Comment by christoph
20 hours ago
A good lesson for all - I always really liked the Picasso version:
In a bustling restaurant, an excited patron recognized the famous artist Picasso dining alone. Seizing the moment, the patron approached Picasso with a simple request. With a plain napkin and a big smile, he asked the artist for a drawing. He promised payment for his troubles. Picasso, ever the creator, didn’t hesitate. From his pocket, he produced a charcoal pencil and he brought to life a stunning sketch of a goat on the napkin—a clear mark of his unique style. Proudly, he presented it to the patron.
The artwork mesmerized the patron, who reached out to take it, only to be stopped by Picasso’s firm hand. “That will be $100,000,” Picasso declared.
Astonished, the patron balked at the sum. “But it took you just a few seconds to draw this!”
With a calm demeanor, Picasso took back the napkin, crumpled it, and tucked it away into his pocket, replying, “No, it has taken me a lifetime.”
Good story but not applicable at all
A good engineer and / or a tenured engineer could very well be compared to Picasso in this story. A tenured engineer did not just sit their entire career drawing that painting on the napkin, they delivered other results too. But at the end of it, they are able to deliver a Picasso at a moment's notice.
It actually matches up well with the current AI scene, except backwards. We use these model which cost ridiculous amounts of money to train, and all of that effort goes into producing the outputs we use, but we're paying something not too far above the marginal cost of inference when we use them.
So not applicable at all