying. He was talking specifically about the iPhone vs the iPod, and anyway, people buy inferior products all the time in tech history so there's no guarantee a better product would succeed anyway.

It's at least something people prefer. There's no way he even thought people would use that rationale for taking products people like (or dislike less) out of the market to cannibalize the market by force with something people don't like (or dislike more).

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

#689

Post by marcosdumay »

mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #680
marcosdumay wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for using a UBI to stabilize inflation (it's way better than giving the money to rich people like we do today), I don't think you got the sizes of things correctly. Any UBI that avoids people getting poor will have to come mainly form taxes, and will mostly not make any bit of inflation.

Why would it come from taxes, rather than simply from being printed? The typical answer is "printing money causes inflation", but in the context of this feedback loop, it only causes exactly as much inflation as is required to cancel out the deflation caused by automation-induced layoffs and productivity increases. That's the magic of feedback. But if it's because the resulting UBI would still be insufficient for wel…

Because the printed money is way too little to create a social safety net.

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

#690

Post by satvikpendem »

marcosdumay wrote: post #688
satvikpendem wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really sure what you're saying. He was talking specifically about the iPhone vs the iPod, and anyway, people buy inferior products all the time in tech history so there's no guarantee a better product would succeed anyway.

It's at least something people prefer. There's no way he even thought people would use that rationale for taking products people like (or dislike less) out of the market to cannibalize the market by force with something people don't like (or dislike more).

Good thing no one is talking about that sort of thing then. In the context of Google, either they implement LLMs themselves or another company will come and do so in order to cannibalize Google.
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