1 00:00:02,840 --> 00:00:07,600 Speaker 1: Zone Media. Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your 2 00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:22,119 Speaker 1: host and chief romance officer, ed Ze Tron. In the 3 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:25,200 Speaker 1: last episode, I dug into the fundamental weaknesses and open 4 00:00:25,239 --> 00:00:28,280 Speaker 1: AI the supposed leader in the genital of AI boom, 5 00:00:28,400 --> 00:00:30,440 Speaker 1: and today I'm going to get into a much larger, 6 00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:34,200 Speaker 1: more systemic, more terminal problem and the signs that things 7 00:00:34,240 --> 00:00:37,320 Speaker 1: are really really falling apart. And as ever, I will 8 00:00:37,320 --> 00:00:39,920 Speaker 1: have links to everything I'm talking about in the episode notes, 9 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:42,000 Speaker 1: so you know I'm not making it up, which one 10 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:44,600 Speaker 1: person suggested I did once and it bothered me a 11 00:00:44,640 --> 00:00:48,479 Speaker 1: great deal. But back to the actual stuff. The problems 12 00:00:48,479 --> 00:00:50,640 Speaker 1: that open ai is facing are those faced by the 13 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:54,320 Speaker 1: entire generative AI industry. One's born of their sole focused 14 00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:57,560 Speaker 1: on the transformer based architecture underlying large language models like 15 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:01,640 Speaker 1: chat GPT open A issues besides the fact that they're 16 00:01:01,640 --> 00:01:04,400 Speaker 1: in a terrible business as discussed in the last episode, 17 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:07,280 Speaker 1: is that generative AI, and by extension, the model GPT 18 00:01:07,360 --> 00:01:10,720 Speaker 1: in the product Chat GPT, doesn't really solve complex problems 19 00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:13,720 Speaker 1: that would justify the massive costs behind it. It is 20 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:16,800 Speaker 1: these massive intractable challenges that are a result of these 21 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:19,880 Speaker 1: models being probabilistic, meaning that they don't know anything. They're 22 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:22,840 Speaker 1: just generating an answer based on maths and training data, 23 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:25,280 Speaker 1: something that model developers are running out of at an 24 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:29,880 Speaker 1: incredible pace. Hallucinations, which occur when models authoritatively state something 25 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:31,679 Speaker 1: that isn't true, or, in the case of an image 26 00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:35,000 Speaker 1: or a video, makes something that just looks wrong. Well, 27 00:01:35,600 --> 00:01:38,560 Speaker 1: they're impossible to resolve without new branches of maths, and 28 00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:40,560 Speaker 1: while you might be able to reduce or mitigate them, 29 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:43,399 Speaker 1: their existence makes it hard for business critical applications to 30 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,040 Speaker 1: truly rely on this kind of AI. I don't even 31 00:01:46,080 --> 00:01:48,920 Speaker 1: know if i'd call it an AI, but regardless, we 32 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:52,880 Speaker 1: go forward, and even tech's most dominant players can't seem 33 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:57,000 Speaker 1: to turn generative AI into any kind of real business line. 34 00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:00,000 Speaker 1: The Information reported in early September that customers of Micross 35 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:03,360 Speaker 1: three sixty five Suite are barely adopting its AI powered 36 00:02:03,440 --> 00:02:06,960 Speaker 1: copilot products, with somewhere between zero point one percent and 37 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:09,959 Speaker 1: one percent of the four hundred and forty million paying 38 00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:12,799 Speaker 1: people who pay for Microsoft three sixty five, which is 39 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:15,200 Speaker 1: about thirty to fifty dollars a person, by the way, 40 00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:18,800 Speaker 1: are willing to pay for AI, and just to be clear, 41 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:21,840 Speaker 1: I muddied that little. It's thirty to fifty bucks per 42 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:24,600 Speaker 1: person per head to add this stuff. I'll get into 43 00:02:24,639 --> 00:02:27,440 Speaker 1: it in a minute. One firm, according to the information, 44 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:30,440 Speaker 1: was testing the AI features and was quoted as saying 45 00:02:30,480 --> 00:02:33,000 Speaker 1: that most people don't find it that valuable right now, 46 00:02:33,080 --> 00:02:35,840 Speaker 1: and others are saying that many businesses haven't seen breakthroughs 47 00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:39,280 Speaker 1: in productivity or other benefits, and that they're not sure 48 00:02:39,320 --> 00:02:42,840 Speaker 1: that they will. In an internal presentation provided to be 49 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:46,120 Speaker 1: by a source, users of Microsoft SharePoint copilot complained that 50 00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:50,520 Speaker 1: Microsoft chatbot kept getting questions wrong, sometimes failing to provide 51 00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:53,800 Speaker 1: references even for correct answers, with another complaining that the 52 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:57,080 Speaker 1: copilot was and I quote using content not connected as 53 00:02:57,120 --> 00:02:59,919 Speaker 1: a document resource to answer questions. And by the way, 54 00:03:00,040 --> 00:03:02,119 Speaker 1: the whole point of share point is that it's your 55 00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:06,400 Speaker 1: data informing everything. I assume it was drawing from its 56 00:03:06,440 --> 00:03:11,040 Speaker 1: training data or perhaps the internet anyway, genuinely not useful. 57 00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:14,960 Speaker 1: And you'd think that with these new services that don't 58 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:18,560 Speaker 1: seem that useful, that are questionably useful, that Microsoft would 59 00:03:18,520 --> 00:03:21,800 Speaker 1: be doing people a deal right wrong. How much is 60 00:03:21,800 --> 00:03:26,119 Speaker 1: Microsoft charging for these services? Thirty dollars a seat per 61 00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,040 Speaker 1: person on top of what you are already paying, are 62 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:31,880 Speaker 1: as much as fifty dollars a month extra for specialist 63 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:36,000 Speaker 1: products like co pilots for sales, Microsoft is effectively asking 64 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:39,280 Speaker 1: customers to double their spend, and by the way, that's 65 00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:42,200 Speaker 1: with an annual commitment for products that don't seem to 66 00:03:42,240 --> 00:03:45,600 Speaker 1: be that helpful. And really, that is kind of the 67 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:49,080 Speaker 1: state of generative AI, the literal leader and productivity in 68 00:03:49,120 --> 00:03:51,920 Speaker 1: business software, cannot seem to find a product that will 69 00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:55,440 Speaker 1: make people more productive and that they will then pay for. 70 00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,240 Speaker 1: And it's in part because the results are kind of mediocre, 71 00:03:58,600 --> 00:04:01,000 Speaker 1: and also that the costs are so burdensome that there's 72 00:04:01,000 --> 00:04:05,040 Speaker 1: no way for Microsoft to avoid charging a premium. And really, 73 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:07,720 Speaker 1: if Microsoft needs to charge this much, it's either because 74 00:04:07,720 --> 00:04:10,320 Speaker 1: Sachin Adela is really desperate to hit half a trillion 75 00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:13,520 Speaker 1: dollars in revenue by twenty thirty, or that the costs 76 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:16,000 Speaker 1: are too high to charge much less. Maybe it's a 77 00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:19,359 Speaker 1: little bit of both. And this all only serves to 78 00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:22,400 Speaker 1: shed further light on just the mediocrity of generative AI 79 00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:26,200 Speaker 1: and how limited large language models are. And all of this, 80 00:04:26,279 --> 00:04:29,640 Speaker 1: by the way, is existentially threatening to Open AI because 81 00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:33,880 Speaker 1: they've coasted to one hundred and fifty seven billion dollar valuation, 82 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:38,120 Speaker 1: almost entirely based on hype. And so it's that company's 83 00:04:38,120 --> 00:04:40,080 Speaker 1: always tried to tell us that the future of AI 84 00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:42,240 Speaker 1: will blow us away, that the next generation of large 85 00:04:42,279 --> 00:04:45,080 Speaker 1: language models are eminent and they're going to be incredible. 86 00:04:45,400 --> 00:04:48,360 Speaker 1: And the artificial general intelligence, where machines can reason and 87 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:52,520 Speaker 1: act beyond human capabilities, that's just around the corner. And 88 00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:54,520 Speaker 1: by the way, all of that is in part thanks 89 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:57,000 Speaker 1: to the media sloping it down and just assuming that 90 00:04:57,040 --> 00:05:00,280 Speaker 1: they get it right. But until now that that's all 91 00:05:00,279 --> 00:05:03,279 Speaker 1: they've really had to do. But I think we're finally 92 00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:06,480 Speaker 1: getting the rubber meeting the road with this. I previously 93 00:05:06,480 --> 00:05:08,919 Speaker 1: said one of the pale horses of the AI apocalypse 94 00:05:08,960 --> 00:05:11,839 Speaker 1: is when a big stupid magic trick was necessary, a 95 00:05:11,880 --> 00:05:14,160 Speaker 1: product that someone shoves out the door in hopes it 96 00:05:14,200 --> 00:05:17,400 Speaker 1: will impress people and keep them believing in the magical future. 