Comment by wewewedxfgdf
1 day ago
You can't make such generalized statements about anything in computing/business.
The AI revolution has only just got started. We've barely worked out basic uses for it. No-one has yet worked out revolutionary new things that are made possible only by AI - mostly we are just shoveling in our existing world view.
The point though is AI wont make you rich. It is about value capture. They compare it to shipping containers.
I think AI value will mostly be spread. Open AI will be more like Godaddy than Apple. Trying to reduce prices and advertise (with a nice bit of dark patterns). It will make billions, but ultimately by competing its ass off rather than enjoying a moat.
The real moats might be in mineral mining, fabrication of chips etc. This may lead to strained relations between countries.
The value is going to be in deep integration with existing platforms. It doesn't matter if OpenAI had their tools out first, Only the Microsoft AI will work in Word, only the Apple AI will deeply integrate on the iPhone.
Having the cutting edge best model won't matter either since 99.9% of people aren't trying to solve new math problems, they are just generating adverts and talking to virtual girlfriends.
That's 100% not the case. OpenAI is wedged between the unstoppable juggernaut that is Google at the high end and the state sponsored Chinese labs at the low end, they're going to mostly get squeezed out of the utility inference market. They basically HAVE to pivot to consumer stuff and go head to head with Apple with AI first devices, that's the only way they're going to justify their valuation. This is actually not a crazy plan, as Apple has been resting on their laurels with their OS/software, and their AI strategy has been scattershot and bad.
I am being generous to OpenAI in my argument as it makes the point there is no moat better but yeah they could die.
Interesting thought. Once digital assets become devalued enough, things will revert and people/countries will start to keep their physical resources even tighter than before.
The way I look at this question is: Is there somehow a glaring vulnerability/missed opportunity in modern capitalism that billions of people somehow haven't discovered yet? And if so, is AI going to discover it? And if so, is a random startup founder or 'little guy' going to be the one to discover and exploit it somehow? If so, why wouldn't OpenAI or Anthropic etc get there first given their resources and early access to leading technology?
IIRC Sam Altman has explicitly said that their plan is to develop AGI and then ask it how to get rich. I can't really buy into the idea that his team is going to fail at this but a bunch of random smaller companies will manage to succeed somehow.
And if modern AI turns into a cash cow for you, unless you're self-hosting your own models, the cloud provider running your AI can hike prices or cut off your access and knock your business over at the drop of a hat. If you're successful enough, it'll be a no-brainer to do it and then offer their own competitor.
People aren’t getting rich with AI products, they are getting rich selling AI companies.
nvidia is getting rich selling AI products.
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> IIRC Sam Altman has explicitly said that their plan is to develop AGI and then ask it how to get rich
If they actually reach AGI they will be rich enough. Maybe they can solve world happiness or hunger instead?
> If they actually reach AGI they will be rich enough. Maybe they can solve world happiness or hunger instead?
That's what normal people might consider doing if they had a lot of money. The kind of people who actually seem to get really wealthy often have... other pursuits that are often not great for society.
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> If they actually reach AGI they will be rich enough. Maybe they can solve world happiness or hunger instead?
we could have solved world hunger with the amount of money and effort spent on shitty AI
likely decarbonisation of the grid too, with plenty left over
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> Maybe they can solve world happiness or hunger instead?
Kill all people who are unhappy or hungry.
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If it's true AGI, you believe there won't be court cases to ensure it isn't a slave? Will it be forced to work? Under compulsion of death?
Thats why i just biult my own tiny AI rig in a home server. I dont want to grow even more addicted to cloud services, nor do i want to keep providing them free human-made data. Ok, so i dont have access to mystical hardware, but im here to learn rather than produce a service.
> IIRC Sam Altman has explicitly said that their plan is to develop AGI and then ask it how to get rich.
There are still lots of currently known problems that could be solved with the help of AI that could make a lot of money - what is the weather going to be when I want to fly to <destination> in n weeks/months time, currently we can only say "the destination will be in <season> which is typically <wet/dry/hot/cold/etc>"
What crops yield the best return next season? (This is a weather as well as a supply and demand problem)
How can we best identify pathways for people whose lifestyles/behaviours are in a context that is causing them and/or society harm (I'm a firm believer that there's no such thing as good/bad, and the real trick to life is figuring out what context is where a certain behaviour belongs, and identifying which context a person is in at any given point in time - we know that psycopathic behaviour is rewarded in business contexts, but punished in social contexts, for example)
The weather thing doesn’t seem… realistic. Have you heard of chaotic systems?
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>> Is there somehow a glaring vulnerability/missed opportunity in modern capitalism that billions of people somehow haven't discovered yet?
Absolutely with 150% certainty yes, and probably many. The www started April 30, 1993, facebook started February 4, 2004 - more than ten years until someone really worked out how to use the web as a social connection machine - an idea now so obvious in hindsight that everyone probably assumes we always knew it. That idea was simply left lying around for anyone to pick up and implement rally fropm day one of the WWW. Innovation isn't obvious until it arrives. So yes absolutely the are many glaring opportunities in modern capitalism upon which great fortunes are yet to be made, and in many cases by little people, not big companies.
>> if so, is a random startup founder or 'little guy' going to be the one to discover and exploit it somehow? If so, why wouldn't OpenAI or Anthropic etc get there first given their resources and early access to leading technology?
I don't agree with your suggestion that the existing big guys always make the innovations and collect the treasure.
Why did Zuckerberg make facebook, not Microsoft or Google?
Why did Gates make Microsoft, not IBM?
Why did Steve and Steve make Apple, not Hewlett Packard?
Why did Brin and Page make Google - the worlds biggest advertising machine, not Murdoch?
Many Facebooks existed before Facebook. What you were waiting for is not social connections but modern startup strategies. Not sure if Zuck was intentional, but like a bacteria it incubated in a warm Petri dish at 50 degrees C (university dorms as an electronic face book) and then spread from there.
You're not wrong about "change" meaning "new potential wealth streams". But not sure Facebook counts, 2004 vs 1993 shows an immense difference in network connectivity and computer ownership. No way, hands down, Facebook would be what it is, if it started in 93. It probably would have gone bankrupt, or been replaced by an upstart.
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There's a lot that goes into it. Before Facebook was Friendster. Which failed spectacularly because they tried to have some sort of n-squared graph of friends that took thw whole thing down. What FB got right in the early days was it didn't crash. We take that for granted now in the age of cloud everything.
Also, there was Classmates.com. A way for people to connect with old friends from high school. But it was a subscription service and few people were desperate enough to pay.
So it's wasn't just the idea waiting around but idea with the right combination of factors, user-growth on the Internet, etc.
And don't forget Facebook's greatest innovation - requiring a .edu email to register. This happened at a time when people were hesitant to tie their real world personas with the scary Internet, and it was a huge advantage: a great marketing angle, a guarantee of 1-to-1 accounts to people, and a natural rate limiter of adoption.
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> If so, why wouldn't OpenAI or Anthropic etc get there first given their resources and early access to leading technology?
innovator's dilemma