6 ms·

While I agree on the smell I think that the situations are really different. I am not an economist but I think that other than the situation of the huge amount

by gekoxyz 3mo ago

While I agree on the smell I think that the situations are really different. I am not an economist but I think that other than the situation of the huge amount of money in play we are in a really different case. The general user (and I have noticed it especially with today's WWDC) basically doesn't get any benefit from AI (neither LLMs, image generation or photo editing). They were promised living like in Wall-e in 5 years and they are basically still living the same life. White collar jobs slightly benefited from the LLMs and same with programmers (while many say that they can get huge leverage the public results of what software companies produce didn't get the same benefit). Everyone knows the market will crash, nobody knows how much.

charcircuit 3mo ago
There is ton of utility. I use it all the time to study, to look up what's happening in the world, to understand the context behind what others are saying, cooking recipes, and much more. Considering LLMs have access to tools for searching the internet they have a superset of the capabilities of Google and consumers got a lot of value from Google. In fact from putting ads on the search results Google has made billions of dollars from such consumers getting value from their service.
- Eufrat 3mo ago
  When you ask it to give you a digest of current events or as a study aid how are you ensuring that what your reading is a valid representation of the source material? Has it never given you false information?
  - thimabi 3mo ago
    Not OP but, anyway, AI output should be treated like any other source material. I study from reputable sources every day and never cease to be amazed by how many errors or misconceptions they have. Peer-reviewed articles, books from renowned scholars, news from major publications… regardless of the source, false information and contradictions accumulate. I’d wager that AI, besides helping me uncover these issues in the literature, has had a lower error rate than most of the materials that I read on a daily basis.
  - charcircuit 3mo ago
    I can tell by my intuition. If I'm that interested in something I can dig deeper or just give up in pursing the truth.
jghn 3mo ago
> I think that the situations are really different Keep in mind that people said this before both of those crashes.That's the problem with bubbles. It's impossible to say if this time really IS different.
base698 3mo ago
My father in law owns a small manufacturing business and is not technical at all. His computer skills stop with some CAD and basic excel. He pays for ChatGPT as does his wife and her kids. The internet and dot com bubble didn't have millions and millions of non technical users paying cash for a product. Almost every coffee shop I go to has people talking about AI and ChatGPT even in areas with no tech populations. I still think it could crash, but it's got real users and a mind share like nothing I've ever seen.
- Waterluvian 3mo ago
  I definitely believe in the broad existence of people like your father in law. What I’m not sure about is how many of them would keep paying if their subscriptions were priced profitably.
- mmcwilliams 3mo ago
  This seems to ignore the fact that millions of non-technical people did pay cash for a product: AOL. And in fact the AOL buyout of Time Warner coincided almost exactly with burst of the dot com boom.
  - JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
    > the AOL buyout of Time Warner To be clear, there is a world of difference between IPOs and LBOs. In the risk they create. And in the risk they signal.
    - mmcwilliams 3mo ago
      That may be the case but the idea that non-technical people didn't pay cash for internet products before the dot com boom is fanciful. I would say AOL's acquisition of a legacy media company did signal the peak of a mania the way these IPOs are.
- jrmg 3mo ago
  The internet and dot com bubble didn't have millions and millions of non technical users paying cash for a product The dot com bubble was basically based on regular people buying computers and internet service, and then using them to buy products they used to buy in stores.
hypendev 3mo ago
I wouldn't argue the same. My parents love using ChatGPT, asking it all kinds of questions. My mom discovered Claude and helps her immensely with her job - where she would have to take it home and work a few hours to be able to finish the tasks on her computer, as her company that still uses Office 98, now Claude does it in 5 minutes. They fixed so many random issues using it, it is insane. My dad had a bike issue which would otherwise be solved by either trying to find obscure manuals from 20 years ago on random forums with me translating it from english to our language, or by taking it to a mechanic which could take months. This way, he just snapped a few photos, said what the problem is, and in a few minutes he had the fix. I've built software that uses LLM's for a specific usecase - besides general adoption, professionals in the field contacted me and thanked me for making their lives easier, as the tasks would often take a lot of manual work. These people are earning way more from using my software, than I am from their subscriptions, which is still about 20x more than my API costs are. While most non-dev people are behind the curve, the impact it has on their lives is becoming bigger and bigger by the day.
- magarnicle 3mo ago
  Office 98
  - hypendev 3mo ago
    Sorry, my bad, might be 97 running on windows 98 - but yes, this is a giant corporation serving hundreds of corporate customers and a few hundred thousand private ones, using nearly 30 years old software because the management does not see reasons to upgrade and spend the extra cost associated with it. New machines and Windows XP are only used by upper management. Worst part? Their whole software stack is running on some version of Visual Basic, written by a dude that did not trust "others code" so he wrote everything from scratch, and retired about 5 years ago. Nobody knows how any of it works, or has any clue. The company will continue to run it and pay him for consultations as long as he is able to do it.
    - magarnicle 3mo ago
      Glad to hear that upper management are keeping up with the times, at least.

