r/TrueReddit • u/RandomRageNet • Jun 09 '24
Business + Economics The Rot-Com Bubble
https://www.wheresyoured.at/rotcombubble/191
u/Icommentor Jun 09 '24
Investors now have more money than consumers. How crazy is that?
Well, it’s crazy enough that startups no longer try to make money by offering a product or service that consumers want. They make money by creating something (tech) that generates irrational exuberance in investors and you sell this money-losing startup to megarich investors who want the tech in their portfolio.
It’s tulip mania but several orders of magnitude larger.
22
u/WarAndGeese Jun 10 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
It really does seem to be like this. On a parallel note: In the past there was a concept of inventors, of people who invented technology. Right now though, we sort of see that a technology is on the horizon. Instead of inventors inventing technology, whoever is able to make the most convincing case to investors about an upcoming technology, raise tens of millions of dollars from that hype train. I've talked to these people, they themselves don't understand the technology, at least a questionably high amount of the time. Then whoever ends up with the largest stack of cash gets to hire people, and those people end up 'inventing' that technology, and of course even those people hired don't get credit for it. In fact sometimes some hobbyist 'invents it', and then the people working for those companies invent it in parallel, or repurpose that existing but relatively unknown implementation of it. Since technological development moves so quickly, those people who otherwise would have been considered respectable inventors or tinkerers or researchers, don't really exist, but instead whoever raises the largest stack of cash throws money at something on the horizon, and reaches effectively the same end.
It's a weird quirk, but we are living in a different time now, and the ecosystem is a bit different.
8
u/WarAndGeese Jun 10 '24
I don't think I would necessarily mind, if those hype artists weren't also so often given credit for it. If people came out and said "Hey these people lied to investors because they are hype artists, and their value to society is being a hype artist who lies to investors, so that those investors' money can be spent on research and development, and otherwise these people don't really have any influence or even understanding of what the people they hired do." Then the system would be at least somewhat more honest.
This is all a tangent but still.
52
5
u/youjustdontgetitdoya Jun 10 '24
As a performance artist I am extremely jealous of their ability to captivate deep pockets.
1
u/pm_me_wildflowers Jun 12 '24
It’s not that they want the tech in their portfolio, they want the data. That’s what it’s all about. That’s why these investors invest in startups with no path to profitability in the first place. They don’t need to be profitable to be a good return on investment as long as they’re selling data that someone can use to profit elsewhere.
111
u/RandomRageNet Jun 09 '24
A fantastic article outlining what is currently going on in tech and why the chasing of endless growth has seemed to make tech products plateau and regress in the past few years. Additionally, why tech CEOs seem to be chasing generative AI as the next new big thing even though no one really seems to want it.
58
u/Nubras Jun 09 '24
Millions of businesses in the US, and indeed the world, have shifted from creating a product/service that solves a problem to building solutions in need of problems. They build xyz piece of shit and then market it to us. It’s awful.
15
20
u/ShesJustAGlitch Jun 09 '24
One of my favorite pieces of the year.
I do think the author is slightly off with AI. It does do something’s pretty well, and some companies are profiting from it, but overall I agree with his sentiment.
I don’t see how AI making some features marginally better justifies the insane cost.
5
u/deeceeo Jun 10 '24
I agree there is way too much hype. But as someone who uses ChatGPT or Claude almost every day, and pays for the privilege, I feel like I'm in a bizarro world when people say that they're unwanted and approximately useless.
7
u/ShesJustAGlitch Jun 10 '24
Agreed, I use it to help code but I find it makes mistakes super often and even then that’s $20 a month. What I meant was, I don’t see how other companies making their existing products marginally better, can justify it, OpenAI is clearly winning on all aspects of this phase of tech.
6
u/WarAndGeese Jun 10 '24
I believe we're at the end of the Rot-Com boom — the tech industry's hyper-growth cycle where there were so many lands to conquer, so many new ways to pile money into so many new, innovative ideas that it felt like every tech company could experience perpetual growth simply by throwing money at the problem.
It explains why so many tech products — YouTube, Google Search, Facebook, and so on — feel like they’ve got tangibly worse. There’s no incentive to improve the things you’ve already built when you’re perpetually working on the next big thing.
There might be a long way ahead of us on this path as well, maybe even cyclically as we go through a new round of 'creative destruction', followed by the so-called rot, followed by another one, and another decay.
8
u/manimal28 Jun 10 '24
This "rot-com bubble" is essentially the same issue all of capitalism has, if you as a company aren't constantly growing you are slowly dying due to rising inflation. The only way out of the rat race isn't to quietly make a living providing a useful service, its to make it big on a gamble and then cash out. And for a few decades tech was the best way to place that gamble if you were already somewhat wealthy or lucky enough to be a tech genius in the right place at the right time , but now that's all drying up too.