97 00:05:18,400 --> 00:05:20,600 Speaker 1: And you'd think that they'd have something really good right 98 00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:23,400 Speaker 1: now because open ai just raised all this money and 99 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:28,880 Speaker 1: the practical applications just are obviously not there, except well, 100 00:05:29,240 --> 00:05:31,000 Speaker 1: you know, no, no, no, no, this is open AI. 101 00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:33,920 Speaker 1: They wouldn't make a big, stupid mistake, would they. I mean, 102 00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:36,000 Speaker 1: one of the things I always tell clients of mine 103 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:37,760 Speaker 1: in pr is not to shove a product out the 104 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,080 Speaker 1: door before it's ready, and to also make sure it's 105 00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:43,760 Speaker 1: really obvious why people should pay for it. Otherwise you're 106 00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:46,400 Speaker 1: just kind of launching something into the ether and hope 107 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:49,880 Speaker 1: people will find a reason to sell it for you. 108 00:05:51,120 --> 00:05:53,599 Speaker 1: And yeah, that's exactly what they did. It happened. On 109 00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:56,800 Speaker 1: September twelfth. Open Ai launched OH one, which had been 110 00:05:56,880 --> 00:05:59,719 Speaker 1: code named Strawberry, with all of the excitement as a 111 00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:04,120 Speaker 1: trip to the Proctologist. Across a series of tweets, CEO 112 00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:07,320 Speaker 1: Samuel and described one as open ayes most capable and 113 00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:11,000 Speaker 1: aligned models, yet then immediately conceded that O one was 114 00:06:11,040 --> 00:06:14,440 Speaker 1: still flawed, still limited, and it still seems more impressive 115 00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:16,599 Speaker 1: on its first use than it does after you spend 116 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:20,200 Speaker 1: more time with it. Oh my god, he admitted. He 117 00:06:20,240 --> 00:06:23,279 Speaker 1: then promised it would deliver more accurate results when performing 118 00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:26,040 Speaker 1: the kinds of activities where there's a definitive right answer, 119 00:06:26,160 --> 00:06:30,159 Speaker 1: like coding maths or answering science questions. One might think 120 00:06:30,200 --> 00:06:32,320 Speaker 1: that he'd walk in with I don't know, like a 121 00:06:32,360 --> 00:06:35,000 Speaker 1: product built on top of one or like an use 122 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:37,880 Speaker 1: case or thing that would make the audience go, wow, 123 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,720 Speaker 1: I could build something with this. He didn't. I don't 124 00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:44,119 Speaker 1: think he wants to try. I don't think he hasn't 125 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:46,520 Speaker 1: had to try that hard. So far people have been 126 00:06:46,560 --> 00:06:50,040 Speaker 1: sloping down his slop happily. This boy may not have 127 00:06:50,080 --> 00:06:54,279 Speaker 1: any tricks left. But let's talk about how O one works. 128 00:06:54,279 --> 00:06:55,839 Speaker 1: And I'm going to introduce you to a bunch of 129 00:06:55,880 --> 00:06:58,080 Speaker 1: new concepts here, but I promise I won't get too 130 00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:00,760 Speaker 1: deep into the weeds. And I really want you to 131 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:04,360 Speaker 1: know how these machines work. It's critical for critiquing these companies. 132 00:07:04,640 --> 00:07:06,880 Speaker 1: And the big way they take advantage of you is 133 00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:08,719 Speaker 1: that they claim all of this is black magic, that 134 00:07:08,760 --> 00:07:11,920 Speaker 1: you could never possibly understand it. You absolutely can. And 135 00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:13,880 Speaker 1: if you want their explanation, I'm going to have it 136 00:07:13,920 --> 00:07:18,880 Speaker 1: in the show notes. Okay. When presented with a problem, 137 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:21,920 Speaker 1: OH one breaks it down into individual steps that hopefully 138 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:24,400 Speaker 1: would lead to a correct answer in a process called 139 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:28,040 Speaker 1: chain of thought. Again, these things are not thinking. They're 140 00:07:28,040 --> 00:07:30,960 Speaker 1: not thinking, but this is the term. It's also a 141 00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:33,920 Speaker 1: little easier if you think of OH one as two 142 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:37,480 Speaker 1: parts of one model. On each step, one part of 143 00:07:37,520 --> 00:07:40,560 Speaker 1: the model applies something called reinforcement learning with the other one, 144 00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:44,320 Speaker 1: which is the model actually outputting things rewarded or punished 145 00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:47,320 Speaker 1: based on the perceived correctness of their progress. And this 146 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:49,680 Speaker 1: is what is called reasoning, by the way, even though 147 00:07:49,680 --> 00:07:53,320 Speaker 1: it really doesn't match human reasoning at all, and then 148 00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:56,360 Speaker 1: based on the reward of the punishment, it generates a 149 00:07:56,400 --> 00:08:00,560 Speaker 1: final answer from this chain of thought consideration. This is 150 00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:03,000 Speaker 1: different to how other large language models work in the 151 00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:06,600 Speaker 1: sense that the model is generating outputs than actually looking 152 00:08:06,640 --> 00:08:09,280 Speaker 1: back at them then ignoring or approving what it thinks 153 00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:11,320 Speaker 1: are good steps to get to an answer, rather than 154 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:14,640 Speaker 1: just generating one and saying here's the answer. This may 155 00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:17,200 Speaker 1: seem like a big breakthrough or even another step towards 156 00:08:17,280 --> 00:08:21,000 Speaker 1: artificial general intelligence, and it isn't, And you can tell 157 00:08:21,040 --> 00:08:23,119 Speaker 1: that by the fact that open ai opt to release 158 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:25,800 Speaker 1: O one as its own standalone product rather than something 159 00:08:25,840 --> 00:08:29,840 Speaker 1: built into GPT. It's also telling that the examples demonstrated 160 00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:32,800 Speaker 1: by open AI, like maths and science problems, are the 161 00:08:32,800 --> 00:08:34,839 Speaker 1: ones where the answer can be known ahead of time 162 00:08:35,040 --> 00:08:37,720 Speaker 1: and a solution is either correct or false, thus allowing 163 00:08:37,760 --> 00:08:39,880 Speaker 1: the model to guide the chain of thought through each 164 00:08:39,920 --> 00:08:43,679 Speaker 1: step towards that answer, rather than actually having to produce 165 00:08:43,720 --> 00:08:47,480 Speaker 1: something where they might not necessarily be one. Open ai 166 00:08:47,600 --> 00:08:50,920 Speaker 1: didn't show the one model trying to tackle complex problems 167 00:08:51,400 --> 00:08:54,520 Speaker 1: such as high end mathematical equations or otherwise where the 168 00:08:54,520 --> 00:08:57,640 Speaker 1: solution isn't known in advance by its own admission. Open 169 00:08:57,679 --> 00:09:00,320 Speaker 1: AI has heard reports that one is actually more prone 170 00:09:00,320 --> 00:09:03,000 Speaker 1: to hallucinations than GPT four H, and the model is 171 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:05,199 Speaker 1: less inclined to admit when it doesn't have the answer 172 00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:08,240 Speaker 1: to a question when compared to other previous models. This 173 00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:10,960 Speaker 1: is because despite there being a model that checks the 174 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,080 Speaker 1: work of the model, the work checking part of the 175 00:09:14,120 --> 00:09:17,320 Speaker 1: model is still capable of hallucinations. It's kind of like 176 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:20,280 Speaker 1: a kid being taught something by a teacher who just 177 00:09:20,320 --> 00:09:23,880 Speaker 1: occasionally gets things horribly wrong. That child, though they may 178 00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:28,280 Speaker 1: mostly get right answers, will learn bad things. Now, learning 179 00:09:28,320 --> 00:09:31,520 Speaker 1: here isn't really what's happening, but the output of the 180 00:09:31,640 --> 00:09:35,280 Speaker 1: end will be informed by a model that makes the loocinations. 181 00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:37,560 Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know, got a town full of dogs. 182 00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:39,720 Speaker 1: You get a bunch of baboons in to get rid 183 00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:41,599 Speaker 1: of the dogs. The baboons succeed and getting rid of 184 00:09:41,640 --> 00:09:43,199 Speaker 1: the dogs Now you just got a bunch of baboons, 185 00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:46,800 Speaker 1: so you get in, aren't no robots? Robots destroy the baboons. 186 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:48,960 Speaker 1: At this point, you've got robots. If the robots are autonomous, 187 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:50,839 Speaker 1: they start taking over the town. So they need to 188 00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:52,720 Speaker 1: find a bigger robot to take over the town from 189 00:09:52,800 --> 00:09:56,080 Speaker 1: the robots. Now you've just got an escalating problem where 190 00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:58,520 Speaker 1: things are only going to get worse. And if you 191 00:09:58,559 --> 00:10:01,760 Speaker 1: work open ai and that sounds accurate, please email me anyway. 192 00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:05,360 Speaker 1: According to open ai, OH one also, thanks to this 193 00:10:05,559 --> 00:10:08,679 Speaker 1: chain of thought process, feels more convincing to human users 194 00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:12,120 Speaker 1: because it provides more detailed answers, and thus people are 195 00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:16,000 Speaker 1: more inclined to trust the outputs even when they're completely wrong. Now, 196 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:18,320 Speaker 1: if you think I'm being overly hard on open ai, 197 00:10:18,480 --> 00:10:20,920 Speaker 1: consider the ways in which the company is marketed. One 198 00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:25,760 Speaker 1: open ai described O one's reinforcement training as thinking and 199 00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:28,720 Speaker 1: reasoning when it's making guesses and then guessing on the 200 00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:31,320 Speaker 1: correctness of these guesses at each step. Where the end 201 00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:34,000 Speaker 1: destination is often something that can be known in advance. 