The A.I. Bubble is Bursting with Ed Zitron [video]

He claims that language models will soon run out of data to train on, and therefore stop getting better. Language models have already essentially run out of data to train on, yet they continue to get actionably better. Data quality is still a huge space for continued improvement.

Also around 46:20:

> the fundamental thing of knowing [the user] requires knowledge, which requires intellect, which GPT cannot have - it's mathematics.

I disagree with basically all of this except that knowing requires knowledge, but that's basically a tautology. Firstly, knowledge and reason do not depend on each other. Wikipedia is a highly knowledgeable system that demonstrates little to no reason (maybe the search can be considered a demonstration of reason). A calculator is a highly reasonable system with extremely primitive knowledge. Intelligent systems have knowledge and reason. Anyone who has played around with an LLM would agree that they are able to demonstrate some level of both knowledge and reason.

Also the implication that biological brains simply exist outside the domain of mathematics is... interesting.

Then they go on to talking about how you can't make small tweaks with generative video AI, like telling the actor to walk a little bit faster or slower. To that I want to highlight that ComfyUI has support for video nodes[0]. If you're not familiar with ComfyUI, just check out some tutorials. Generative AI art is a really cool skill that people downplay for usually wrong reasons.

> It can't generate new things

It's hard to take the host seriously when they say things like this...

> The technology is fundamentally unpredictable

It simply isn't. When you find a seed that is generally close to what you want, you fix the seed and tweak (because you can) from there.

[0] https://github.com/Kosinkadink/ComfyUI-VideoHelperSuite

I think the AI bubble may have some interesting parallels with the dot com bubble ~25 years ago.

The internet was revolutionary and transformed the global economy. However, most of the internet companies at the time were garbage and were given money because people were blinded by the hype. At the end of the day, we were left with a handful of viable companies that went on to great things and a lot of embarrassed investors

I can't get enough of Ed Zitron. I first found him on the Scam Economy podcast, and now I'm addicted to his blog and appearances on Crypto Critics Corner or any other podcasts.

The AI bubble folks are sitting in roles that are not doing the cutting edge AI work at companies that have figured out what to do with it in the first year that it’s been practically useful. I sit in such a role and I know we have done absolutely amazing things that have significantly improved our margins. The key though is there is no “manual” or playbook yet, and anyone doing substantially advantageous work is holding on it as a trade secret for now.

This is the fastest I’ve seen any technology deliver meaningful value in my 35 years in tech and with much less established practice than most. It’s going to take years to fully bed down all the uses, the tooling to make it usable in various contexts, and for the basic technology itself to reach a more efficient and effective technique.

There is almost certainly a bunch of ventures that started too early. A bunch that are misguided. A bunch that will contribute a lot of understanding but will disappear having evaporated investor money. But that’s the way new foundational technologies -are- . That isn’t a bubble that’s how new markets behave.

The challenge is it’s hard to distinguish when rational growth and a bubble sets in. It feels hard sitting in my seat seeing the varied ways we are using this technology as a bubble yet though. There’s a lot of productive work and research and investment to go before we get there.

GenAI skeptics and evangelists spend a lot of time talking past each other. The way I see it is that there are three camps, which you can see in the comments in this thread.

Camp 1 is the Ilyas that are convinced they're building a digital god before 2030.

Camp 2 are people that see a very useful tool that's going to change the world for the better.

Camp 3 (my camp) thinks Camp 1 is getting high on their own supply. We often talk to Camp 2 like they are Camp 1, but we shouldn't. We think GenAI is very useful but will likely in the end be used for negative purposes, the way the Internet was perverted into a surveillance and disinformation machine.

"The crypto bubble is bursting" - Hacker News in 2011

> They'll run out of data, and the models won't be able to get any better.

Well, that is enough to prove to me he doesn't know enough about the technology for me to pay attention to his opinions...

I particularly liked this interview on Ed Zitron’s own show: https://overcast.fm/+BGz6-w7jjI

I’m so tired of people talking about AI like this but only looking at it from the perspective of a consumer. AI is so big because it allows people like me, who only dabble in code, to automate with very little learning curve.

My life has been irrevocably changed by AI and I’m tired of people saying it hasn’t done anything when reality is that they just don’t know what to use it for.

These types of takes seem pretty ignorant of the percentage of workers and students that are using artificial intelligence tools daily.

It is ignorant because it ignores any economical improvement that comes from say a machinist figuring out gcode issues, a culinary student learning safer fermentation etc...

This is pretty typical of finance or public relations people trying to make their thinking easier by only focusing on one variable at a time.

Don't know exact data, but can referr to Peter Diamantis quote:

```A survey by Microsoft and LinkedIn revealed that 85% of Gen Z uses AI at work, followed by Millennials at 78%, Gen X at 76%, and Boomers at 73%.```

Whether you want to believe thator not, you can think for yourself on how getting chatGPT to successfuly fix your espresso machine by telling which $0.35 gasket to replace... has had a positive growing booming impact on the economy or not.

To me it looks like it has and will continue to do so despite the venture money laundering/border-line-fraud issues that are clouding the picture

There is no AI bubble.

Is there a transcript?

Way to long and no bubble in sight

Ai is already changing plenty of industries...