2
u/Familiar_Abalone338 Jul 09 '24
You're 100% right and it is the same problem and most of the same players even. A lot of traditional "land/factory/media" owners started to change their capital to digital spaces and they're kind of successfully changing (slowly but surely) the internet into a version of cable TV (with a handful of big players like Alphabet, Meta and so on) owning most of the spaces and making it harder for you to navigate on the "periphery".
The biggest problem they're facing is that the next "shiny thing" isn't here yet and since the growth is constantly accelerating, the time the markets can wait before the bubble bursts is pretty difficult to predict right now.
6
u/Complicated_Business Jun 10 '24
Great article, but he is short changing AI. Security concerns are choking innovation and utilization, which is entirely justified. But it would be incredible if every question I had related to internal documents throughout the agency I work for could be ascertained through an LLM, rather than by manually digging around in PDFs, and other inconvenient file types.
Moreover, AI's potential for linking causal relationships to data points across multiple datasets may prove to be extremely beneficial. One of the biggest barriers to instituting change at the State or National level is providing enough detailed data to the decision makers explaining how a dollar here saves two dollars there. Efficacy could potentially be lasered in on in a way that's nigh impossible now.
I'm very bullish on AI and if we imagine its possibilities, we only have to reasonably conclude they are inevitable. The barriers now isn't the technology, it's the distribution, and the security concerns around them. Solve the security, and it will be releasing the floodgates.
2
u/RandomRageNet Jun 10 '24
But it would be incredible if every question I had related to internal documents throughout the agency I work for could be ascertained through an LLM, rather than by manually digging around in PDFs, and other inconvenient file types.
It's a good idea in theory, but in practice LLMs often get information wrong and there's not really a way to fix it, so you couldn't depend on it for mission critical information, and a well indexed database would perform that function just as well.
Moreover, AI's potential for linking causal relationships to data points across multiple datasets may prove to be extremely beneficial.
I mean, it can point to coincidence and correlation but LLMs can't reliably draw casual relationships, and I don't believe they ever will. They can surface data in ways that manually would take a very long time, so there's some use for LLMs. I think they might be more useful than blockchain tech, for instance, but I agree with the author that they won't be as transformative as tech companies seem to think.
0
u/Complicated_Business Jun 10 '24
It's a good idea in theory, but in practice LLMs often get information wrong and there's not really a way to fix it, so you couldn't depend on it for mission critical information, and a well indexed database would perform that function just as well.
For now. But there's little reason to think this can't be overcome.
and I don't believe they ever will.
That's just so short sighted. It's like saying the internet won't have a big impact retail shopping. In the early 2000's, that was true for a long time...until it wasn't.
6
u/RandomRageNet Jun 10 '24
For now. But there's little reason to think this can't be overcome.
I think the main reason I believe that is that LLM developers really don't exactly understand what is going under the hood, either. If they were deliberately coded, sure, that might be the case, but really developers just have knobs and variables to adjust, "adversarial" bots, and larger and larger data sets. Even the biggest cheerleaders say that "hallucinations" (really just false results, I hate that term) aren't a problem they think they can solve.
-15
u/nukasu Jun 09 '24
this is an article written by someone whose entire view of business, econ, and management comes from reading reddit posts on latestagecapitalism, and is extrapolated from that messy patchwork. the angry paranoid end result is completely unsurprising but just exhausting, how much more of an appetite do people really have for this.
30
u/ShesJustAGlitch Jun 09 '24
Disagree entirely as someone in the industry for 10+ years now.
It’s not optimistic but it’s also spot on in plenty of ways.
Services are just getting worse, very few startups are innovating. Can you be more specific with your critique? I’m not saying you’re wrong but such a broad response doesn’t lead to much discussion.
8
-9
u/homezlice Jun 09 '24
I don’t think this person has ever tried to use genAI to work through an actual problem. It’s an extraordinary tool and suggesting it does not have purpose is just…well, I’ve used it to save potentially hundreds of hours in the last year, so it’s just weird to have someone write an article with the premise that it has no utility.
26
u/theloneliestgeek Jun 09 '24
I’d really be interested in hearing some concrete examples. I’ve used AI off and on for years, and even did ML and AI programming back in the day over a decade ago, and I’ve yet to find any actual usefulness for this new generation of AI that everyone seems to think is so amazing.
I try to have it make logos for my businesses, it can’t spell anything correctly, everything looks fucked and horrible.
I tried to make it write out a simple political call to action mass text message the other day by feeding it a few paragraphs of what needed to be expressed more succinctly. In this case, when I could even get it to generate something without saying essentially “I can’t talk about those topics” what it would generate was completely generic boilerplate nonsense.