202 00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:38,920 Speaker 1: Generative AI does not know anything. These are still probabilistic models. 203 00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:42,840 Speaker 1: This thing is not thinking at all. There is no reasoning. 204 00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:45,480 Speaker 1: It's got a model, reading a model, giving a model 205 00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:48,800 Speaker 1: answers from it's a mess, and it's an insult to people, 206 00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:52,200 Speaker 1: actual human beings who, when they think, are acting based 207 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:56,120 Speaker 1: on many, many complex factors, their experience, their knowledge, the 208 00:10:56,200 --> 00:11:00,119 Speaker 1: knowledge they've accumulated over years of experiences, their brain chemistry, 209 00:11:00,559 --> 00:11:03,480 Speaker 1: so on and so forth. Well, we may to guess 210 00:11:03,520 --> 00:11:07,000 Speaker 1: about the correctness of each thing we're guessing at, and 211 00:11:07,040 --> 00:11:09,880 Speaker 1: we may reason through a complex problem. All of this 212 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:13,120 Speaker 1: is based on something concrete. When we get something wrong, 213 00:11:13,160 --> 00:11:18,120 Speaker 1: it's based on actual experience versus training data and probabilistic models. 214 00:11:19,240 --> 00:11:22,559 Speaker 1: This shit is not thinking at all, and by god 215 00:11:22,679 --> 00:11:26,240 Speaker 1: is it expensive. Pricing for one preview, which is the 216 00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:29,560 Speaker 1: first model, is fifteen dollars per million input tokens and 217 00:11:29,600 --> 00:11:32,840 Speaker 1: sixteen per million output tokens. In essence, it's three times 218 00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:35,800 Speaker 1: as expensive as their most expensive model GPT four O 219 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:39,280 Speaker 1: for input and four times is expensive for output. And 220 00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:42,840 Speaker 1: then there's a hidden cost. Data scientist Max Wolf reported 221 00:11:42,840 --> 00:11:45,520 Speaker 1: the open ayes reasoning tokens the output it uses to 222 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:47,880 Speaker 1: get you to the final answer where it says, Okay, 223 00:11:47,960 --> 00:11:51,600 Speaker 1: I need to find out the solution to this problem. 224 00:11:51,640 --> 00:11:55,080 Speaker 1: So here are the thirty steps I've gone through. Yeah, 225 00:11:55,400 --> 00:11:58,880 Speaker 1: those are actually generated using the most expensive tokens, the 226 00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:01,439 Speaker 1: output tokens. So the more it has to think, the 227 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:04,520 Speaker 1: more expensive it gets. All of the things it generates 228 00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:08,040 Speaker 1: to consider an answer are also charged for, which means 229 00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:10,160 Speaker 1: the more complex it is, the more expensive it's going 230 00:12:10,240 --> 00:12:13,800 Speaker 1: to be worse. Still, if you integrate this model, open 231 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:18,440 Speaker 1: ai does not show you what it's reasoning. All of 232 00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:21,839 Speaker 1: that calculation happens in the background, and they still charge 233 00:12:21,880 --> 00:12:25,240 Speaker 1: you for it. You just don't know how much every 234 00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:29,720 Speaker 1: oh one step is charged to you in an indeterminate way, 235 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:32,600 Speaker 1: and open ai claims that they can't show you because 236 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:38,400 Speaker 1: of competitive reasons. Ugh, nasty company, really greasy and they're 237 00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:42,680 Speaker 1: still gonna burn Okay, okay, though it's different GPT four. 238 00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:45,880 Speaker 1: Oh and it's really expensive. But is it better? Of 239 00:12:45,920 --> 00:12:49,240 Speaker 1: course it must be better, right, right? It sounds great. 240 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:52,000 Speaker 1: It's thinking, right, it's reasoning right. No, No, it's not, 241 00:12:52,360 --> 00:12:57,559 Speaker 1: it's not. It's worse. This crap's worse. Let's talk about accuracy. 242 00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:00,000 Speaker 1: On how can news the reddit styles I owned by 243 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:03,160 Speaker 1: am Horman's former alum y Combinator, one person complained about 244 00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:06,240 Speaker 1: O one hallucinating libraries and functions when presented with a 245 00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:09,079 Speaker 1: programming task, and making mistakes when asked questions where the 246 00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:13,160 Speaker 1: answer isn't readily available in the Internet. On Twitter, Henrik Nyberg, 247 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:15,839 Speaker 1: a startup founder and former game developer, asked OH one 248 00:13:15,880 --> 00:13:18,600 Speaker 1: to write a Python program that multiplied two numbers, then 249 00:13:18,600 --> 00:13:21,959 Speaker 1: calculated the expected output of said program. While OH one 250 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:24,560 Speaker 1: correctly wrote the code, although said code could have been 251 00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:29,880 Speaker 1: more succinct, the actual result was wildly incorrect. Karthig Cannon, himself, 252 00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:32,440 Speaker 1: a founder of an AI company, tried a programming task 253 00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:35,199 Speaker 1: on O one where it also hallucinated a non existent 254 00:13:35,200 --> 00:13:39,920 Speaker 1: command for the API he was using. Another person, Sashi Yanshin, 255 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:41,640 Speaker 1: tried to play a game of chess with O one, 256 00:13:41,679 --> 00:13:44,360 Speaker 1: and it hallucinated an entire piece onto the board and 257 00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:46,880 Speaker 1: then it lost. And because I'm a little shit, I 258 00:13:46,920 --> 00:13:49,079 Speaker 1: also tried asking one to listen a number of states 259 00:13:49,080 --> 00:13:51,920 Speaker 1: with A in the name. After contemplating for eighteen seconds, 260 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:55,240 Speaker 1: it provided the names of thirty seven states, including Mississippi, 261 00:13:55,440 --> 00:13:56,960 Speaker 1: you know, the classic state with an A in it. 262 00:13:57,360 --> 00:13:59,679 Speaker 1: By the way, there are thirty six states that have 263 00:14:00,080 --> 00:14:02,520 Speaker 1: in them, just in case you're curious. I then asked 264 00:14:02,520 --> 00:14:04,240 Speaker 1: for a list of states with the letter W in 265 00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:05,880 Speaker 1: the name, and then it sat and it thought for 266 00:14:05,920 --> 00:14:09,440 Speaker 1: eleven seconds, and then included North Carolina and North Dakota. 267 00:14:10,360 --> 00:14:13,000 Speaker 1: Great stuff. By the way, I also asked tho one 268 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:14,840 Speaker 1: to count the number of times the letter R appears 269 00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:17,480 Speaker 1: in the word strawberry, which is the pre release code 270 00:14:17,559 --> 00:14:20,400 Speaker 1: name for this. It's said too, I would have hard 271 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:23,080 Speaker 1: coded that one. Personally. You can't give me that kind 272 00:14:23,120 --> 00:14:26,040 Speaker 1: of joy now. Open AI claims that I one performs 273 00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:30,120 Speaker 1: similarly to PhD students on challenging benchmark tasks in physics, chemistry, 274 00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:33,560 Speaker 1: and biology, just not in geography, it seems, or basic 275 00:14:33,640 --> 00:14:38,520 Speaker 1: elementary level English, or maths or programming. Also, I mean 276 00:14:38,720 --> 00:14:42,160 Speaker 1: for the PhD listeners. I've met a few PhD people 277 00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:44,800 Speaker 1: who authoritatively state things that are completely untrue that they 278 00:14:44,800 --> 00:14:47,480 Speaker 1: know nothing about. This is not a broad stroke thing, 279 00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:51,200 Speaker 1: but I get the sense that it's true anyway. This 280 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:53,960 Speaker 1: is I should know, the big stupid magic trick I 281 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:57,120 Speaker 1: predicted in the past. Open AI is shoving strawberry out 282 00:14:57,120 --> 00:14:58,840 Speaker 1: the door as a means of proving to investors and 283 00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:01,800 Speaker 1: the greater public. But they've still got it that the 284 00:15:01,840 --> 00:15:05,480 Speaker 1: AI revolution is still here, that this thing is thinking, 285 00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:08,520 Speaker 1: and what they actually have is a clunky, on exciting 286 00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:10,760 Speaker 1: and expensive model that doesn't really seem to have any 287 00:15:10,800 --> 00:15:14,600 Speaker 1: measurable improvement. Okay, I'm sorry. It has a measurable improvement. 288 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:17,240 Speaker 1: You can measure it on the weird rigged test they 289 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:19,600 Speaker 1: do for all of these things. And the thing is, 290 00:15:20,840 --> 00:15:24,200 Speaker 1: at this point, you'd think that even Apple, when they 291 00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:26,040 Speaker 1: pulled together a new thing, even when they had the 292 00:15:26,160 --> 00:15:28,240 Speaker 1: first Apple Watch and it was not obvious why you 293 00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:30,440 Speaker 1: had to own it, they still had apps that were 294 00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:33,000 Speaker 1: connected to it. They still had things you could point 295 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:36,120 Speaker 1: out and go, oh, that's cool, I've got four square 296 00:15:36,120 --> 00:15:38,359 Speaker 1: on this four square on there at the time. Nevertheless, 297 00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:41,360 Speaker 1: they had apps to show. I just feel like open 298 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:45,680 Speaker 1: Ai has this deep contempt for Silicon Valley and for 299 00:15:45,800 --> 00:15:48,720 Speaker 1: the world at large. They don't even have it in 300 00:15:48,760 --> 00:15:51,640 Speaker 1: them to be like, Okay, we have this new model, 301 00:15:51,800 --> 00:15:53,960 Speaker 1: and here is the new thing we built with it, 302 00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:57,480 Speaker 1: and this thing does this and now you will see 303 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:01,600 Speaker 1: how important this company is. Instead, we get this crap. 304 00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:06,160 Speaker 1: We just get this very boring crap. And sure, I'm 305 00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:09,280 Speaker 1: sure someone technical is going to email me and say, ed, wow, 306 00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:11,760 Speaker 1: chain thought reasoning. There are other companies that have been 307 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:14,880 Speaker 1: doing it already. Anthropic already had something like this, and 308 00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:18,120 Speaker 1: even then they didn't do shit with it. Where's the product, man, 309 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:22,400 Speaker 1: where's the thing I meant to care about? Why should 310 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:25,880 Speaker 1: anybody give a shit about this? Well, sam Altman is 311 00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:29,480 Speaker 1: likely trying to trump up the reasoning abilities of O one. Well, 312 00:16:29,520 --> 00:16:32,160 Speaker 1: people you know, such as the people bankrolling him, will 313 00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:34,440 Speaker 1: actually see he's a ten to twenty second waiting time 314 00:16:34,480 --> 00:16:37,280 Speaker 1: for an answer which may or may not be correct. 