| If it was 2% for VOD streaming, and 3% for every other service that is delivered by a networked computer, I would think "wow, streaming is huge". 2% for one thing that most people hardly use at all, versus 3% for everything else on the computer, is still a remarkable statistic. I'm not making any value judgment in order to say that. I also don't think it's particularly conclusive about anything though. It doesn't on its face make me think anything like "it must be stopped", but it's remarkable. |
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| ▲ | gruez 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >that most people hardly use at all Speak for yourself. For "most people", "streaming" is basically TV for them, and the average american watches 2.6 hours per day[1]. It's probably safe to say that at least half of that is "streaming" of some sort, even more if you include other types of "streaming" like music streaming. Moreover nowadays even if they're not plopped in front of a TV, they're watching short form videos. [1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm | | |
| ▲ | dundarious 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I was referring to AI in that statement, I wrote it somewhat poorly. | | |
| ▲ | gruez 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The "hardly use" comparison quickly runs into issues, though. If I use AI and it completes a job that would have taken an hour in 1 minute, should that be counted as a factor against AI, because I'm "hardly" using it (1 minute) compared to the alternative (1 hour)? | | |
| ▲ | dundarious an hour ago | parent [-] | | It was written in a specific context: > [AI] that most people hardly use at all and while ambiguous, I meant that quantifying the number of people that use it, results in a not large number. I've had discussions in other threads about how to talk about transitive use, etc., so as with everything at all times, there are certainly ways to skin the cat that justify or invalidate the statement. One has to rely upon good judgment to decide which way is best, and reasonable people may disagree. |
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| ▲ | sroussey 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > 2% for one thing that most people hardly use at all AI is hardly used at all? Basically every company and consumer in the country is using it, transitively if not directly. | | |
| ▲ | dundarious 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Every company is using it? The deli and the laundromat too? Every consumer? Maybe transitively because they use Google or what have you, but most people I know still don't really know what AI is, never mind have a puritan revulsion over using it (some people are quite performative about this on here), but they just don't use it themselves, except transitively on occasion. | | |
| ▲ | sroussey 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Everyone using Google. Watching Netflix. Listening to Spotify. Shopping at Amazon or a Shopify store. Or reading almost anything these days. :( Advertising they see. Using a credit card, writing a check. Beam forming wireless signals. It’s everywhere. Not all AI is an LLM. | | |
| ▲ | dundarious an hour ago | parent [-] | | Was the 2% figure counting all those things? I don't think so. This is changing the grounds of the discussion. Ridiculously so. Do you take me for some zealot who hates tensors or matrices or something? I don't even hate LLMs, though I have huge issues with how data has been gathered. I feel like this discussion is useless. | | |
| ▲ | sroussey an hour ago | parent [-] | | Look at Meta’s capital budget and tell me people aren’t using AI. People use Facebook, Instagram, etc. I’d say the same for Google, but with Google Cloud it’s hard to know where the dollars are going and for whom. Who exactly is the 2% figure? Can’t all be HN people on side projects using Claude code. | | |
| ▲ | dundarious an hour ago | parent [-] | | A lot of it is training, not inference, right? I really do think the vast majority of use is HN Claude Code, with some lawyers, etc., preparing initial draft emails that they rewrite, sprinkled on top. As for capex implying high usage, look at xAI's capex and how it turns out most of it is now being rented out to Google, etc. High capex does not imply capex that has already found its customers and margins. Meta is an extraordinarily bad example to use, given the failure of the whole metaverse/VR thing that is now their name, but is completely vestigial. Have a good afternoon. |
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