this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

Yeah, but the 0.1% remaining will take over the world.

Does anyone remember the era when there were a million search engines? Google didn't spawn alone.

Same with Amazon. You think nobody else tried to make an online store in the 90s? Lol.

People are trying to vindicate their dislike of AI, pointing to trends like this as if it were supporting evidence. But saying "AI is going to be a big flop because 99% of companies today will end up failing" is as stupid as saying "online shopping will never work because 99% of online stores will close by the year 2010"

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Same with Amazon. You think nobody else tried to make an online store in the 90s? Lol.

Fun fact: the first online store still exists. It's Pizza Hut. They launched an experiment for online ordering in 1994. The first company to ever sell a product on the web.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Yum brands has always been at the forefront of using tech to sell fast food. This was true then and is true now. Taco Bell has pioneered kiosks and in-app ordering as well as KDS in QSR environments.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

That is a fun fact!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No one actually thought that they were a good idea it was just a bunch of con artists. It was a bubble for sure but it was an entirely artificially created one. There was no real business behind any of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I would argue that this current AI bubble is artificially created by a different type of conmen.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but in fairness the AI actually does work. You can actually use the AI to achieve things I've never seen anybody achieve anything beneficial with NFTs

My argument really being that there is a potential for real benefit with AI in a way that never existed for made-up digital scarcity

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

I totally agree with you and once dudes with dollar signs in their eyes stop with craming it in toasters I will be very happy to see where the tech goes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I doubt anyone is downplaying that. People are just discussing how all companies are pushing A.I into products that don't need it. Idk about you but I'm tired seeing A.I advertised as a feature on every app/site when it's just a gpt wrapper.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The rot has even spread into hardware. No one wants die space wasted on a stupid NPU with with less than 1/1000 of the computing power their GPU has and can't be used for anything other than local LLMs which FTI very few people use and those that do tend to have powerful Nvidia GPUs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I'm having flashbacks to Windows 8 being heavily developed to be "touch optimized" at a time where 3% of computers had touchscreen capabilities.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

.com websites didn't disappear after the dotcom bubble burst either. AI is definitely in a massive bubble right now, but something being in a bubble doesn't mean it's going to vanish completely. The AI companies with some substance backing them will weather the upcoming storm.

Full disclosure: I don't hate AI, but I hate that management-types are fellating themselves to the idea of it or the things than it can potentially do, rather than something that is providing them some kind of concrete benefit right now. I'm also mad at consumers for being stupid little sheep and paying a premium for anything that companies just happen to slap an "AI-powered" sticker on. It's like organic produce 2.0 - you have to have it, but we can't explain why, nor can we elaborate on what it does better than it's contemporary.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Sure, but the difference here was that all those companies were offering something different. Some had better results than others, a better ui, more accuracy in certain niches, etc. But 99% of AI companies now are all effectively reselling the OpenAI API. They aren’t making an effort to differentiate themselves at all. It’s as if Google was the only shop in town, and everyone bought all their search data an algorithms to slap their logo on. That’s just simply not sustainable at anywhere near the scale it is now. This won’t be a 3-5 year decline, it’ll be a 2 month crash.