315 00:16:37,640 --> 00:16:39,840 Speaker 1: But you have a bit more detail, which isn't even 316 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:43,960 Speaker 1: the reasoning happening because open AI hides that bit. Nobody 317 00:16:43,960 --> 00:16:47,640 Speaker 1: gives a shit about better answers anymore. They want generative 318 00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:50,080 Speaker 1: AI to do something new, and I don't think the 319 00:16:50,080 --> 00:16:52,600 Speaker 1: open AI has any idea how to make that happen. 320 00:16:53,080 --> 00:16:56,320 Speaker 1: Sam Orman's limp shitty attempts to anthropomorphize I one by 321 00:16:56,360 --> 00:16:59,520 Speaker 1: making it think can use reasoning obvious attempts to suggest 322 00:16:59,520 --> 00:17:01,960 Speaker 1: that this is on how part of the path through AGI. 323 00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:06,200 Speaker 1: But even the most staunch AI advocates, well, they can't 324 00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:08,920 Speaker 1: seem to get excited about this. In fact, I kind 325 00:17:08,920 --> 00:17:10,800 Speaker 1: of argue that O one shows that open AI is 326 00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:14,119 Speaker 1: desperate and out of ideas. Now if you don't have 327 00:17:14,160 --> 00:17:17,440 Speaker 1: any ideas, though, the following advertisements will be more than 328 00:17:17,480 --> 00:17:20,280 Speaker 1: happy to fill your empty little brain with new ideas 329 00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:23,280 Speaker 1: that involve giving someone money or downloading something. And I 330 00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:28,800 Speaker 1: must implore you to just accept everything that follows. I 331 00:17:28,880 --> 00:17:30,720 Speaker 1: don't endorse any of it because I don't know what 332 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:45,440 Speaker 1: it's going to be, but you must. And we're back. 333 00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,080 Speaker 1: So I think now is a good time to get 334 00:17:49,119 --> 00:17:52,080 Speaker 1: back to the root of the generative AI problem. Generative 335 00:17:52,080 --> 00:17:54,960 Speaker 1: AI is being sold to you on multiple lives that 336 00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:58,760 Speaker 1: it's AI, it's actually artificial intelligence, it's going to get better, 337 00:17:59,119 --> 00:18:02,560 Speaker 1: that this will become artificial general intelligence, that this will 338 00:18:02,600 --> 00:18:06,480 Speaker 1: become the thinking computer, and all of this is inevitable. 339 00:18:07,640 --> 00:18:10,879 Speaker 1: Putting aside terms like performance, as they're largely us as 340 00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:13,920 Speaker 1: a means of generating things accurately or faster, rather than 341 00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:17,520 Speaker 1: being good at anything. Large language models have effectively platowed 342 00:18:18,040 --> 00:18:21,120 Speaker 1: more powerful never seems to mean does more, and more 343 00:18:21,160 --> 00:18:24,760 Speaker 1: powerful often means more expensive to run or more expensive 344 00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:27,080 Speaker 1: for you as the user to access, meaning that you've 345 00:18:27,160 --> 00:18:29,320 Speaker 1: just made something that doesn't do more and does cost 346 00:18:29,359 --> 00:18:32,520 Speaker 1: more to run. If the combined forces of every venture 347 00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:34,879 Speaker 1: capitalist and big tech hyperscaler have yet to come up 348 00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:36,800 Speaker 1: with a meaningful use case that lots of people will 349 00:18:36,800 --> 00:18:39,920 Speaker 1: actually pay for. I just don't see one coming. Large 350 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:42,320 Speaker 1: language models and yes, that's where all of these billions 351 00:18:42,359 --> 00:18:44,919 Speaker 1: of dollars are going. Are not going to magically sprout 352 00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:47,840 Speaker 1: new capabilities a big Tech and open Ai burn another 353 00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:51,200 Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty billion dollars. And yes that number 354 00:18:51,240 --> 00:18:54,000 Speaker 1: isn't hyperbole. It's actually pretty close to the amount being 355 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:56,800 Speaker 1: plowed into these companies when you include things like investments 356 00:18:56,800 --> 00:18:59,840 Speaker 1: in companies like Anthropic and open Ai. And they're genuinely 357 00:18:59,840 --> 00:19:02,120 Speaker 1: and sane amount of capex from the likes of Google, 358 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:06,240 Speaker 1: Amazon and Microsoft going into expanding data centers and buying GPUs. 359 00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:09,760 Speaker 1: Nobody seems to be trying to make these things more efficient, 360 00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:12,199 Speaker 1: or at the very least nobody's succeeded in doing so, 361 00:19:12,359 --> 00:19:14,639 Speaker 1: because I think if they had, they'd be shouting it 362 00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:18,320 Speaker 1: from the rooftops and as on the side. By the way, 363 00:19:18,920 --> 00:19:21,680 Speaker 1: the biggest sign that no one's actually making money from 364 00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:23,760 Speaker 1: this is that no one's talking about how much money 365 00:19:23,760 --> 00:19:28,520 Speaker 1: they're making. Microsoft and all of these companies they love 366 00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:32,680 Speaker 1: talking about making profit. They love doing that. Beyond earnings. 367 00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:36,160 Speaker 1: They love talking about it instead whenever they're asked to go, oh, hey, 368 00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:38,520 Speaker 1: I will do some things in the future, I need 369 00:19:38,560 --> 00:19:39,879 Speaker 1: to take a phone CALLT and then they kind of 370 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:43,040 Speaker 1: disappear from the room. Amy heard CFO of Microsoft classic 371 00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:48,280 Speaker 1: bullshit artists dancing around Yeah, oh net revenue increase checking 372 00:19:48,280 --> 00:19:52,720 Speaker 1: a watch. It's just really sad. It's really sad because 373 00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:55,320 Speaker 1: what we have here is a shared delusion, a shared 374 00:19:55,320 --> 00:19:58,399 Speaker 1: delusion about a dead end technology that runs on copyright theft, 375 00:19:58,560 --> 00:20:01,040 Speaker 1: one that requires a CONTINUALUS supply of capital to keep 376 00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:03,720 Speaker 1: running as it provides services that are at best in 377 00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,080 Speaker 1: essential sold to US dressed up as a kind of 378 00:20:06,119 --> 00:20:09,159 Speaker 1: automation that does not exist, and it doesn't provide, costing 379 00:20:09,200 --> 00:20:11,840 Speaker 1: billions and millions of dollars and continuing to do so 380 00:20:12,200 --> 00:20:16,000 Speaker 1: im perpetuity. Generative AI doesn't run on money or cloud 381 00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:18,399 Speaker 1: credit so much as it does on faith. And the 382 00:20:18,440 --> 00:20:21,240 Speaker 1: problem is that faith, like investor capital, is actually a 383 00:20:21,280 --> 00:20:24,760 Speaker 1: finite resource. And that's where I bring you one of 384 00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:28,320 Speaker 1: my biggest anxieties about this industry, because I think we're 385 00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:30,919 Speaker 1: in the midst of a SUBPRIMEI crisis where thousands of 386 00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:34,880 Speaker 1: companies have integrated this stuff into their software at prices 387 00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:38,240 Speaker 1: that are far from stable and even further from profitable 388 00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:41,240 Speaker 1: for the services providing them. This concern, by the way, 389 00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:44,199 Speaker 1: isn't unfounded. At the latest open ai dev Day, they 390 00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:46,960 Speaker 1: said that they'd slash prices for their APIs by ninety 391 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:50,080 Speaker 1: nine percent over the previous two years, largely as tech crunchies. 392 00:20:50,119 --> 00:20:53,320 Speaker 1: MAXT theorized due to price pressure from Meta and Google, 393 00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:55,840 Speaker 1: both of whom want to take that API access for 394 00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:00,880 Speaker 1: I assume some reason. Anyway, almost every AI powered startup 395 00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:03,960 Speaker 1: uses large language model features is based on some combination 396 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:07,360 Speaker 1: of GPT or chlaud so open Ai or Anthropics models. 397 00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:10,680 Speaker 1: These models are built by two companies that are deeply unprofitable. 