Visicalc is often described as the killer app of the first generation Personal Computer(1). It was the product that drove them into every small business in the country, that blew up sales of personal computers and brought them out of the realm of hobbyists into enterprise. And, honestly, I think Visicalc and spreadsheets are still a greater benefit than what I've seen out of generative AI today. And that happened a lot faster than where we are today with generative AI. Apple had enormous actual profits by 1980 (Apple IPO'd in 1980 with a 21% operating margin). So I think that a lot of the "just got to give it more time" argument misses that the previous computer based revolutions that we know about productized and threw off gobs of cash a heck of a lot faster than this one has.

If the end result of this is "certain classes of white collar workers are 10-25% more productive" (which is the best results I can extrapolate from what I've seen so far) then it's really hard to imagine how OpenAI can return a profit to their investors.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc#Killer_app is pretty much the normal narrative on Visicalc and its importance to the Personal Computer.

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ApolloFortyNine 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>If the end result of this is "certain classes of white collar workers are 10-25% more productive" (which is the best results I can extrapolate from what I've seen so far) then it's really hard to imagine how OpenAI can return a profit to their investors.

If we take this as face value, and say that the absolute best case scenario is there are literally no other uses for AI but helping programmers program faster, given 4.4 million software devs, with an average cost to the company of $200,000 (working off the US here, including benefits/levels/whatever should be close), those 4.4 million devs with 20% productivity would save roughly 176 billion dollars a year.

Some companies will cut jobs, some will expand features, but that's the gist. And it's hard not to see the magnitude of improvement that's come in just 3 years, though if that leads to a 'moat' is yet to be seen.

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ianbutler 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Thanks for the in depth explanation. I was definitely not up on my tech history here. :)

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mandevil 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Sorry, I forgot that for many engineers this is, in fact, their first time going through a technology cycle like this, and so would need more explanation. I am too young for Visicalc myself, but the cycle that I saw while I was in high school- the dot-com bubble- doesn't have convenient, easy to mark out dates like the PC does.

Thinking... Thinking... Tim Berners-Lee proposing HTTP in 1989 is kinda like the original Attention is All You Need paper, I guess? Netscape 1.0 release in December 1994 is ChatGPT 1.0? And then Amazon.com opened up to the public in July 1995 and then IPO'd in May 1997 (after raising less than 10 million dollars in two funding rounds). But once again we have the business side of these previous cycles moving much faster than this one.

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ianbutler an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah I started programming in 2006 as a kid and then entered professional work in 2016 I guess as still a kid depending on your perspective :P

This is really the first meteoric rise in tech I've seen / am experiencing first hand.

	▲	mandevil 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		All I will say is make sure to enjoy your knees while they don't hurt, whippersnapper.

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piker 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

WOW. That does really drive home the perspective. I was an adolescent during those years and it did seem quick then, but that's an insane pace in retrospect.

Amazon is perhaps a counter-example to your point, though, to be fair. It seems to me they did a lot of spaghetti throwing while making accounting losses for a good number of years. Granted, they did it on OpenAI's dining budget.