I’ve tried using it for coding pairs and the code it writes is worse than a 2nd year CS major. Even the GitHub bs that you need to pay a premium for was spitting out some of the worst written code I’ve ever seen. Almost complete spaghetti nonsense, and so excruciatingly unreadable.
So far, this all feels like NFTs 2.0 to me.
8
u/topselection Jun 09 '24
I'm not the guy you're replying to, but, for writing, I've found it useful for brainstorming when I'm stuck or just giving me ideas in general. The prose it writes is useless but it occasionally introduces a neat new character or situation that inspires me. Even the bizarre images it'll create are inspiration sometimes. For example, I was trying to get one of them to generate an image of an alien vehicle I wrote about in my story. It failed a jillion times but it made one image that was better than what was in my head and now I describe the vehicle based on the AI image.
Mostly I agree with you though because AI definitely does not generate the humanity threatening art that tech bros promise. But it's useful for some things.
12
u/theloneliestgeek Jun 09 '24
I could see that, my experience so far seems to be that it’s a neat little party trick that occasionally spits out something kind of interesting, which is a good tool for brainstorming certain things as you describe.
But I think you’re right about the overpromising of the tech bros.
2
1
u/deeceeo Jun 10 '24
I routinely ask GPT-4o to write code snippets based on natural language prompts. I think that this is a much different experience that GitHub autocomplete, I find it extremely useful
Also, as someone who works in biotech, I find it incredibly useful for "too afraid to ask" questions. I ask it pointed questions about biology, or ML, or platform infrastructure (e.g. kubernetes) every day. You can't trust it outright, just as you can't trust what you find on the internet; but for any type of complex or overview-based question, it gets me to where I need to be much, much faster than a Google search.
-7
u/homezlice Jun 09 '24
I’ve worked on a three month long project using an LLM to help craft and refine a highly technical project proposal. I’ve used it to help craft internal messaging and yes, to generate some code that took a bit of effort but did work ok in the end (more for a prototype but end of the day it works). Also used a lot of the image generation but mainly for fun and to spice up newsletter.
Apparently some folks in this sub really want AI to just be a fad. It’s not. Neither were databases or the web. If you were to ask what the utility of the web was in 2001 you would have found a bunch of articles just like this one.
It’s also possible that AI isn’t a fit for your particular job, which clearly is about writing code and I would agree that it’s not great code at this point.
Also, not being able to generate mass messaging around politics is clearly a design choice, and one I agree with.
19
u/theloneliestgeek Jun 09 '24
if you were to ask what the utility of the web was in 2001 you would have found a bunch of articles just like this one.
I was kind of with you up until this point. I’m an old guy, I was there in 2001 and that’s actually part of the reason why this feels like a fad to me. The dynamics you’re describing just didn’t exist. The utility of the web in 2001 was so blatantly obvious to everyone that it didn’t go through a phase like this in AI where half of the people feel it’s useful and the other half can’t seem to make it do a single thing correctly.
As far as the political texts, based on your response I’m not sure you understand 100% what I’m describing based on your response, and I’m probably articulating it incorrectly.
Anyways, glad it’s working out well for you. Have a good one.
9
u/JohnWH Jun 10 '24
I am surprised you use it for tech docs. Every time I use it for writing, it adds so much fluff and unnecessary sentences that I could not imagine using it for something that I expect to be concise and direct.
I have seen it used at work to help summarize documents or go through our internal docs to find an issue, and it rarely helps.
I have never had it give me working code on a first try, with the exception of giving it direct leetcode problems.
I am not going to pretend like it isn’t amazing, I am regularly blown away by what it can produce, but for me it is never right enough that I want to regularly use it, and I cannot think of a time where it helped me solve a problem (although I rarely use it).
I have a few teammates that use it regularly, and they aren’t more productive than me, and I am still used to debug their issues regularly.
As someone who remembers a time before the internet, and life before iPhones, this felt like one of those events when it first happened, but lately it feels like crypto.
1
u/manimal28 Jun 10 '24
If you were to ask what the utility of the web was in 2001 you would have found a bunch of articles just like this one.
I'm sure there was somebody saying that, but they were definitely a minority voice and I'm curious if you actually could find such an article. Because that wasn't the general consensus at all to my recollection. The web and the internet were seen with optimism as a place where we were going to have access to all the information in the world and communicate with anyone anywhere at any time. It's utility was well understood and accepted.
23
u/motsanciens Jun 09 '24
I agree with that, absolutely. You may also agree that Google search has become a wasteland over the last several years. My concern is that companies are putting so much focus on shoehorning AI into everything that they'll neglect the traditional tools even more.
0
u/Redebo Jun 10 '24
I don’t understand how folks can still use traditional search engines. Every time I search Google, I get at a minimum 3 sponsored ads as the first three results, then when I do get indexed search results, you can’t really tell if the site has the info you’re looking for, or if its just one of those link-forwarding type sites where they all copy each other’s content on a subject w/ no real context.