by gekoxyz 3mo ago

charcircuit 3mo ago

There is ton of utility. I use it all the time to study, to look up what's happening in the world, to understand the context behind what others are saying, cooking recipes, and much more. Considering LLMs have access to tools for searching the internet they have a superset of the capabilities of Google and consumers got a lot of value from Google. In fact from putting ads on the search results Google has made billions of dollars from such consumers getting value from their service.

Eufrat 3mo ago
When you ask it to give you a digest of current events or as a study aid how are you ensuring that what your reading is a valid representation of the source material? Has it never given you false information?
- thimabi 3mo ago
  Not OP but, anyway, AI output should be treated like any other source material. I study from reputable sources every day and never cease to be amazed by how many errors or misconceptions they have. Peer-reviewed articles, books from renowned scholars, news from major publications… regardless of the source, false information and contradictions accumulate. I’d wager that AI, besides helping me uncover these issues in the literature, has had a lower error rate than most of the materials that I read on a daily basis.
- charcircuit 3mo ago
  I can tell by my intuition. If I'm that interested in something I can dig deeper or just give up in pursing the truth.

jghn 3mo ago

> I think that the situations are really different Keep in mind that people said this before both of those crashes.That's the problem with bubbles. It's impossible to say if this time really IS different.

base698 3mo ago

My father in law owns a small manufacturing business and is not technical at all. His computer skills stop with some CAD and basic excel. He pays for ChatGPT as does his wife and her kids. The internet and dot com bubble didn't have millions and millions of non technical users paying cash for a product. Almost every coffee shop I go to has people talking about AI and ChatGPT even in areas with no tech populations. I still think it could crash, but it's got real users and a mind share like nothing I've ever seen.

Waterluvian 3mo ago
I definitely believe in the broad existence of people like your father in law. What I’m not sure about is how many of them would keep paying if their subscriptions were priced profitably.
mmcwilliams 3mo ago
This seems to ignore the fact that millions of non-technical people did pay cash for a product: AOL. And in fact the AOL buyout of Time Warner coincided almost exactly with burst of the dot com boom.
- JumpCrisscross 3mo ago
  > the AOL buyout of Time Warner To be clear, there is a world of difference between IPOs and LBOs. In the risk they create. And in the risk they signal.
  - mmcwilliams 3mo ago
    That may be the case but the idea that non-technical people didn't pay cash for internet products before the dot com boom is fanciful. I would say AOL's acquisition of a legacy media company did signal the peak of a mania the way these IPOs are.
jrmg 3mo ago
The internet and dot com bubble didn't have millions and millions of non technical users paying cash for a product The dot com bubble was basically based on regular people buying computers and internet service, and then using them to buy products they used to buy in stores.

hypendev 3mo ago

I wouldn't argue the same. My parents love using ChatGPT, asking it all kinds of questions. My mom discovered Claude and helps her immensely with her job - where she would have to take it home and work a few hours to be able to finish the tasks on her computer, as her company that still uses Office 98, now Claude does it in 5 minutes. They fixed so many random issues using it, it is insane. My dad had a bike issue which would otherwise be solved by either trying to find obscure manuals from 20 years ago on random forums with me translating it from english to our language, or by taking it to a mechanic which could take months. This way, he just snapped a few photos, said what the problem is, and in a few minutes he had the fix. I've built software that uses LLM's for a specific usecase - besides general adoption, professionals in the field contacted me and thanked me for making their lives easier, as the tasks would often take a lot of manual work. These people are earning way more from using my software, than I am from their subscriptions, which is still about 20x more than my API costs are. While most non-dev people are behind the curve, the impact it has on their lives is becoming bigger and bigger by the day.

magarnicle 3mo ago
Office 98
- hypendev 3mo ago
  Sorry, my bad, might be 97 running on windows 98 - but yes, this is a giant corporation serving hundreds of corporate customers and a few hundred thousand private ones, using nearly 30 years old software because the management does not see reasons to upgrade and spend the extra cost associated with it. New machines and Windows XP are only used by upper management. Worst part? Their whole software stack is running on some version of Visual Basic, written by a dude that did not trust "others code" so he wrote everything from scratch, and retired about 5 years ago. Nobody knows how any of it works, or has any clue. The company will continue to run it and pay him for consultations as long as he is able to do it.
  - magarnicle 3mo ago
    Glad to hear that upper management are keeping up with the times, at least.