398 00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:13,720 Speaker 1: Open Ai they can lose five billion this year, Anthropic 399 00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:16,280 Speaker 1: is on course to lose two point seven billion this 400 00:21:16,440 --> 00:21:20,000 Speaker 1: year on much less revenue, and they all have pricing 401 00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:22,240 Speaker 1: design to get more customers through the door than make 402 00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:25,800 Speaker 1: any kind of profit. Open Ai, as mentioned, is subsidized 403 00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,639 Speaker 1: by Microsoft, both in cloud credits they received in the 404 00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:32,280 Speaker 1: twenty twenty three investment and the preferential pricing Microsoft offers 405 00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:34,880 Speaker 1: for their cloud services about a quarter of the price 406 00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:38,280 Speaker 1: of what everyone else pays. And these companies willow open 407 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:41,520 Speaker 1: Ai and Anthropic. Their pricing is entirely dependent on the 408 00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:43,640 Speaker 1: support of big tech in the case of open ai, 409 00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:47,399 Speaker 1: Microsoft's continued support. In the case of Anthropic, Amazon and 410 00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:51,240 Speaker 1: Google both as investors and service providers. Based on how 411 00:21:51,320 --> 00:21:54,680 Speaker 1: unprofitable these companies are. I hypothesized that if open ai 412 00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:57,880 Speaker 1: or Anthropic charge prices closer to their actual costs, they'll 413 00:21:57,880 --> 00:21:59,679 Speaker 1: be a ten to one hundred times increase in the 414 00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,199 Speaker 1: price of API calls, though it's impossible to say how 415 00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:06,639 Speaker 1: much without the actual numbers of direct burn from these companies. However, 416 00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:10,320 Speaker 1: Let's consider for a moment that the numbers reported by 417 00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:13,680 Speaker 1: the Information Estimate the open AI's server costs with Microsoft 418 00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:16,000 Speaker 1: will be four billion dollars in twenty twenty four, which 419 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,119 Speaker 1: I add are over two and a half times cheaper 420 00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,959 Speaker 1: than what Microsoft charges others. It's like about four dollars 421 00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:24,280 Speaker 1: in something and they pay them out a dollar something 422 00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:27,600 Speaker 1: per GP per hour. And then consider, after knowing that 423 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,919 Speaker 1: they're getting this massive discount, that open ai still loses 424 00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:34,160 Speaker 1: over five billion dollars a year. Open ai is more 425 00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:36,480 Speaker 1: than likely charging only a small percentage of what it 426 00:22:36,680 --> 00:22:39,160 Speaker 1: likely costs to run its models, and can only continue 427 00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:41,359 Speaker 1: to do so if it's able to continually raise more 428 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,720 Speaker 1: venture funding than has ever been raised ever and continue 429 00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:48,040 Speaker 1: to receive preferential pricing from Microsoft, a company that recently 430 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:50,920 Speaker 1: mentioned that it considers open Ai a competitor and has 431 00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:55,040 Speaker 1: complete access to its IP and research. While I can't 432 00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:57,399 Speaker 1: say for certain, I would think it's reasonable to believe 433 00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,560 Speaker 1: that Anthropic receives a similarly preferential pricing package from both 434 00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:03,960 Speaker 1: Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Both of those companies, 435 00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:06,960 Speaker 1: by the way, put billions into them. Assuming that Microsoft 436 00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,359 Speaker 1: gave open ai ten billion dollars of cloud credits and 437 00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:11,760 Speaker 1: it spent four billion on server costs and let's say 438 00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:15,440 Speaker 1: two three billion dollars on training costs, that are both 439 00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:18,360 Speaker 1: short to increase. With new models, open Ai will either 440 00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:20,520 Speaker 1: need more credits will have to pay actual cash to 441 00:23:20,560 --> 00:23:24,560 Speaker 1: Microsoft sometime in twenty twenty five, and Microsoft did participate 442 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:26,720 Speaker 1: in the latest round, by the way, but it's not 443 00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:29,720 Speaker 1: obvious how much, and it was much less than last time, 444 00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:32,440 Speaker 1: which was I believe ten billion, mostly in cloud credits. 445 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:35,960 Speaker 1: While it might be possible that Microsoft, Amazon and Google 446 00:23:35,960 --> 00:23:39,200 Speaker 1: extend their preferred pricing indefinitely, the question is whether these 447 00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:42,159 Speaker 1: transactions are profitable for them in any way. As we 448 00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,600 Speaker 1: saw following Microsoft's most recent quarterly earnings, there's growing investor 449 00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:48,800 Speaker 1: concern over how capex is being spent and the amount 450 00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,560 Speaker 1: that's being required to build the infrastructure for generative AI, 451 00:23:51,760 --> 00:23:55,200 Speaker 1: with many voicing skepticism about the potential profitability of the technology, 452 00:23:55,200 --> 00:23:58,240 Speaker 1: including Jim Cavello of Gold and Sex. And what we 453 00:23:58,359 --> 00:24:01,920 Speaker 1: really don't know is how on profit generative AIS for hyperscalers, 454 00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:04,760 Speaker 1: because they baked those costs into other parts of their ownings. 455 00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,439 Speaker 1: What we can't know for sure, I imagine this stuff 456 00:24:07,480 --> 00:24:10,120 Speaker 1: is if this stuff was in any way profitable, they'd 457 00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,880 Speaker 1: be talking about it all the time. They would never 458 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:15,879 Speaker 1: shut up. This would be their new golden goose, and 459 00:24:15,920 --> 00:24:18,720 Speaker 1: they're not. In fact, the most concrete information we have 460 00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,400 Speaker 1: about open AI's balance sheet comes from leaked reports, well 461 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,920 Speaker 1: sourced reporters at places like The New York Times, and 462 00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:27,080 Speaker 1: the information and invested prospectuses that found a wider audience 463 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,520 Speaker 1: than Altman perhaps would have liked. So you may remember 464 00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:32,400 Speaker 1: from a few months ago that the markets have become 465 00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,320 Speaker 1: a little skeptical of the generative AI boom and Nvidia 466 00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:38,520 Speaker 1: CEO Jensen Huang had no real answers about AI's return 467 00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:41,639 Speaker 1: and investment from his latest earnings, which led to a 468 00:24:41,840 --> 00:24:44,480 Speaker 1: historic two hundred and seventy nine billion dollar drop in 469 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:47,680 Speaker 1: Nvidia's market cap in a single day. This, by the way, 470 00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:50,720 Speaker 1: was the largest route in US market histories. The total 471 00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:53,960 Speaker 1: value lost is equivalent of nearly five Layman Brothers Its 472 00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:57,240 Speaker 1: peak value. They've recovered some of it, but nevertheless, that's 473 00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,440 Speaker 1: what we in the business called are not so good. 474 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:02,800 Speaker 1: At the beginning of August, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google all 475 00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:04,919 Speaker 1: took a similar beating for the markets for their massive 476 00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,719 Speaker 1: capital expenditures related to AI, and all three of them 477 00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:09,920 Speaker 1: will face the wheel next quarter in a couple weeks 478 00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,280 Speaker 1: in fact, if they can't show a significant increase in 479 00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:14,439 Speaker 1: revenue from the combined one hundred and fifty billion or 480 00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:17,080 Speaker 1: more in capex that they put into new data centers 481 00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:20,639 Speaker 1: in the Nvidio GPUs. What's important to remember here is 482 00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:23,919 Speaker 1: that other than AI, bigtech really doesn't have any other ideas. 