Tech makes bubbles because people think it’s magic.
Baidu CEO warns AI is just an inevitable bubble — 99% of AI companies are at risk of failing when the bubble bursts
Submitted 1 year ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 year ago
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
As a major locally-hosted AI proponent, aka a kind of AI fan, absolutely. I’d wager it’s even worse than crypto, and I hate crypto.
What I’m kinda hoping happens is that bitnet takes off in the next few months/years, and that running a very smart model on a phone or desktop takes milliwatts… Who’s gonna buy into Sam Altman $7 trillion cloud scheme to burn the Earth when anyone can run models offline on their phones, instead of hitting APIs?
And ironically it may be a Chinese company like Alibaba that pops the bubble, lol.
pennomi@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If bitnet takes off, that’s very good news for everyone.
The problem isn’t AI, it’s AI that’s so intensive to host that only corporations with big datacenters can do it.
MyOpinion@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Not shocked. It seems the tech bros like to troll us every few years.
Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
Techbros are the modern day equivalent to snake oil salesmen.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 1 year ago
The tech bros are selling, but it’s the VCs that are fueling this whole thing. They’re grasping for the next big thing. Mostly they don’t care if any of it actually works, as long as they can pump share value and then sell before it collapses.
poo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No bubble has deserved to pop as much as AI deserves to
Andromxda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I think all the crypto scams, all the shitcoins, NFTs and other blockchain bullshit were much worse. At least AI companies usually don’t require you to give them large sums of money, they’re only after your data and absolutely fuck the environment by wasting absurd amounts of power, but they don’t try to take away your life savings
Disaster@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Maybe real estate?
DarkCloud@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Try Venice Ai, free to use, won’t try to censor your topics. Still just a chat bot though (although I think it does image generation too).
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I’m sorry, what about their comment made you think they were asking for reccomendations?
misk@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
Blockchain and crypto were worse. „AI” has some actual use even if it’s way overblown.
OneWomanCreamTeam@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
I mean, block chain does have some actual uses, definitely more niche than LLMs though.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m glad you didn’t say NFTs because my Bored Ape will regain and triple its value any day now!
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Creating a specialized neural net to perform a specific function is cool. Slapping GPT into customer support because you like money is horse shit and I hope your company collapses. But yeah you’re right. Blockchain was a solution with basically no problems to fix. Neural nets are a tool that can do a ton of things, but everyone is content to use them as a hammer.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Crypto has a legitimate value, you can buy drugs with it.
confusedbytheBasics@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Blockchain has many valuable uses. A distributed zero trust ledger is useful. Sadly the finance scammers and the digital beanie baby collectors attracted all the marketing money.
_bcron_@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m not even understanding what AI is at this point because there’s no delineation between moderately sophisticated algorithms and things that are orders of magnitude more complex.
I mean, if something like multisampling came out today we’d all know how it’d be marketed
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yes. But companies bought into AI way more than they bought into crypto though, in many outlandish and stupid ways. And many AI companies sell it in ways they shouldn’t.
just_another_person@lemmy.world 1 year ago
YUP
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 1 year ago
As someone who follows the startup space (and is thinking of starting their own, non-AI driven startup), the issue is all of the easily solvable problems have already been solved. The only thing that shakes up the tree is when new tech comes along and makes some of the old problems easy to solve again.
So take a look at crypto - If you wanted to make a tip bot on Telegram, before crypto that was really hard. You needed to register with something like PayPal, have the recipient register with PayPal, etc etc etc. After crypto it was “Hey this person sent you 5$, use this private key if you ever want to recover it” (btw I made this service and it was used a lot).
Now look at AI - Imagine making a service that detects CSAM before AI took off. As an aside, I did NOT make this service, but I know a group of people who did. Imagine trying to make this without the AI boom - you’d need millions of images for training data, a PhD in machine learning, and so much more. Now, anyone can make it in their basement.
The point is, investors KNOW the bubble is a bubble and that it will pop. It doesn’t matter though. They’re looking for people who will solve problems that previously cost 1bln to solve with only 1mln of funding. If even 1% of their companies pay off, they make a profit.
MajorHavoc@programming.dev 1 year ago
I suspect they make a profit even when 0% pan out. They just need to find someone gullible enough to buy in at the peak, and there’s a new sucker born every minute.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 1 year ago
bubble after bubble after bubble after…
problem is, the amount of soap(money) that goes around to make the bubbles keeps shrinking because the bubbles are siphoning it away from the consumers.
I wonder what happens when there’s no more soap left to go around?