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Amazon missed earnings and promptly doubled down on AI spending: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-plans-200b-ai-spending-surge-sinking-stock-after-earning

Amazon missed earnings and promptly doubled down on AI spending: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-plans-200b-ai-spending-surge-sinking-stock-after-earnings-173054820.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-plans-200b-ai-spending... It is encouraging to see that investors are punishing what is the greatest misallocation of capital since the dotcom bubble. Investors have figured out that AI is limited to probabilistic and annoying chatbots that are for entertainment and for looking up trivia questions.

bpodgursky 8mo ago
I know it feels comforting to say this, but deep down you have to realize that saying things confidently does not cause them to become true.
- chucksta 8mo ago
  Was that comforting? At least the commentator came with a source
- sdf2erf 7mo ago
  Theres a real problem with people who are too tech-induced: youre disconnected from how the average person interacts with stuff.
symfrog 8mo ago
If only that is what investors have figured out. Unfortunately, it seems investors now think that all paid software will be replaced by AI generated software, somehow open source projects laundered through generative AI models should finally convince enterprise customers to go with free.
danielbln 8mo ago
Why should anyone take your sensible first statement seriously if your second statement is so easily verifiably false? Some of these AI critical posts really are an exercise in Gell Mann Amnesia, man.
- sdf2erf 7mo ago
  Im still waiting to read about macro-level mass-lay offs or insane productivity leaps. Where are the results, tell me? What insanely great products have been shipped by people leveraging/building on top of LLMs...? Yeah, silence. As usual.
  - reducesuffering 7mo ago
    There's literally a billion ChatGPT users already, the worlds fastest growing product. Do you think they're all just playing around in the sand? Ask anyone in education, it has completely upended every student's workflow.
  - otterley 7mo ago
    Just because people aren’t talking about how LLMs are boosting their productivity to ship “insanely great” products doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I don’t talk about every tool I use, and neither do many of the best teams who keep their eyes on the prize and relentlessly ship. Meanwhile this story just came out: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/claude-code-is-the-inflection-point https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/claude-code-is-the-inf...
  - thunky 7mo ago
    You can find posts on this site every day with people say they're seeing big productivity gains. I'm sure they'll all lying though, right? Or, because it hasn't solved all of the world's problems yet then I guess it doesn't count? Maybe you're the one overhyping AI.
    - AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
      I think their point was: at this point we should see clear macro effects. There should be new software that wasn't possible yesterday (or feasible, etc). Something big and new, and high quality. AI helps me too, and I feel like I ship more now. But what if it's just a feeling and I'm not doing anything groundbreaking? What if I'm just doing what I've always done but at slighly more speed?
pfisherman 8mo ago
Oh boy, are you going to be in for a rude awakening. Might I ask what is your exposure? Because this does not line up with what I am witnessing day to day at all. This type of commentary reminds me of the people during the dot com boom who were adamant that e-commerce was all film flam and would never take off. Consider that it is possible that both (1) we are in an investment bubble and (2) we are underestimating the long term impact of LLMs and perhaps mispredicting where they will land.
- byyrlogic 8mo ago
  By your logic the only way to achieve number 2 is to keep pumping number 1. This type of commentary reminds of people propping up these LLM MLMs.
- symfrog 8mo ago
  In what way is the long term impact of LLMs being underestimated? If anything, it seems that it has been overestimated in the past years and that something other than LLMs will be needed to reach the original scaled LLM hope of AGI.
  - pchristensen 8mo ago
    Back when the Internet was America online and some CGI bin perl scripts, there were a lot of very lofty things said about the potential of the Internet in the future. I don’t remember any of them predicting the power of the tech would have over business, politics, media, and hours of every single day for billions of people. Even without AGI, it’s quite possible that were still underestimating. The effects of predictive, probabilistic computing 20 or 50 years from now.
    - sdf2erf 7mo ago
      The internet alone didnt change sh!t. Without smartphones, unified app stores, cellular network innovation et al internet traffic would not be so high. Funny how people leave this stuff out. Yawn. Basic simpleton analysis and takes.
goalieca 8mo ago
You’ll get downvoted for your second statement. I think investors are struggling to see how AI turns into more money for consumers if it. It’s one thing to exclaim how your productivity is up, but does that translate into more profit and larger customer base if you’re a business? I very much doubt consumers will pay more than dollars a month for an LLM and I also very much doubt the ad market can grow large enough to cover the spend on that (ad market is plenty big and driven by other economic factors)
- simonw 8mo ago
  Many people are spending significantly more time every day engaging with AI chatbots than they spend engaging with Google, and Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world.
  - falloutx 8mo ago
    By that exact logic Tiktok should be the most valuable company on the world, yet its not even in top 10. Attention doesn't automatically generate profit especially since most of these companies are yet to monetize attention. They are still burning billions and the public opinion on this outside of tech bubble is very negative. It wouldn't surprise me if the money on the internet falls to pre-2020 levels in next few years. Subscription pricing model is also becoming increasingly cumbersome for companies and individuals which is another worrying trend.
  - goalieca 8mo ago
    I suppose people don’t realize how much of their day is actually engaging with Google through their trackers, their email, their phones, YouTube, etc.
  - sdf2erf 7mo ago
    Yeah.... stick to conversations strictly re. technology pal.
mark_l_watson 8mo ago
I was disagreeing with just your last statement, but then I did a little research: about 80% of revenue is from chatbots and 20% from APIs. So +1 on your comment. Bear with me here, I actually do have a point to make: I took my stepdaughter out for breakfast this morning. She is a financial wizard specializing in running large cities, and to explain to her the current craziness of overspending on AI infrastructure, I described "exponential spending increases for linear economic value increases." I may be wrong about this, but I am all for targeting the sweet spot of more efficient smaller AI models that are fit to purpose for specific use cases.
- thunky 7mo ago
  You're agreeing with GP but it's a flawed premise: a chatbot doesn't have to be limited to entertainment and trivia, as anyone who has used one for productivity knows.

