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The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

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Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#91

Post by threeseed »

wawayanda wrote: post #67
vehemenz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's an opinion column. But how is it masquerading as news? All opinion columns have a central thesis that is supported by facts. This is a thesis about the current state and future of AI. Like any opinion piece, the author chooses facts that support the thesis.

Sure. I just think one should interrogate and really understand the data points being used to support this claim. Let's see how they look when presented as bullet points: - Nvidia's Revenue and AI Spending: Sequoia says "the industry spent $50 billion on chips from Nvidia to train AI in 2023, but brought in only $3 billion in revenue." - This comes from some Sequoia presentation which it appears was originally cited…

It is an opinion piece and yet you're continually surprised it contains opinions.

And even when they reference sources / experts you dismiss them simply because you disagree with them.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#92

Post by toxik »

_heimdall wrote: post #41
toxik wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gold was struck, it is just already in the hands of the capitalists. More automation, and no commensurate pay rise for the workers still employed.

I must be completely missing a connection here. Why would automation ever be expected to also come with an increase in worker's pay?

When my company makes 10% more profit from my work, my pay should increase 10% for it to be fair. This does of course not happen, which is my point. When the company makes 10% less, though, pay cuts are not unusual.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#93

Post by ineedaj0b »

dlevine wrote: post #81

I have been curious about this for a while, particularly in relation to the increasing cost of training LLMs. I was recently talking to a friend who works on the AI team for one of the large tech companies, and I asked him this directly. He said that each generation is ~10x the training cost for ~1.5X improvement in performance (and the rate of improvement is tapering off). The current generation is ~$1 billion, and…

this is the facebook.zuck.yann view. I wonder what anthropic and openai see as the future

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#94

Post by aoeusnth1 »

threeseed wrote: post #91
wawayanda wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I just think one should interrogate and really understand the data points being used to support this claim. Let's see how they look when presented as bullet points: - Nvidia's Revenue and AI Spending: Sequoia says "the industry spent $50 billion on chips from Nvidia to train AI in 2023, but brought in only $3 billion in revenue." - This comes from some Sequoia presentation which it appears was originally cited…

It is an opinion piece and yet you're continually surprised it contains opinions. And even when they reference sources / experts you dismiss them simply because you disagree with them.

Gary Marcus is not an expert, he is a pundit. This is mostly a rehashing of his opinion, with his opinion being cited as evidence of facts.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#95

Post by c1sc0 »

ptero wrote: post #22

A lot of people complaining about GenAI claim that results that are correct 90% of the time are useless. That, to me, is not true. There are plenty of examples where a 10% incorrect answer is perfectly useful. For example in software with good test harnesses you can trust functions that pass tests whether they are written by staff, an intern or a bot. But I do think that we have an AI bubble and need a brush fire to…

Google Search isn’t even close to being 90% useful thanks to SEO, yet we don’t bat an eye about that. Bathwater, baby, throwing much …

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#96

Post by dpflan »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #88
EA-3167 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus there's the reality that all of this mediocre capability requires VAST inputs of energy that are totally unsustainable. I've said it here before and will again, AI is just the pivot from crypto that props up NVIDIA prices and lets tech bros speculate on a market that simply will never materialize.

AI is legit, but you are right that currently it's too expensive and being propped up by investments paid for in compute from cloud providers. We're making rapid progress in bringing the compute requirements of high level models down though, and eventually we'll get over this need to make supermodels and start making distilled models for specific tasks, which will provide the benefits without the drawbacks of all kno…

I agree, AI/ML can be very useful.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#98

Post by iLoveOncall »

echelon wrote: post #44
louwrentius wrote: post #10

My photo editor tool now has a button to automatically remove backgrounds, a cool trick. It's at least more useful than crypto. Chat GPT is a fun party trick, but I'll never trust the output. That's the problem with AI: you can't trust the output. Maybe generative AI is useful for the rich so they can fire even more people in the creative space, generating shareholder value. Let's play a game: what do you think the n…

GenAI for audio and video will be huge. It continues to improve week by week. GenAI for text and intelligence has hit a wall.

> GenAI for audio and video will be huge

Really? We have absolutely great GenAI models for image generation that allow you to make any image you want in any quality you want, and despite this the only use case so far has been porn.

I can't think of any reason to believe that video generation will turn out differently.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#99

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

EA-3167 wrote: post #78
dpflan wrote: post #8

It’s the best demo-able software today that lets the customers’ minds go wild with the possibilities. But then the nuances of human abilities in commercial settings, like call center, become realities and obstacles that the software can’t surmount. Costs rise, productivity not so much, and then legal gets involved and it’s even more costly.

Plus there's the reality that all of this mediocre capability requires VAST inputs of energy that are totally unsustainable. I've said it here before and will again, AI is just the pivot from crypto that props up NVIDIA prices and lets tech bros speculate on a market that simply will never materialize.

As expected, the replies to this comment are about the alleged speculated or anecdotal utility of "crypto" or "AI" to solve problems. However the replies fail to address the substance of the comment: money, the personal enrichment of a selected group of individuals. The motivation behind these "innovations" is money, not problem-solving. As the comment indicates, "AI" actually _creates_ (not solves) _real_ (not speculative) problems for which its proponents have no solutions. Both "crypto" and "AI" seem to evade cost versus benefit analysis because the costs are real while benefits are pure speculation. As their proponents enrich themselves on what amount to pre-payments for something that may never be delivered, the public is expected to believe that the benefits will arrive "real soon" and will convincingly exceed the enormous costs society is now paying and will continue to pay.

Re: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam

#100

Post by _heimdall »

toxik wrote: post #92
_heimdall wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must be completely missing a connection here. Why would automation ever be expected to also come with an increase in worker's pay?

When my company makes 10% more profit from my work, my pay should increase 10% for it to be fair. This does of course not happen, which is my point. When the company makes 10% less, though, pay cuts are not unusual.

Why should it work that way though? Initial hiring salaries are generally based largely on the market rate for talent, not the expected profit creates by the employee. If they are expected to share 10% of all profits with existing employees wouldn't that create incentives for them to fire existing employees and rehire at market rates, effectively avoiding the profit sharing scheme?

In theory it does sound great for the employee, I wouldn't argue with that at all. But unless profit sharing is part of the compensation agreement up front it seems unreasonable to expect.

That said, some companies absolutely do offer bonuses tied to profit targets. They're one-time bonuses so employee pay isn't adjusted up or down every single year to follow profits, they just get some cash incentive to share some of the profits with employees.

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