Can we just go back to pre-AI world?

whizzter 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It'll calm down once the Antrophic and/or OpenAI IPO's are done, no need to protect themselves from people running local models by buying everything once the bosses have gotten their money.

	▲	pizza234 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		OpenAI and Anthropic are certainly strong drivers, but there's a large demand from many other players: cloud provider, accelerator vendors, and so on. I think there's no end in sight.

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z2 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This is textbook negative externalities, of the AI buildout on everyone who isn't using RAM/GPUs for AI, of the use of electricity and water on anyone who isn't using it for AI. The cynic in me thinks this will go down in history alongside asbestos, leaded gasoline/paint, and the opioid crisis.

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WarmWash an hour ago | parent [-]

People want this, the demand is there.

Like clockwork, people naturally want to have their cake and to eat it too, so there will be the incessant complaining about the externalities. Half the people lack the brainpower to see the good and bad are intrinsically linked, and the other half just like complaining.

But at least for now, both halves aren't pulling back (in fact it's increasing), and money, not complaining, steers the ship.

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deaton an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Do they?

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lionkor an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> People want this, the demand is there.

It's impossible to avoid using AI multiple times a day, just because it's forced into every product under the sun.

That is NOT demand. None of those users WANT this.

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nerdjon an hour ago | parent | next [-]

We can be cynics of AI without ignoring reality, if no one wanted this no one would be chatting with Claude or ChatGPT directly, but people obviously are.

The fact is there are people that do in fact want this, and it isn't just CEO's hoping to cut jobs.

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lionkor an hour ago | parent | next [-]

It's very, very questionable if people want the situation we have. I have yet to meet anyone in person who is really excited about AI. Of course it's useful, but at this cost?

Claiming people want this is like claiming that people wanted WW2 because look we're all enjoying the tech that was developed during it!

	▲	nerdjon 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I unfortunately have met a few. I have one friend that legit scares me... we saw how people reacted to o4 being discontinued. Though I do agree that most people probably don't want as much AI as is being shoved on us right now, there is a subset that do want at least some of it. More my point, yeah I think there is an issue of the actual demand being extremely over estimated due to shady practices (like of course Gemini gets a lot of use when every single google search calls it whether you want it or not). But we also should not be so quick to disregard there being real demand just to hope for the outcome we want.

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esterna 35 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

There is certainly a lot of demand at the current price of free or subsidised subscriptions. It remains to be seen what the demand is at profitable prices.

If the vendors decide that free (ad-supported) use is necessary to keep demand, we will be entering a new era of surveillance capitalism instead.

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sixothree an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

You're wrong. There is demand. More and more people are exploring AI and getting real work done with it.

	▲	lionkor 42 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Like using it finally be able to do warcrimes without any human pulling the trigger, along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI-assisted_targeting_in_the_G...
	▲	dosisking an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's like how some people like listening to Ed Sheeran. So yes, there is demand. But nobody is "getting real work done" with these toy AI models. Real AI is a geo-political threat, and will not be allowed to exist for the average person. So, enjoy your toy AI models, because that's all you're getting.

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okokwhatever 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Can we just go back to pre-{anything-here} world?

	▲	dijit 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		gigabit internet and the death of flash for web video has been wonderful to be honest. There was a period in 2012-2016 when things were pretty nice.