bpodgursky 8mo ago

I know it feels comforting to say this, but deep down you have to realize that saying things confidently does not cause them to become true.

chucksta 8mo ago
Was that comforting? At least the commentator came with a source
sdf2erf 7mo ago
Theres a real problem with people who are too tech-induced: youre disconnected from how the average person interacts with stuff.

symfrog 8mo ago

If only that is what investors have figured out. Unfortunately, it seems investors now think that all paid software will be replaced by AI generated software, somehow open source projects laundered through generative AI models should finally convince enterprise customers to go with free.

danielbln 8mo ago

Why should anyone take your sensible first statement seriously if your second statement is so easily verifiably false? Some of these AI critical posts really are an exercise in Gell Mann Amnesia, man.

sdf2erf 7mo ago
Im still waiting to read about macro-level mass-lay offs or insane productivity leaps. Where are the results, tell me? What insanely great products have been shipped by people leveraging/building on top of LLMs...? Yeah, silence. As usual.
- reducesuffering 7mo ago
  There's literally a billion ChatGPT users already, the worlds fastest growing product. Do you think they're all just playing around in the sand? Ask anyone in education, it has completely upended every student's workflow.
- otterley 7mo ago
  Just because people aren’t talking about how LLMs are boosting their productivity to ship “insanely great” products doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I don’t talk about every tool I use, and neither do many of the best teams who keep their eyes on the prize and relentlessly ship. Meanwhile this story just came out: https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/claude-code-is-the-inflection-point https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/claude-code-is-the-inf...
- thunky 7mo ago
  You can find posts on this site every day with people say they're seeing big productivity gains. I'm sure they'll all lying though, right? Or, because it hasn't solved all of the world's problems yet then I guess it doesn't count? Maybe you're the one overhyping AI.
  - AlexeyBelov 7mo ago
    I think their point was: at this point we should see clear macro effects. There should be new software that wasn't possible yesterday (or feasible, etc). Something big and new, and high quality. AI helps me too, and I feel like I ship more now. But what if it's just a feeling and I'm not doing anything groundbreaking? What if I'm just doing what I've always done but at slighly more speed?

pfisherman 8mo ago

Oh boy, are you going to be in for a rude awakening. Might I ask what is your exposure? Because this does not line up with what I am witnessing day to day at all. This type of commentary reminds me of the people during the dot com boom who were adamant that e-commerce was all film flam and would never take off. Consider that it is possible that both (1) we are in an investment bubble and (2) we are underestimating the long term impact of LLMs and perhaps mispredicting where they will land.

byyrlogic 8mo ago
By your logic the only way to achieve number 2 is to keep pumping number 1. This type of commentary reminds of people propping up these LLM MLMs.
symfrog 8mo ago
In what way is the long term impact of LLMs being underestimated? If anything, it seems that it has been overestimated in the past years and that something other than LLMs will be needed to reach the original scaled LLM hope of AGI.
- pchristensen 8mo ago
  Back when the Internet was America online and some CGI bin perl scripts, there were a lot of very lofty things said about the potential of the Internet in the future. I don’t remember any of them predicting the power of the tech would have over business, politics, media, and hours of every single day for billions of people. Even without AGI, it’s quite possible that were still underestimating. The effects of predictive, probabilistic computing 20 or 50 years from now.
  - sdf2erf 7mo ago
    The internet alone didnt change sh!t. Without smartphones, unified app stores, cellular network innovation et al internet traffic would not be so high. Funny how people leave this stuff out. Yawn. Basic simpleton analysis and takes.

goalieca 8mo ago

You’ll get downvoted for your second statement. I think investors are struggling to see how AI turns into more money for consumers if it. It’s one thing to exclaim how your productivity is up, but does that translate into more profit and larger customer base if you’re a business? I very much doubt consumers will pay more than dollars a month for an LLM and I also very much doubt the ad market can grow large enough to cover the spend on that (ad market is plenty big and driven by other economic factors)

simonw 8mo ago
Many people are spending significantly more time every day engaging with AI chatbots than they spend engaging with Google, and Google is one of the most valuable companies in the world.
- falloutx 8mo ago
  By that exact logic Tiktok should be the most valuable company on the world, yet its not even in top 10. Attention doesn't automatically generate profit especially since most of these companies are yet to monetize attention. They are still burning billions and the public opinion on this outside of tech bubble is very negative. It wouldn't surprise me if the money on the internet falls to pre-2020 levels in next few years. Subscription pricing model is also becoming increasingly cumbersome for companies and individuals which is another worrying trend.
- goalieca 8mo ago
  I suppose people don’t realize how much of their day is actually engaging with Google through their trackers, their email, their phones, YouTube, etc.
- sdf2erf 7mo ago
  Yeah.... stick to conversations strictly re. technology pal.

mark_l_watson 8mo ago

I was disagreeing with just your last statement, but then I did a little research: about 80% of revenue is from chatbots and 20% from APIs. So +1 on your comment. Bear with me here, I actually do have a point to make: I took my stepdaughter out for breakfast this morning. She is a financial wizard specializing in running large cities, and to explain to her the current craziness of overspending on AI infrastructure, I described "exponential spending increases for linear economic value increases." I may be wrong about this, but I am all for targeting the sweet spot of more efficient smaller AI models that are fit to purpose for specific use cases.

thunky 7mo ago
You're agreeing with GP but it's a flawed premise: a chatbot doesn't have to be limited to entertainment and trivia, as anyone who has used one for productivity knows.