The AI dooooooom thread

[DGuller]

What scares me most about AI is not the possibility of it becoming more intelligent than human, but even what it can do without reaching that level.  I don't see people appreciating the fact that AI can access and process way more information than a human can. 

The product of intellectual work is connecting the dots; it's a combination of having the dots, and finding the right connections between them.  An AI which is not as intelligent as a human can nevertheless connect way more dots, simply because it starts with more of them.  A human spy can't listen to 100 million wiretaps at the same time and synthesize them, but an AI might be able to.  Even a pretty dumb one can identify people unhappy with the regime, so that the regime can administer corrective measures.

[Valmy]

Yes. And there doesn't seem any way to stop powerful institutions from having this power. Either all powerful governments or all powerful techlords. Either way seems equally bad.

[Jacob]

AI continues providing things we really need: https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/black-mirror-becomes-reality-new-app-lets-users-talk-to-ai-avatars-of-deceased-loved-ones-3283056/

[Valmy]

Holy shit. No I am not talking to an AI version of my Dad.

[Josquius]

Which would hallucinate more?
The AI boomer or the real one?

[Syt]

Stolen from Reddit:

[Grey Fox]

Without ASML there is no TSMC whose without there is no NVIDIA. NVIDIA's market cap is stupid.

[DGuller]

We need to be more precise in defining "worth".  I'd argue that worth to society is more a function of revenue (although this is far from perfect representation), while market worth is a function of profits.  A company that sells $1 trillion worth of products at 1% profit margin will be worth less on the market than a company selling $30 billion worth of products at 50% margin, even though the former company would be much more of a presence in everyone's life.

It never sat right with me that Apple could be "worth" more than all the carmakers combined, but I guess you just have to approach this question intellectually, not intuitively.

[Josquius]

Yeah. Its mad stuff.
Give me a company any day in the final figures earns x having enormous income and enormous operating costs, employing thousands, over one that just makes x employing a few guys and with minimal outgoings at all. The value to society is far larger with the mass-employer.
The employment itself is an asset which may not profit the company itself too much but does profit the broader economy even directly let alone considering more abstract societal stuff.

I am seeing ever more reports of this famous investment guy or that pulling out or shorting AI.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah. Its mad stuff.
Give me a company any day in the final figures earns x having enormous income and enormous operating costs, employing thousands, over one that just makes x employing a few guys and with minimal outgoings at all. The value to society is far larger with the mass-employer.
The employment itself is an asset which may not profit the company itself too much but does profit the broader economy even directly let alone considering more abstract societal stuff.

I am seeing ever more reports of this famous investment guy or that pulling out or shorting AI.

How much is society willing to pay for this value?

[crazy canuck]

Yeah. Its mad stuff.
Give me a company any day in the final figures earns x having enormous income and enormous operating costs, employing thousands, over one that just makes x employing a few guys and with minimal outgoings at all. The value to society is far larger with the mass-employer.
The employment itself is an asset which may not profit the company itself too much but does profit the broader economy even directly let alone considering more abstract societal stuff.

I am seeing ever more reports of this famous investment guy or that pulling out or shorting AI.

How much is society willing to pay for this value?

We already see the cost that society pays for the alternative.

[Grey Fox]

This is the moment I, once again, hammer that it's all Reagan's fault.

[The Minsky Moment]

Market cap measures only one thing: how much people are willing to pay for the common stock of the company. Stock price is inherently forward looking: people buy stock not based on the earnings of the last year or even this year, but the expected value of all projected future earnings.   Market cap is thus a measure of worth in that one sense but not necessarily others.  And because projections into the future are always highly speculative, especially for companies operating at technological frontier, market cap valuations are inherently subject to fluctuation and revision.

[The Minsky Moment]

I found these presentations from Yann LeCun interesting despite the fact that he works for Meta.  It's possible he is just talking down his competitor's books, as Meta lacks an industry leading LLMs, but he seemed on the level.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETZfkkv6V7Y&t=3090s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvNCVYkHKfg&t=3122s

[Sheilbh]

Just as a total aside that chart sort of shows why France has, surprisingly, some of the highest rates of wealth inequality in the West. Because it's biggest companies are (broadly) luxury goods groups like LVMH, L'Oreal - add in Chanel, Kering, Hermes etc - who are some of biggest companies in Europe and a lot of them are still either privately owned or with very significant private ownership.

So I think the richest people in Europe by some distance are the Arnault family who have LVMH, so a few hundred billion which is five or six times the richest Brits (the Hinduja family). But it leads to really wild stats - I think something like 20-5% of French GDP is basically held by four or five families like the Arnaults, Bettancourts, Pinaults etc.