Firstly, it's not really good enough to say "our employees use it" and therefore it's providing us significant value as a business. It's also not good enough to say "our programmers now write 10x the number of lines of code and therefore that's providing us value" (lines of code have never been a good indicator of output). Significant value comes from new innovations.

Secondly, the scale of investment in AI isn't so that people can use it to generate a powerpoint or a one off python script. The scale of investment is to achieve "superintelligence" (whatever that means). That's the only reason why you would cover a huge percent of the country in datacenters.

The proof that significant value has been provided would be value being passed on to the consumer. For example if AI replaces lawyers you would expect a drop in the cost of legal fees (despite the harm that it also causes to people losing their jobs). Nothing like that has happened yet.

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Workaccount2 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

When I can replace a CAD license that costs $250/usr/mo with an applet written by gemini in an hour, that's a hard tangible gain.

Did Gemini write a CAD program? Absolutely not. But do I need 100% of the CAD program's feature set? Absolutely not. Just ~2% of it for what we needed.

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quikoa 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Someone correct me if I'm mistaken but don't CAD programs rely on a geometric modeling kernel? From what I understand this part is incredibly hard to get right and the best implementations are proprietary. No LLM is going to be able to get to that level anytime soon.

	▲	whilenot-dev 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sounds like GP is just in need for a G-Code to DXF converter when they mention "fringe stuff, cnc machine files from the 80's/90's" as answer to a sibling comment, though. There are great FOSS CAD tools available nowadays (LibreCAD, FreeCAD, OpenSCAD etc.), especially for people who only need 2% of a feature set. But then again, I doubt that GP is really in need of a CAD software, or even writing one with the help of Gemini.

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kurikuri 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree, the applet which google plageurized through its Gemini tool saves you money. Why keep the middle man though? At this point, just pirate a copy.

	▲	Workaccount2 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think it's plagiarized, nor would I pirate a copy. The workflow through the Gemini made app is way better (it's customized exactly for our inputs) and totally different than how the CAD program did it. So I wouldn't pirate a copy not even because our business runs above board, but also because the CAD version is actually also worse for our use. This is also pretty fringe stuff, cnc machine files from the 80's/90's. Part of the magic of LLMs is getting the exact bespoke tools you need, tailored specifically to your individual needs.

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jama211 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You’re attacking one or two examples mentioned in their comment, when we could step back and see that in reality you’re pushing against the general scientific consensus. Which you’re free to do, but I suspect an ideological motivation behind it.

To me, the arguments sound like “there’s no proof typewriters provide any economic value to the world, as writers are fast enough with a pen to match them and the bottleneck of good writing output for a novel or a newspaper is the research and compilation parts, not the writing parts. Not to mention the best writers swear by writing and editing with a pen and they make amazing work”.

All arguments that are not incorrect and that sound totally reasonable in the moment, but in 10 years everyone is using typewriters and there are known efficiency gains for doing so.

	▲	awitt 8 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I'm not saying LLMs are useless. But the value they have provided so far does not justify covering the country in datacenters and the scale of investment overall (not even close!). The only justification for that would be "superintelligence," but we don't know if this is even the right way of achieve that. (Also I suspect the only reason why they are as cheap as they are is because of all the insane amount of money they've been given. They're going to have to increase their prices.)
	▲	emp17344 7 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Uh, I must have missed the “consensus” here, especially when many studies are showing a productivity decrease from AI use. I think you’ve just conjured the idea of this “scientific consensus” out of thin air to deflect criticism.