483 00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:26,919 Speaker 1: There are no more hypergrowth markets left, and as firms 484 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,840 Speaker 1: like Microsoft and Amazon begin to show signs of declining growth, 485 00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,159 Speaker 1: so too does their desperation to show the markets that 486 00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:35,960 Speaker 1: they've still got it. Google, a company almost entirely sustained 487 00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,040 Speaker 1: by multiple at risk monopolies in search and advertising, also 488 00:25:39,119 --> 00:25:40,960 Speaker 1: needs something new and sexy to wave in front of 489 00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,680 Speaker 1: the street. Except none of this is working because the 490 00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,040 Speaker 1: products aren't that useful, and it appears most of its 491 00:25:46,080 --> 00:25:49,320 Speaker 1: revenue comes from companies trying out AI and then realizing 492 00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:52,359 Speaker 1: it wasn't worth it. And if you think back to 493 00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:55,040 Speaker 1: what I was saying about open aised cloud costs, they're 494 00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:59,119 Speaker 1: making what eight hundred to a billion on this? How 495 00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:03,080 Speaker 1: much does Google make? Probably much less considering their multiple 496 00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,359 Speaker 1: stories about people not really caring about Gemini. But at 497 00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:09,840 Speaker 1: this point there are really two eventualities. Big Tech realizes 498 00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,080 Speaker 1: that they've gotten in way too deep in this, and 499 00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:13,960 Speaker 1: out of the deep fear of pissing off the street, 500 00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,679 Speaker 1: chooses to reduce capital expenditures related to AI, or the 501 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:20,480 Speaker 1: second one, Big Tech, desperate to find a new growth hog, 502 00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:24,520 Speaker 1: decides instead to cut costs to sustain their stupid fucking ideas, 503 00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,760 Speaker 1: laying off workers and reallocating capital from other operations as 504 00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:31,840 Speaker 1: a means of sustaining this death march nowhere, it's unclear 505 00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:34,960 Speaker 1: which will happen if Big Tech accepts that generative AI 506 00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,120 Speaker 1: is in the future. I don't really have anything else 507 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,400 Speaker 1: to waive at Wall Street, but they could do their 508 00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,199 Speaker 1: own version of from twenty twenty two. Meta did this 509 00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,960 Speaker 1: Year of Efficiency thing, which involved reducing capital expenditures and 510 00:26:46,040 --> 00:26:49,159 Speaker 1: laying off thousands of people while also promising to slow 511 00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:52,720 Speaker 1: down a little with investment. This, by the way, is 512 00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:55,160 Speaker 1: the most likely path for Amazon and Google, who, while 513 00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:57,520 Speaker 1: desperate to make Wall Street happy, they still kind of 514 00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:02,800 Speaker 1: have their profitable monopolies now at least. Nevertheless, there really 515 00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:05,200 Speaker 1: needs to be some kind of revenue growth from AI 516 00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:07,520 Speaker 1: in the next few quarters. That has to be material. 517 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:09,840 Speaker 1: It can't just be this thing about AI being a 518 00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:13,920 Speaker 1: maturing market or how annualized run rates have improved, and 519 00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,720 Speaker 1: said material contribution will have to be magnitudes higher if 520 00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,520 Speaker 1: capex has increased along with it. I just don't think 521 00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,760 Speaker 1: it's going to be there, whether it's Q four twenty 522 00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,040 Speaker 1: twenty four or Q one twenty twenty five, or maybe 523 00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,680 Speaker 1: a little later. Wall Street's going to punish big tech 524 00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,960 Speaker 1: for this the sin of lust, and the punishment is 525 00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,480 Speaker 1: going to be to savage these companies, even more harshly 526 00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:38,920 Speaker 1: than Nvidia, which, despite Jensen Huang's bluster and empty platitudes 527 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,679 Speaker 1: is pretty much the only company that's actually making money 528 00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:44,200 Speaker 1: on AI, and that's because you do need their chips 529 00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:47,480 Speaker 1: to do all this. But I worry more than anything 530 00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:51,600 Speaker 1: that option two is more possible. I think these companies 531 00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,200 Speaker 1: are really capable of committing to AI as the future 532 00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:56,919 Speaker 1: and the cultures are so disconnected from the creation of 533 00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:01,000 Speaker 1: actual value or like software or solving problems that actual 534 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,440 Speaker 1: people face, that they're willingly start laying people off if 535 00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,720 Speaker 1: it means bankrolling these operations. I really really worry about that. 536 00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,120 Speaker 1: By the way, the mass layoffs that could come from 537 00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,600 Speaker 1: this will be horrifying, because otherwise it's just going to 538 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,480 Speaker 1: be feeding profit into this, and at this point they're 539 00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:20,240 Speaker 1: feeding in pretty much all their profits. And all of this, 540 00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:22,160 Speaker 1: by the way, could have been stopped if the media 541 00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:25,280 Speaker 1: had actually held the leaders of tech companies accountable. This 542 00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:28,360 Speaker 1: narrative was sold through the same con as the previous 543 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,160 Speaker 1: hype cycles, and the media assumed that these companies would 544 00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:32,879 Speaker 1: just work it out like they did with crypto and 545 00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,720 Speaker 1: the metaverse, despite the fact that it was blatantly obvious 546 00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:38,800 Speaker 1: that they wouldn't work this out. You think I'm a duma, Well, 547 00:28:38,840 --> 00:28:42,440 Speaker 1: ask to me this, what's the plan, what does generative 548 00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,720 Speaker 1: AI do next? If your answer is that they'll work 549 00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:47,760 Speaker 1: it out or that they have something behind the scenes 550 00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:52,640 Speaker 1: that is incredible, you're an absolute mark. You're a participant 551 00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,840 Speaker 1: in a marketing scheme. It's time to wake up. It 552 00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,400 Speaker 1: is time to wake up to how stupid this is. 553 00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,920 Speaker 1: And I'm sure some of you will say, oh, oh, 554 00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:05,360 Speaker 1: you're going to look so stupid in six months. People 555 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:07,320 Speaker 1: were telling me that six months ago. And I still 556 00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,280 Speaker 1: don't look stupid other than the ways they do, and 557 00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:13,000 Speaker 1: they're unrelated to the podcast. But let's get back to 558 00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,640 Speaker 1: the real problem, and let's get back to the really 559 00:29:15,680 --> 00:29:19,200 Speaker 1: worrying stuff, because I believe that the very least Microsoft 560 00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,080 Speaker 1: will begin reducing costs in other areas of its business 561 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,800 Speaker 1: as a means of sustaining the AI boom. In an 562 00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,040 Speaker 1: email shared with me by a source from earlier this year, 563 00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:30,040 Speaker 1: Microsoft's senior leadership team requested in a plan that was 564 00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:34,640 Speaker 1: eventually scrapped, reducing power requirements from multiple areas within the 565 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,400 Speaker 1: company as a means of freeing up power for GPUs, 566 00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,760 Speaker 1: including moving other services compute to other countries as a 567 00:29:40,760 --> 00:29:44,800 Speaker 1: means of freeing upseid capacity, specifically for AI. On the 568 00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:47,880 Speaker 1: Microsoft section of anonymous social network Blind, where you're required 569 00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:49,640 Speaker 1: to verify that you have a corporate email of the 570 00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,959 Speaker 1: company in question. One Microsoft worker complained in mid December 571 00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,520 Speaker 1: twenty twenty three that AI was taking their money, saying 572 00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:58,800 Speaker 1: that the cost of AI is so much that it 573 00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,160 Speaker 1: is eating up pay raises and that things will not 574 00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,760 Speaker 1: get better. In mid July twenty twenty four, another shared 575 00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:06,720 Speaker 1: their anxiety about how it was apparent to them that 576 00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:09,600 Speaker 1: Microsoft had and I quote a borderline addiction to cut 577 00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:11,760 Speaker 1: costs in order to fund in Video's stock price with 578 00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:14,520 Speaker 1: operational cash flows, and that doing so had and I 579 00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:19,080 Speaker 1: quote damaged Microsoft's culture deeply. Another added that they believe 580 00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:22,600 Speaker 1: that copilot is going to ruin Microsoft's FY twenty five, 581 00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:24,840 Speaker 1: referring of course to their financial year twenty twenty five, 582 00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,080 Speaker 1: adding that the f y twenty five copilot focus is 583 00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,240 Speaker 1: going to massively fall in f y twenty five, and 584 00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,120 Speaker 1: they knew of big co pilot deals in their country 585 00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,960 Speaker 1: that have less than twenty percent usage after almost a 586 00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:41,000 Speaker 1: year of integration, adding that corpor is too much and 587 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:44,080 Speaker 1: that Microsoft's huge AI investments are not going to be realized. 