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

  • bitofhope@awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    1 year ago

    This is like TV being invented in 1927 and then people in 1930 saying that it’s a bubble because it hasn’t grown as fast as they expected it to.

    That’s the exact opposite of a bubble, then. A bubble is when the valuation of some thing grows much faster than the utility it provides.

    Yea sure maybe we’re still in the early stages with this stuff. We have gotten quite a bit further from back when the funny neural network was seeing and generating dog noses everywhere.

    The reason it’s a bubble is because hypemongers like yourself are treating this tech like a literal miracle and serial grifters shoehorning it into everything like it’s the new money. Who wants shoelaces when you can have AI shoelaces, the shoelaces with AI! Formerly known as the blockchain shoelaces.