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I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

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Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My car drives itself. That's a $18T global market. Also $1T in data center investment makes sense when you realize that companies are racing to create virtual white collar workers. Google spends $9B a year on software engineers.

Market for who? Who is left working? If we can’t answer that question then we’re not prepared for what’s next.

THIS is the question!

Henry Ford II: "Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?" Walter Reuther: "Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?"

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#822
post #698

I think there's a reasonable argument that our entire society right now is under AI psychosis: The stock market keeps going up in the face of the indefinite closure of Hormuz. We're investing in datacenters at a scale that only makes sense if AI capabilities continue to advance to the point where they surpass most humans at most white collar tasks, if not reach superintelligence. And what are the possible outcomes? -…

My car drives itself. That's a $18T global market. Also $1T in data center investment makes sense when you realize that companies are racing to create virtual white collar workers. Google spends $9B a year on software engineers.

> My car drives itself. That's a $18T global market.

That's not a new market, that's a new feature in an existing market. Lots going on in transportation and I'm not seeing any scenario where self-driving cars vastly increase total output vs just eat up other forms of transportation and change where people live/how long they commute.

> Also $1T in data center investment makes sense when you realize that companies are racing to create virtual white collar workers. Google spends $9B a year on software engineers.

Similarly, many companies are trying to be more efficient - "do what we already do, but better". That's different than growth.

What could Google do with 9B on software agents? Let's say the future of them is amazing and this means they could write 100x more code than they can today.

Has Google recently showed much ability to turn "more/faster code" into "superbly profitable new market"?

Someone's gonna have to crack the demand side issue for anything transformative to happen.

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#823
post #698

I think there's a reasonable argument that our entire society right now is under AI psychosis: The stock market keeps going up in the face of the indefinite closure of Hormuz. We're investing in datacenters at a scale that only makes sense if AI capabilities continue to advance to the point where they surpass most humans at most white collar tasks, if not reach superintelligence. And what are the possible outcomes? -…

> Bust. We've come away with a useful tool but the hundreds of billions of capital expenditure were thrown away on a pipe dream. heh this is the trick. The tech companies will angle for a bailout and they'll benefit from all this speculative data center building. Compute is generally useful.

It’s useful for a while. Hardware has a pretty short useful lifespan. I’ll be curious how the landscape will look in 10 years as it comes time to replace all of these servers. Maybe we’ll extend the lifespan, or usage will continue to grow, or we start shutting down datacenters.

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#824
post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My car drives itself. That's a $18T global market. Also $1T in data center investment makes sense when you realize that companies are racing to create virtual white collar workers. Google spends $9B a year on software engineers.

> My car drives itself. That's a $18T global market Which will take decades to become addressable. Self-driving cars work OK in a few cities in one country. Expanding that to be able to cover Mumbai and Omsk and Nairobi will require significantly more work. > Also $1T in data center investment makes sense when you realize that companies are racing to create virtual white collar workers. Does it make sense? How much w…

This probably ends in a deflationary spiral. The ai replaces the jobs, the lack of jobs chills demand, the ai becomes cheaper because it exists in a commodity market.

The money printer will be used, and maybe it all works out - or we see wealth hyperinflation and build out our own aristocracy.

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#825
post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal Mafia -> Crypto Mafia -> AI/LLM Mafia -> I'm calling Biotech/BCI Mafia, WW3 Military Industrial Mafia, or Energy Mafia next.

Water Mafia

The Resnicks: https://perfectunion.us/how-this-billionaire-couple-stole-ca....

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My car drives itself. That's a $18T global market. Also $1T in data center investment makes sense when you realize that companies are racing to create virtual white collar workers. Google spends $9B a year on software engineers.

Market for who? Who is left working? If we can’t answer that question then we’re not prepared for what’s next.

Driving a car is a chore, not a job (usually), much like washing dishes is. Dishwashers did not produce an economic collapse.

OTOH replacing people with AI would indeed bring about a huge economic downturn. What would be good is augmenting humans so that they can do 10x more. That would enable things that are hard to imagine exactly now, much like computers enabled interesting transformations in the society from 1980s to 2010s.

The current crop of AI is by construction unable to reach the human level of cognition, but it is quite good at doing some symbolic manipulation tasks. We will get used to that, and will integrate that in our workflows. Humans are still going to be needed.

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#827
post #698

I think there's a reasonable argument that our entire society right now is under AI psychosis: The stock market keeps going up in the face of the indefinite closure of Hormuz. We're investing in datacenters at a scale that only makes sense if AI capabilities continue to advance to the point where they surpass most humans at most white collar tasks, if not reach superintelligence. And what are the possible outcomes? -…

My car drives itself. That's a $18T global market. Also $1T in data center investment makes sense when you realize that companies are racing to create virtual white collar workers. Google spends $9B a year on software engineers.

> Google spends $9B a year on software engineers.

Well they are projected to spend $175 - $185B on capex in this year alone most of it for AI buildout. Lets say only 150B of that is for AI. If they can then somehow replace all their software engineers with AI that they then run for free and depreciate over 10 years then they just replaced 9B a year software expense with 15B a year depreciation expense for the next decade. Yes this is grossly oversimplified but it still illustrates how crazy high of a bet they're making on AI.

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#828
post #826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market for who? Who is left working? If we can’t answer that question then we’re not prepared for what’s next.

Driving a car is a chore, not a job (usually), much like washing dishes is. Dishwashers did not produce an economic collapse. OTOH replacing people with AI would indeed bring about a huge economic downturn. What would be good is augmenting humans so that they can do 10x more. That would enable things that are hard to imagine exactly now, much like computers enabled interesting transformations in the society from 1980…

Tractor-trailer trucking alone is the 13th largest profession in the US. It’s not unusual for driving to be a whole profession in and of itself.

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#829
post #698

I think there's a reasonable argument that our entire society right now is under AI psychosis: The stock market keeps going up in the face of the indefinite closure of Hormuz. We're investing in datacenters at a scale that only makes sense if AI capabilities continue to advance to the point where they surpass most humans at most white collar tasks, if not reach superintelligence. And what are the possible outcomes? -…

It’s time for humanity to admit that this is the end of the line. We had a good run, some beautiful moments were created for shareholders along the way. Let’s take each other by the hand and walk into the darkness together. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Re: I believe there are entire companies right now under AI psychosis

#830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market for who? Who is left working? If we can’t answer that question then we’re not prepared for what’s next.

THIS is the question! Henry Ford II: "Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?" Walter Reuther: "Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?"

Ah, the elephant in the room. Nobody seems able to answer this point, or even talk about it. Occam’s razor sure doesn’t imply a good outcome.
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