588 00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:47,920 Speaker 1: While Blind is anonymous, it's kind of hard to ignore 589 00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:49,880 Speaker 1: the fact that there are many, many posts that tell 590 00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:52,880 Speaker 1: a tale of a kind of cultural cancer in Microsoft, 591 00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,520 Speaker 1: with disconnected senior leadership, the only funds projects if they 592 00:30:56,520 --> 00:31:00,280 Speaker 1: have AI takeed onto the side. Many posts the men 593 00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:03,400 Speaker 1: satching the Della's words salard approach and complain of a 594 00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,440 Speaker 1: lack of bonuses or upward mobility, and an organization focused 595 00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,600 Speaker 1: on chasing an AI boom that may not exist. And 596 00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,120 Speaker 1: at the very least, there's a deep cultural sadness there 597 00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,680 Speaker 1: with the many posts I've seen oscillating between I don't 598 00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:17,160 Speaker 1: like working at Microsoft and I don't know where we're 599 00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:20,200 Speaker 1: putting so much into AI, and then someone replying with 600 00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:22,920 Speaker 1: get used to it, SAJA doesn't get a shit, and 601 00:31:22,960 --> 00:31:25,680 Speaker 1: it all feels so ridiculous because there's so many signs 602 00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,640 Speaker 1: that these products don't have a product market fit. At 603 00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:30,520 Speaker 1: the start of this episode, I mentioned an article from 604 00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,880 Speaker 1: the Information about a lack of adoption of Microsoft's AI features. 605 00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:37,000 Speaker 1: Buried within that one was a particularly worrying thought about 606 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,000 Speaker 1: the actual utilization of their data centers for this AI 607 00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,640 Speaker 1: and it said, and I quote around March of this year, 608 00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:46,400 Speaker 1: Microsoft had set aside enough server capacity in its data 609 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,160 Speaker 1: centers for three sixty five copilot to handle daily users 610 00:31:49,160 --> 00:31:52,160 Speaker 1: of the AI system in the low millions. According to 611 00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,040 Speaker 1: someone with direct knowledge of those plans, it couldn't be 612 00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:57,120 Speaker 1: learned how much of that capacity was used at the time. 613 00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:01,600 Speaker 1: Based on the information's estimates, Elsewhere, Microsoft has somewhere between 614 00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,200 Speaker 1: four hundred thousand and four million years of its office 615 00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:07,280 Speaker 1: Copilot features, meaning that there's a decent chance that Microsoft 616 00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,680 Speaker 1: has built out capacity that isn't getting used. Now. One 617 00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:12,840 Speaker 1: could argue that it's building with the belief that the 618 00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,800 Speaker 1: product category will grow. But here's another idea. What if 619 00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:20,080 Speaker 1: it doesn't. Huh ah, what do you think? What if? 620 00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:23,120 Speaker 1: And this is crazy, Microsoft, Google and Amazon built out 621 00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:26,080 Speaker 1: these massive data sentences to capture demand that may never arrive. 622 00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,240 Speaker 1: I realized that sound a little crazy saying this, But 623 00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:31,800 Speaker 1: back in March I made the point that I could 624 00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,680 Speaker 1: find no companies that had integrated generative AI in a 625 00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,520 Speaker 1: way that was truly benefited their bottom line, And just 626 00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:41,360 Speaker 1: under six months later, I'm still looking. The best that 627 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:43,640 Speaker 1: I can find is that big companies appear to have 628 00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,720 Speaker 1: done is stapled AI onto existing products and hoping that 629 00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:52,200 Speaker 1: that helps them shift them something that does not seem 630 00:32:52,240 --> 00:32:54,960 Speaker 1: to be working either. It doesn't work for Microsoft, doesn't 631 00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:56,800 Speaker 1: work for Box. It does seem to be working anywhere 632 00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,400 Speaker 1: as I'm not sure any of these AI upgrades give 633 00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,880 Speaker 1: any kind of significant business value. Now. While there may 634 00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:05,760 Speaker 1: be companies integrating AI that are driving some degree of 635 00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,160 Speaker 1: spend on Microsoft as your Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, 636 00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,600 Speaker 1: I don't know how much it is, considering the last 637 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:15,080 Speaker 1: episode saying about how open ai was only making about 638 00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:18,680 Speaker 1: a billion dollars licensing out their models, and I hypothesize 639 00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,200 Speaker 1: that any of this demand is driven by investor sentiment, 640 00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:24,280 Speaker 1: because companies are right now everywhere in the economy being 641 00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:28,280 Speaker 1: pushed to invest in AI without really knowing if it 642 00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,000 Speaker 1: will work, or whether it's useful, or whether their users 643 00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:35,080 Speaker 1: will like it. Nevertheless, these companies have spent a great 644 00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:37,760 Speaker 1: deal of time and money baking generative AI features into 645 00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:40,840 Speaker 1: their products, and I think they're going to face one 646 00:33:40,880 --> 00:33:45,600 Speaker 1: of a few different scenarios. Scenario the first, after developing 647 00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:47,960 Speaker 1: and launching these features, these companies are going to find 648 00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:50,320 Speaker 1: customers don't want to pay for them, as Microsoft's finding 649 00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,840 Speaker 1: with three sixty five Copilot and if they can't find 650 00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:54,880 Speaker 1: a way to make them pay for it. Now, they're 651 00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,480 Speaker 1: going to be really hard pressed when nobody's telling them 652 00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,800 Speaker 1: to get in on AI. And there's the same scenario. 653 00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:03,800 Speaker 1: After developing and launching these features, these companies can't find 654 00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:05,200 Speaker 1: a way to get users to pay for them, or 655 00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,600 Speaker 1: at least pay extra for them, which means that everyone 656 00:34:08,680 --> 00:34:10,520 Speaker 1: is going to have to bake the same thing into 657 00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:12,840 Speaker 1: their products. Everyone's going to have to do this because 658 00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:15,760 Speaker 1: none of these companies are able to function without copying 659 00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,279 Speaker 1: their competitors, which will turn Generative AI into a kind 660 00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,960 Speaker 1: of parasite. Now, just to broaden out what I mean here, 661 00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,760 Speaker 1: I looked across most of the software as a service 662 00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,480 Speaker 1: industry and a previous newsletter and I was looking and 663 00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:33,359 Speaker 1: most of them are doing much the same thing. It's 664 00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:38,719 Speaker 1: document summarization, document search, generation of staff, so emails and 665 00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,640 Speaker 1: the like, and summarization summarization can be emails can be documents. 666 00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,040 Speaker 1: For the most part, that's what everyone is doing. The 667 00:34:46,160 --> 00:34:49,759 Speaker 1: problem is that everyone doing the same thing means that 668 00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:52,160 Speaker 1: no one can really make money off of it. And 669 00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:54,960 Speaker 1: Jim Cavello out of Gold and Sex made the same 670 00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:58,279 Speaker 1: worrying we had the same thought as me, which makes 671 00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:01,120 Speaker 1: probably him smarter than me. I shouldn't think about that 672 00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:05,600 Speaker 1: too much anyway. I mentioned previously in the last episode 673 00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,480 Speaker 1: the commoditization effect of these large language models, and I 674 00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:10,879 Speaker 1: think there's going to be a further commoditization of these 675 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:15,359 Speaker 1: effects themselves, of these features. If everyone summarizes email, now 676 00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,280 Speaker 1: you have to do it too, because otherwise the customer 677 00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,840 Speaker 1: can go, there's another feature. I'm going to pay for 678 00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,440 Speaker 1: this one because it's got more stuff in it, except 679 00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:26,799 Speaker 1: the feature in questions more expensive. It's very worrying, But 680 00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,400 Speaker 1: in general, what I fear is a kind of cascade effect. 