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AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

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Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#91

Post by barrkel »

surgical_fire wrote: post #77
barrkel wrote: post #37

The lack of robotics mention somewhat undermines this article. I don't think it's intrinsically wrong, we are in a late stage of a transformation. Software is eating the world and AI is (so far) most profitably an automation of software. There is plenty of money to be made along the way. I don't really buy the article's seeming confusion about where the money is going to come from. Anthropic is making billions and si…

As far as I know Anthropic still bleeds money, as Open AI also does. They will keep bleeding money by the way.

I don't believe the marginal customer of Claude Code is loss-making.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#92

Post by acedTrex »

neals wrote: post #15

I had to code something on a plane today. It used to be that you couldn't get you packages or check stackoverflow. But now, I'm useless. My mind has turned to pudding. I cannot remember basic boilerplate stuff. Crazy how fast that goes.

If this was me you couldn't waterboard this info out of me.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#93

Post by acedTrex »

XCSme wrote: post #67
neals wrote: post #15

I had to code something on a plane today. It used to be that you couldn't get you packages or check stackoverflow. But now, I'm useless. My mind has turned to pudding. I cannot remember basic boilerplate stuff. Crazy how fast that goes.

I guess writing code is now like creating punch-cards for old computers. Or even more recently, as writing ASM instead of using a higher level language like C. Now we simply write our "code" in a higher language, natural language, and the LLM is the compiler.

This is not what a compiler is in any sense.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#94

Post by elAhmo »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #28
techteach00 wrote: post #22

I sort of agree with the premise of the article. I ask myself, did more non-technical people pick up AI chat bots when they were invented than picked up personal computers in the late 70s/early 80's? I think probably. From my conversations with others.

Part of this is because we aren’t paying the actual cost of these chatbots. If ChatGPT wasn’t essentially free for casual users then we’d definitely see a much smaller/slower adoption rate. I wonder if a single person using them, even paying for tokens, isn’t substantially subsidized. Probably not but I’m speculating. If 3D printers could’ve given usage away for years directly in our homes then I bet we would’ve seen…

Well, we are not paying for Gmail, Youtube, TikTok either, all sorts of other services that are free as well.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#95

Post by chromacity »

himata4113 wrote: post #73

Every time I see these I am thinking to myself: Is microsoft copilot a problem of implementation or the capability of the models? I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one and you had copilot everywhere and I mean not the way it is now instead you're presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyo…

> I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one ... presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyone would prefer to use that chatbox

I don't know. We've been telling ourselves things like that about user interfaces for a long time. For decades, it was pretty much universally understood that everyone would prefer to talk to their computer instead of using a keyboard. Now that you can, no one really wants to. In fact, now that we can text / email / IM other people, we don't talk to them as much as before.

One obvious problem with the interface you're proposing is that sometimes, it's easier to do the thing than to explain precisely what you want. For example, it takes much longer to ask ChatGPT what's the weather forecast for this week, and then read the flowery response, than to press Ctrl-N, "wea", enter, and see it at a glance in a consistent format with pictograms.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#96

Post by pixl97 »

jenniferhooley wrote: post #57
dodu_ wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do people really believe no novel things will be unlocked with this tech? Yes. It's a mostly shitty but very fast and relatively inexpensive replacement for things that already exist. Give your best example of something that is novel, ie isn't just replacing existing processes at scale. It's been 3 and a half years now since the initial hype wave. Maybe I genuinely missed the novel trillion dollar use case that isn…

I think that most people are pretty short-sighted about the utility cases right now (which is understandable given the negative feelings about a lot of what's currently going on). There are a lot of really useful things that were impossible before. But none of these use cases are "easy," and they all take years of engineering to implement. So, all we see right now are trashy, vibe-code style "startups" rather than th…

With this said, a lot of people are likely worried about being eaten by whales when it comes to doing things with AI.

It's kind of like dealing with Amazon, or any other company that has both compute and the ability to sell the kind of product you make.

Said AI providers can sell you the compute to make the product, or they can make the product themselves with discounted compute and eat all the profits you'd make.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#97

Post by malfist »

fendy3002 wrote: post #71
neals wrote: post #15

I had to code something on a plane today. It used to be that you couldn't get you packages or check stackoverflow. But now, I'm useless. My mind has turned to pudding. I cannot remember basic boilerplate stuff. Crazy how fast that goes.

In my 7th years of professionally programming node, not even once I remember the express or html boilerplate, neither is the router definition or middleware. Yet I can code normally provided there's internet accessible. It's simply not worth remembering, logic and architecture worth more IMO

Einstein famously refused to learn people's phone numbers, stating that he could look them up in the phonebook whenever he needed it.

I don't think there is that much value in memorizing rarely used, easily looked up information.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#98

Post by AndroTux »

DougN7 wrote: post #79
Cilvic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to this, in the past I felt like I could write down pages of projects to try if only I had time. Now my mind immediately goes towards "do I want to manage this long term after the initial spark".

That made me wonder, honestly, if AI can build it, could AI manage it too?

Wait, I just deleted prod. You're absolutely right, that shouldn't have happened. My mistake.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#99

Post by cowl »

techteach00 wrote: post #22

I sort of agree with the premise of the article. I ask myself, did more non-technical people pick up AI chat bots when they were invented than picked up personal computers in the late 70s/early 80's? I think probably. From my conversations with others.

personal computers in early 70s/80s were a considerable investment for little to no gain and especially no force pushed FOMO.

it costs you nothing to install/adopt an AI chat bot and it's being force fed to everyone at head turning loss in order to justify the push.

Re: AI could be the end of the digital wave, not the next big thing

#100

Post by himata4113 »

chromacity wrote: post #95
himata4113 wrote: post #73

Every time I see these I am thinking to myself: Is microsoft copilot a problem of implementation or the capability of the models? I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one and you had copilot everywhere and I mean not the way it is now instead you're presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyo…

> I have ZERO doubt that if you put people that haven't used a computer in front of one ... presented with a chatbox in the middle of the screen and you just ask the computer what you want I am 99.99% sure that everyone would prefer to use that chatbox I don't know. We've been telling ourselves things like that about user interfaces for a long time. For decades, it was pretty much universally understood that everyone…

You already know how to use a computer or a phone, but take someone who has never seen or used a smartphone, computer or a laptop. I think the story will be very different.
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