AnarchoNinaAnalyzes (@AnarchoNinaAnalyzes@treehouse.systems)
social.treehouse.systems
Naw, I figured it out; they absolutely don't care if AI doesn't work. They really don't. They're pot-committed; these dudes aren't tech pioneers, they're money muppets playing the bubble game. They are invested in increasing the valuation of their investments and cashing out, it's literally a massive scam. Reading a bunch of stuff by Amy Castor and David Gerard finally got me there in terms of understanding it's not real and they don't care. From there it was pretty easy to apply a historical analysis of the last 10 bubbles, who profited, at which point in the cycle, and where the real money was made. The plan is more or less to foist AI on establishment actors who don't know their ass from their elbow, causing investment valuations to soar, and then cash the fuck out before anyone really realizes it's total gibberish and unlikely to get better at the rate and speed they were promised. Particularly in the media, it's all about adoption and cashing out, not actually replacing media. Nobody making decisions and investments here, particularly wants an informed populace, after all.

the writer Nina Illingworth, whose work has been a constant source of inspiration, posted this excellent analysis of the reality of the AI bubble on Mastodon (featuring a shout-out to the recent articles on the subject from Amy Castor and @dgerard@awful.systems):

Naw, I figured it out; they absolutely don’t care if AI doesn’t work.

They really don’t. They’re pot-committed; these dudes aren’t tech pioneers, they’re money muppets playing the bubble game. They are invested in increasing the valuation of their investments and cashing out, it’s literally a massive scam. Reading a bunch of stuff by Amy Castor and David Gerard finally got me there in terms of understanding it’s not real and they don’t care. From there it was pretty easy to apply a historical analysis of the last 10 bubbles, who profited, at which point in the cycle, and where the real money was made.

The plan is more or less to foist AI on establishment actors who don’t know their ass from their elbow, causing investment valuations to soar, and then cash the fuck out before anyone really realizes it’s total gibberish and unlikely to get better at the rate and speed they were promised.

Particularly in the media, it’s all about adoption and cashing out, not actually replacing media. Nobody making decisions and investments here, particularly wants an informed populace, after all.

the linked mastodon thread also has a very interesting post from an AI skeptic who used to work at Microsoft and seems to have gotten laid off for their skepticism

  • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    this is also the marketing for quantum computing. Yes, there is a big money market for quantum computers in 2023. They still can’t reliably factor 35.

    • Steve@awful.systemsEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      shit, I forgot about quantum computing. If you don’t game, do video production or render 3d models, you’re upgrading your computer to keep up with the demands of client-side rendered web apps and the operating system that loads up the same Excel that has existed for 30 years.

      Lust for computing power is a great match for AI

      • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        i literally upgrade computers in the past decade purely to get ones that can take more RAM because the web now sends 1000 characters of text as a virtual machine written in javascript rather than anything so tawdry as HTML and CSS

        • self@awful.systemsOPEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          the death of server-side templating and the lie of server-side rendering (which practically just ships the same virtual machine to you but with a bunch more shit tacked on that doesn’t do anything) really has done fucked up things to the web