The C-suite operates in the universe of big ideas and are being presented demos and mockups that imply more capability than is actually possible. And the employees have to actually deal with the rubber hitting the road. They can see that the tech is half-baked and are dealing with the real problems users experience, and there is an intuitive sense that customers aren't going to pay subscription prices for something that fails in an embarrassing and opaque way for every N times it's invoked.
It's also difficult for engineers to understand how a sustainable industry can be built on tech where the primary method of "engineering" it is to try doing something (training a new model, changing a prompt) and hope it will work rather than knowing what will and won't. The potential to get trapped in a local maximum or burn massive resources for insufficient return is too high, and the cost of switching models is too low to build any moat based on model quality.
At the end of the day this is the only thing tech investors are excited about, so the market will dictate strategy until the bottom falls out for whatever reason. The video is not assuring on this front, saying that CEOs are just staying the course without much indication they have a reason to believe a return is around the corner.
$19 billion for the single most popular service on the entire internet seems like a bargain and they just passed $1 billion in annual revenue last year.
As an American, WhatsApp seemed like an odd fit with Facebook but I also travel internationally a great deal. Almost every single interaction I have while traveling anywhere that isn't Europe and North America, from coordinating airport pickups with drivers to requesting fresh towels from hotel staff, occurs via WhatsApp nowadays.
It's actually really nice. I booked a dive in Belize earlier this year and all I did was scan a QR code of an ad I saw in the hotel, send them a screenshot of my NAUI app, sign a waiver from a link they sent me, then they sent a payment link, google maps directions, and instantly responded to my question when I couldn't find the right dock. All of this occurred on WhatsApp in the span of like 90 minutes.
Consumers are drawn into your service by convenience. They'd much rather get their answer via a quick AI chat than swifitng through pages of your data. Yeah, data is valuable, but if consumers have no easy way to get what they want from it, it becomes useless.
whatsapp is an invaluable communication tool for large parts of the globe. the other is not essential for daily life for any person anywhere on the globe. i hope this helps, cum guy
Many things are valuable from a monetary point of view, but largely worthless (or of negative worth) otherwise. And many other things are worthless from a monetary view, but of great value otherwise.
In a sense, internet was this neat thing to share knowledge between academics and all but now we predominantly serve media and ads over it and all the SEO spam that makes real money.
AI is now this neat little thing to play around and has some values(non tech people makes MVPs/Emails/Slides, while tech people get faster search and code completion) but who know when the tiktok/fb like moment happens and takes all this AI into rocket to the moon.
At this moment, I think, the push is the slow boiling the frog, i.e. hold hard until skeptics just become used to it and then a generation becomes dependent on it, from which point it’ll become everyday necessity and become viable business.
I remember the “for cost of your morning coffee, you get this cool slice of server timeshare(VPS)” when people were skeptic until it became the norm. Now even if that VPS costs much less to operate, we still see the sticking “$5” price. May be AI will continue to be that “$30/month” but with advances in computing, it’ll get cheaper and at a certain point, that $1 spent to earn 80c will become 5c spent to earn $1.
I have had a theory for a loooong time that Ai is causing a massive stock bubble, especially in the tech space. Microsoft finally realising how much of an oopsie they made with ai could cause a domino effect.
I actual doubt it as a cause, more so justification on wanting to valuation just keep growing to infinity. If not for AI it would be something else. With Nvidia it is cause, but with rest I think it is just general tendency of market wanting to see line going up with any excuse.
Everyone should be skeptical. Right now it’s following the pattern of every other stupid bubble. It’s also further the “post truth” nature of our modern society, so … yeah. Not great?
fundamentally, windows gained popularity as a personal computer
that translated well into business since people were familiar with how to use windows
the efficiency problems microsoft faces as an organization are disjointed from people trying to stay in touch effectively.
ai solves a lot of problems people can imagine having when being pitched the equivalent of digital timeshare, which mathematically does well when projecting for growth, but the vast majority of people look to get out of their timeshares when it becomes a burden on their lives.
slop is a new term, but why do we all know what it means already?
So far I haven't seen any rational or critical thinking in this area. So, it's nice to see a little glimmer of hope here, that someone might at least say 'wtf are we doing?' The power consumption of these useless data centres is slap in the face to all of us with efficient cars, houses full of shitty LED lightbulbs, and low flush toilets. We shouldn't let them burn the planet to insert automatically incorrect text, fucked up faces and extra fingers.
The C-suite operates in the universe of big ideas and are being presented demos and mockups that imply more capability than is actually possible. And the employees have to actually deal with the rubber hitting the road. They can see that the tech is half-baked and are dealing with the real problems users experience, and there is an intuitive sense that customers aren't going to pay subscription prices for something that fails in an embarrassing and opaque way for every N times it's invoked.
It's also difficult for engineers to understand how a sustainable industry can be built on tech where the primary method of "engineering" it is to try doing something (training a new model, changing a prompt) and hope it will work rather than knowing what will and won't. The potential to get trapped in a local maximum or burn massive resources for insufficient return is too high, and the cost of switching models is too low to build any moat based on model quality.