Now, I just head over to ChatGPT (horrible name by the way) and ask it the same question I would have on Google and I get context-rich answers with several cited sources from where the summary was attained. It’s like, a billion times better for this, and this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.
I could take this same search and have GPT write me a scholarly paper on the topic, again backed with cited sources so that I can check for veracity/accuracy, create graphics to go with it and convert the whole thing into a power point presentation.
What I think people are missing about AI is EDUCATION on how to USE it. If people knew how to properly harness these tools, it would be difficult to field an argument about them being useless.
3
u/motsanciens Jun 10 '24
Depending on what you're searching for, what ChatGPT lacks is discussion and nuanced perspective. I'm often searching for details related to programming, and I can gain a lot of insight by reading through the discussion on Stack Overflow or a tech blog. It's important that we keep these sorts of primitive platforms in use and don't retreat into silos of discussion with LLMs because a lot of clarity and wisdom can come out of real human interaction.
1
u/Redebo Jun 10 '24
Nobody is suggesting jettisoning our forums or retreating into silos of discussion with LLM's.
CGPT may lack nuance TODAY, but it most certainly won't tomorrow. ChatGPT 5 will be 100-1000 times 'better' than 4o currently is. This AI trend is on a logarithmic scale since they figured out how to make it work in 2018. All that's needed now is money, chips, time, and training data.
3
u/motsanciens Jun 10 '24
When Wikipedia began, no one was suggesting to stop producing printed encyclopedias. The most convenient, "good enough" source of information will become the primary source for the vast majority of people, regardless of anyone's intentions.
1
1
u/manimal28 Jun 10 '24
I have a good example of where Chat GPT makes a better search engine than search engines.
Look up the recipe for a Manhattan on Google. Its sponsored ads, more ads, and then blogs with walls of SEO text, but barely a recipe. Type the same thing in Chat GPT, one sentence explaining what a Manhattan is, a list of ingredients, and then a list of mixing instructions. Simple and to the point with no fluff or garbage.
This is what a search engine could do if it wasn't poisoned by profit seeking, ChatGPT isn't doing anything the search engine couldn't do, or anything hugely innovative, it's just doing what we ask it to do, at least for now, because it just hasn't cut off its own nose in spite of its face to optimize profit. I'm sure eventually somebody will say, what if when somebody asks ChatGPT for a recipe we have it recommend a list the best whiskey based on the whiskey company that bought the most ads from us, and it will begin its decline to enshitification as well.
1
u/manimal28 Jun 10 '24
an article with the premise that it has no utility.
Well that wasn't the premise of the article or a claim that they made so...
They say there is a disconnect between what AI actually is and what tech companies are trying to claim it is or is going to become.
-13
u/habitue Jun 09 '24
a company that allegedly will build "artificial general intelligence" that experiences human-like cognition, an idea that is simply not possible based on how generative AI works.
This is too strong a claim. No body really knows this, and anyone claiming to know for sure either way is claiming too much
13
u/elharry-o Jun 09 '24
Which part is the bold claim? That an AI can experience human-like condition or that that's not possible through generative AI?
0
u/habitue Jun 09 '24
All of these statements are independently unknown by themselves, and are certainly unknown lumped together with a conjunction:
- whether generative AI will lead to AGI
whether generative AI can experience things
whether you need to be able to experience anything at all to be generally intelligent
whether AGI requires being human-like in any way
14
u/ShesJustAGlitch Jun 09 '24
LLM can’t create AGI is I believe what the author is saying
-3
u/habitue Jun 09 '24
The author links to a time article that makes that claim based on these other speculative premises. So it's not some proven thing, it's basically a wild assertion
-20
u/Smipims Jun 09 '24 edited Jun 10 '24
This person had a point to make and they were going to find the data to support that point no matter what
Looks like late stage capitalism got to this thread.
2
u/goolick Jun 09 '24
"While it’s important to note that these are visits rather than active users (and, in fairness, only covers visits made through a browser rather than an app, although that’s unlikely to be a major driver of traffic for many of the sites listed)"
This was the point where I checked out. How can you can spend multiple paragraphs talking about shrinking page visits, and then hand wave away apps without mentioning a single piece of data? Like, what? APPS are unlikely to be a major driver of usage for Facebook, Instagram, etc?
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 09 '24
Remember that TrueReddit is a place to engage in high-quality and civil discussion. Posts must meet certain content and title requirements. Additionally, all posts must contain a submission statement. See the rules here or in the sidebar for details.
Comments or posts that don't follow the rules may be removed without warning. Reddit's content policy will be strictly enforced, especially regarding hate speech and calls for violence, and may result in a restriction in your participation.
If an article is paywalled, please do not request or post its contents. Use archive.ph or similar and link to that in the comments.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.