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

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

691–700 of 752 posts

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

#691

Post by 4ggr0 »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #630
4ggr0 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree to Disagree, I've spent enough time of my life to discuss this exact topic. Men® are Men® and Women™ are Women™, so be it. On average everyone is exactly the same, as long as you look at the same gender. Wait, what's gend...forget it.

"All people are the same" argument basically negates thousands of years of history, basic human knowledge, etc. Biology impacts quite a bit. For example, if your family comes from Asia, chances are your more prone to lactose intolerance than European-based areas. It's also why most Asian dishes don't have any sort of cheese or dairy - there was no real history of that type of agriculture compared to Europe. To ignore…

> But Women wanted to be like Men, so they did, but Men don't like Women as Men, and Women are shocked to learn this [...] Now people don't even know what a Woman is.

even though i did write that i am done with discussing this topic with people, a sliver of hope was was in my mind. maybe if i continued engaging, you would make a clearer point. but you started by comparing racial, geographical quirks of different cultures to a 50/50 gender split over the whole world. more asian women and men are lactose intolerant, but surely 99% of their women are obedient housewives and 99% of the men are workhorse providers. globally, of course, in every culture. that's just the way things are, respect history, yo.

then you decided to go on a rant about women specifically wanting this and that. and then decided to top it all off with some nice transphobic(call it what you want) bs.

i don't have the energy to seriously reply to this, and even if, it probably wouldn't matter anyways. cheers, Man®

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

#692

Post by jaredklewis »

marcosdumay wrote: post #670
jaredklewis wrote: post #310

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…

Financial security to young people has been highly correlated all over the world for many decades.

I don't buy that at all. Young people in Russia and next door Finland have equal levels of financial security? What are you basing this on?

But let's say I did accept your premise, I still don't think financial security drives birth rates. In 1957, almost 10% of teenage women gave birth. Do we think 1957 teenagers were having babies because they were all homeowners with secure, well paying jobs?

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

#693

Post by zwnow »

f1shy wrote: post #686
zwnow wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ill fly to Japan next year. First foreign country vacation in 14 years. Estimated costs 3-4k. I go to concerts every few months so I spend a few hundred bucks there. Other than that most of my money goes into rent and food. I have some somewhat expensive contracts though. 50€ phone, 50€ internet.

Going out is living life though, I wont reduce my quality of life for decades just so I can afford a house.

But in short, I do barely spend money on vacations.

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

#694

Post by ethanwillis »

bpt3 wrote: post #624
ethanwillis wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I outlined what I believed the issue is before you replied and it's not that.

Your post is just a more verbose version of what I said. Your "concerns" are all well known and accounted for when calculating things like the consumer price index.

You're assuming my "concern" is that the OP is wrong. Which is why i specifically took the time to talk about value being up or down.

I get you're just pissed off for whatever reason, but I'll still try to explain more.

My point is not addressed when calculating the consumer price index because i'm saying that a single selection of prices and goods to produce a single price index does not tell a person what the value of their money is unless they just happen to be literally the median consumer.

Are you going to sit there with a straight face and tell me you buy every single item that is used in that consumer price index? In every city? You're just not being serious if that's the case.

You're confusing a price index that minimizes the error in measuring inflation when applied to a large varying amount of people with what i'm advocating which is a price index that's personalized to and minimizes the error in measuring inflation for an individual. Other people's buying habits and prices for things in places where they live don't need to go into a personalized price index.

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

#695

Post by zwnow »

f1shy wrote: post #685
zwnow wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

A flat is barely worth it given you still have to bother with neighbors. Those are also 6 digit numbers up here. Not happening. I want a home like my parents used to have. Regular old German refugee home with a nice garden, 3-4 rooms, 2 levels, 2 bathrooms, small cellar. Sounds big, was a rather small house though. Garden had space and a shed to work in. We sold that for 70k 15 years ago and I wont buy a flat for 130k where I possibly have to bother with noisy neighbors.

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

#696

Post by sampullman »

amelius wrote: post #481
sampullman wrote: post #446

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.

No I am not, you took the opposite of the intended meaning.

I'm saying the risk aspect is similar, but I take issue with equating (product) investment and gambling, since one has a potential to create, and the other just shifts money around.

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

#697

Post by lazide »

bigbuppo wrote: post #662
lazide wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most of Asia, Latin America, Africa, and about half of Europe? You’d be pretty stuck. I guess SMS might work, but it wouldn’t for most businesses (they use the WhatsApp business functionality, there is no SMS thing backing it). Most people don’t even use text anymore. China has it’s own Apps, but everyone else uses WhatsApp exclusively at this point.

Really? Please indicate your source for that claim that "most people don't even use text anymore" because I have never once in my life been asked about WhatsApp, but have implemented a few dozen SMS integrations after all the annoying rules changes where you have to ask "mother may I" and submit a stool sample to send an SMS message from something other than a phone.

Which country are you in?

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

#698

Post by big-and-small »

jcgrillo wrote: post #524
big-and-small wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even before recent "AI improvements" for us tech nerds Google search was broken ad invaded something. But for average Joe up until recently it's was still okay because it served purpose of whatever normal people use search for: find some rumors about their favorite celebs, find some car parts information or just "buy X". Problem for Google is that for a good chunk of normal non-techy people LLM chats looks like talki…

I wonder is Google's AI investment a rational reaction to real competition or something else? My strong suspicion is that it's in fact delusional beliefs held by their management--something to do with "AGI"--that drives this activity, perhaps combined with the effects of information monoculture/social isolation/groupthink. It seems the simpler explanation that a very small group of people are behaving insanely than a…

I'm honestly clueless about reasoning behind bigtech investment into AI. For me it's all just look like another seasonal fad like we had many of during last two decades. Everyone invests into AI because of FOMO.

I know the tech itself is real and people do use it. And it will certainly change the world. Yet I doubt even fraction of money burnt on it will ever be recuperated because race to the bottom.

But yeah - I'm just random tech guy who has not built a big successful company and honestly have very little clue how to make money this way.

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

#699

Post by akoboldfrying »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #569
akoboldfrying wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

I agree that access to birth control is a strong factor and likely heavily confounded with women's education. I think there will have been examples of women's education but lack of birth control (e.g., predominantly Catholic nations, especially early on), not sure if there are many examples in the other direction though.

Unfamiliar with USSR -- is the birth rate high there despite lots of educated women?

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

#700

Post by LtWorf »

panick21_ wrote: post #635
LtWorf wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But nobody can afford stuff.

And yet in the real world people buying labobous at insane rates.

The very same people that 40 years ago would have bought a home instead yes. Now they can no longer do that so might as well blow the money on stuff.
Post reply on HN