At the end of the day this is the only thing tech investors are excited about, so the market will dictate strategy until the bottom falls out for whatever reason. The video is not assuring on this front, saying that CEOs are just staying the course without much indication they have a reason to believe a return is around the corner.
Sounds like Watson all over again.
Aren’t we all skeptical? What’s the real value exactly.
>Aren’t we all skeptical? What’s the real value exactly.
What's the value in the 7 billion Meta paid for WhatsApp?
$19 billion for the single most popular service on the entire internet seems like a bargain and they just passed $1 billion in annual revenue last year.
As an American, WhatsApp seemed like an odd fit with Facebook but I also travel internationally a great deal. Almost every single interaction I have while traveling anywhere that isn't Europe and North America, from coordinating airport pickups with drivers to requesting fresh towels from hotel staff, occurs via WhatsApp nowadays.
It's actually really nice. I booked a dive in Belize earlier this year and all I did was scan a QR code of an ad I saw in the hotel, send them a screenshot of my NAUI app, sign a waiver from a link they sent me, then they sent a payment link, google maps directions, and instantly responded to my question when I couldn't find the right dock. All of this occurred on WhatsApp in the span of like 90 minutes.
In the US the process IS NOT that smooth.
Nitpick, but Facebook (Meta wasn’t a thing yet) paid $19b for WhatsApp.
A lot of people use WhattsApp, especially outside the us. it is easily the greatest competitor to instagram in international markets.
Data
So then why doesn't this argument apply to AI? Why do people think AI is gonna be worthless?
WhatsApp is data generator
AI feels more like data utilizer
Sure, you can save the queries, but it aint much
Consumers are drawn into your service by convenience. They'd much rather get their answer via a quick AI chat than swifitng through pages of your data. Yeah, data is valuable, but if consumers have no easy way to get what they want from it, it becomes useless.
WhatsApp when bought already had traction, Copilot seems forced
Copilot feels like I’m getting a personal health examination I didn’t ask for, need, or want.
You answered your own question
WhatsApp and AI Chats are different products.
No d'uh they're different products. I asked why people would think one is valuable and the other not?
whatsapp is an invaluable communication tool for large parts of the globe. the other is not essential for daily life for any person anywhere on the globe. i hope this helps, cum guy
There can be many reasons
e.g WhatsApp is way, way more reliable than LLMs
There are different kinds of "worth".
Many things are valuable from a monetary point of view, but largely worthless (or of negative worth) otherwise. And many other things are worthless from a monetary view, but of great value otherwise.
In a sense, internet was this neat thing to share knowledge between academics and all but now we predominantly serve media and ads over it and all the SEO spam that makes real money.
AI is now this neat little thing to play around and has some values(non tech people makes MVPs/Emails/Slides, while tech people get faster search and code completion) but who know when the tiktok/fb like moment happens and takes all this AI into rocket to the moon.
At this moment, I think, the push is the slow boiling the frog, i.e. hold hard until skeptics just become used to it and then a generation becomes dependent on it, from which point it’ll become everyday necessity and become viable business.
I remember the “for cost of your morning coffee, you get this cool slice of server timeshare(VPS)” when people were skeptic until it became the norm. Now even if that VPS costs much less to operate, we still see the sticking “$5” price. May be AI will continue to be that “$30/month” but with advances in computing, it’ll get cheaper and at a certain point, that $1 spent to earn 80c will become 5c spent to earn $1.
yea ok crypto, metaverse and web3 are going to become a everyday necessity too then
I have the perfect outfits for my [Google] Glass.
So glad to find out we only needed reality to get sufficiently bad for augmentation to pick up. True innovation.
Overestimating in the short term, underestimating in the long term.
Roy Amara called it.
All that has been proven so far is the overestimating in the short term part.
I have had a theory for a loooong time that Ai is causing a massive stock bubble, especially in the tech space. Microsoft finally realising how much of an oopsie they made with ai could cause a domino effect.
I actual doubt it as a cause, more so justification on wanting to valuation just keep growing to infinity. If not for AI it would be something else. With Nvidia it is cause, but with rest I think it is just general tendency of market wanting to see line going up with any excuse.
Everyone should be skeptical. Right now it’s following the pattern of every other stupid bubble. It’s also further the “post truth” nature of our modern society, so … yeah. Not great?
fundamentally, windows gained popularity as a personal computer
that translated well into business since people were familiar with how to use windows
the efficiency problems microsoft faces as an organization are disjointed from people trying to stay in touch effectively.
ai solves a lot of problems people can imagine having when being pitched the equivalent of digital timeshare, which mathematically does well when projecting for growth, but the vast majority of people look to get out of their timeshares when it becomes a burden on their lives.
slop is a new term, but why do we all know what it means already?
Ignite is going on this week, as you can imagine, it is all about Azure and AI.
So far I haven't seen any rational or critical thinking in this area. So, it's nice to see a little glimmer of hope here, that someone might at least say 'wtf are we doing?' The power consumption of these useless data centres is slap in the face to all of us with efficient cars, houses full of shitty LED lightbulbs, and low flush toilets. We shouldn't let them burn the planet to insert automatically incorrect text, fucked up faces and extra fingers.