681 00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:32,520 Speaker 1: I believe that a lot of businesses right now are 682 00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,520 Speaker 1: trying AI, and once those trials end, and Gartner predicts 683 00:35:35,520 --> 00:35:38,279 Speaker 1: that thirty percent of GENERAVIAI projects will be abandoned after 684 00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:40,279 Speaker 1: the proof of concept by the end of twenty twenty five, 685 00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:42,479 Speaker 1: these companies are going to stop paying for the extra 686 00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:46,720 Speaker 1: features or stop integrating GENERATEVII into their products. If this happens, 687 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,600 Speaker 1: it will reduce the already kind of shitty revenue flowing 688 00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:52,440 Speaker 1: to the hyperscalers providing cloud computer or access to models 689 00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,000 Speaker 1: for generat AI, which in turn could create more price 690 00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,600 Speaker 1: pressure on these companies. They're already negative margins sour. At 691 00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,440 Speaker 1: that point, Open AI and Anthropic will almost certainly have 692 00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:06,279 Speaker 1: to raise prices. And what's fun is they're already not 693 00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,359 Speaker 1: making that much money from this. So we're in this 694 00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:13,319 Speaker 1: weird situation where it isn't obvious which it's going to be. 695 00:36:13,640 --> 00:36:15,400 Speaker 1: Is it that they're going to have to raise prices, 696 00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:17,319 Speaker 1: or that no one wants to pay them, or some 697 00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,239 Speaker 1: combination of both. It's also important to note that the 698 00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,120 Speaker 1: hyperscalers are also terrified of pissing off Wall Street. I 699 00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,440 Speaker 1: really mean that one of them will eventually blink. And 700 00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,160 Speaker 1: while they could theoretically do the layoffs and cost cutting 701 00:36:29,200 --> 00:36:32,720 Speaker 1: measures I've mentioned, these are short term solutions that don't 702 00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:37,000 Speaker 1: really work against burning billions tens of billions, like more 703 00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:40,480 Speaker 1: than half more than fifty billion a year for each 704 00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:43,719 Speaker 1: of them. How are you going to cut enough to 705 00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:48,720 Speaker 1: bankroll that? But in any case, putting aside the amount 706 00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:51,560 Speaker 1: of money they're having to invest, it might be time 707 00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,080 Speaker 1: to accept that there really isn't money here in Generative AI. 708 00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,279 Speaker 1: It might be time to stop and take stock of 709 00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:58,520 Speaker 1: the fact that we're in the midst of what our 710 00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:03,160 Speaker 1: third delusional epop our third stupid idea that everyone claims 711 00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:08,360 Speaker 1: the future, But unlike cryptocurrency, in the metaverse, everyone seems 712 00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:10,919 Speaker 1: to have joined this pie, and everyone's decided to burn 713 00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:15,759 Speaker 1: as much money as he mainly possible on this unsustainable, unreliable, unprofitable, 714 00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:21,360 Speaker 1: environmentally destructive bullshit sold to customers and businesses as artificial 715 00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,239 Speaker 1: intelligence to law may everything without ever having a path 716 00:37:25,280 --> 00:37:27,319 Speaker 1: to do so. Because that's the thing, none of this 717 00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,560 Speaker 1: is even AI. This is an automation. It's generation generation 718 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:35,040 Speaker 1: in different hats, and it burns the world around us 719 00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:39,879 Speaker 1: to provide it. But you know, I don't think the 720 00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,120 Speaker 1: following is going to burn the world. In fact, I 721 00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,319 Speaker 1: think it could really make your life better. And I 722 00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:50,360 Speaker 1: need you to directly and vacifiously engage with the following 723 00:37:50,400 --> 00:38:07,600 Speaker 1: advertisements and we're back. See might ask why does this 724 00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:11,520 Speaker 1: keep happening? Why do we keep getting these stupid movements? 725 00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:14,840 Speaker 1: Why did they tell us that cryptocurrency was the future. 726 00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:16,760 Speaker 1: Why did they tell us the metaverse was the future? 727 00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:18,799 Speaker 1: Why are they telling us that generative AI is the 728 00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:21,800 Speaker 1: future when none of these things from the very beginning 729 00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,879 Speaker 1: looked like the future. There were signs from GPT through 730 00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:28,200 Speaker 1: like oh cool, you can generate entire things, and like 731 00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:31,920 Speaker 1: a minute, wow, that's crazy. But past that point, past 732 00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:33,960 Speaker 1: that moment of oh you can do that, I guess 733 00:38:34,560 --> 00:38:38,759 Speaker 1: what was there? And why does this keep happening. It's 734 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,120 Speaker 1: the natural result of a tech industry that's become entirely 735 00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:45,920 Speaker 1: focused on making each customer more valuable rather than providing 736 00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,400 Speaker 1: more value to the customer in exchange for I don't know, 737 00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,960 Speaker 1: money or attention. The products you're being sold today almost 738 00:38:52,040 --> 00:38:55,080 Speaker 1: certainly tried to wed you to a particular ecosystem when 739 00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,800 Speaker 1: owned by Microsoft, Apple, Amazon or Google as a consumer 740 00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:01,880 Speaker 1: at least and internally increase the burden of lead things 741 00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,840 Speaker 1: said ecosystem. Imagine trying to move all of your subscribe 742 00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:09,480 Speaker 1: and save shit off of Amazon. Imagine trying I mean 743 00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:13,359 Speaker 1: moving iOS to Android or It's not that easy. And 744 00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:18,120 Speaker 1: that's by design. Everything is about further monetization, about increasing 745 00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:20,160 Speaker 1: the dollar per head value of each customer, be it 746 00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,359 Speaker 1: through keeping them doing stuff on the platform, to show 747 00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,200 Speaker 1: them more advertising, upselling them new features that are only 748 00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,399 Speaker 1: kind of useful or previously we're free, or creating some 749 00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:31,520 Speaker 1: new monopoly or oligopoly where only those with the massive 750 00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,319 Speaker 1: war chests a big tech can really play, and very 751 00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:36,759 Speaker 1: very little about this is about delivering any kind of 752 00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,640 Speaker 1: real value or utility or thing that you, the customer 753 00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:43,640 Speaker 1: might like. Generative AI might not be super useful, but 754 00:39:43,680 --> 00:39:46,200 Speaker 1: it's really easy to integrate into stuff and make new 755 00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:49,279 Speaker 1: things happen, creating all sorts of new things that the 756 00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:52,279 Speaker 1: company could theoretically charge for, both for a customer and 757 00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,880 Speaker 1: an enterprise customer. Sam Molton was smart enough to realize 758 00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:58,120 Speaker 1: that the tech industry needed a new thing, a new 759 00:39:58,160 --> 00:40:00,520 Speaker 1: technology that everybody could take a piece of and sell. 760 00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:03,359 Speaker 1: And while he might not really understand technology, all one 761 00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:07,480 Speaker 1: understands growth and the lust that the economy has for growth, 762 00:40:08,040 --> 00:40:11,920 Speaker 1: and he's productized Transformer based architecture is something that everybody 763 00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,600 Speaker 1: could sell, a magical tool that could plug into things 764 00:40:14,640 --> 00:40:17,680 Speaker 1: and kind of connect to an ephemeral concept like AI. 765 00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:22,480 Speaker 1: The problem is that the desperation to integrate genera if 766 00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:25,480 Speaker 1: AI everywhere has shown a pretty nasty light on how 767 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:28,840 Speaker 1: disconnected these companies are from actual consumer needs or even 768 00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,920 Speaker 1: running good companies. Like really, I'm not even being facetious. 769 00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,360 Speaker 1: I would genuinely like it if this stuff was useful. 770 00:40:37,520 --> 00:40:40,640 Speaker 1: I like useful things. There would be ethical concerns about 771 00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,640 Speaker 1: the copyright theft and such, but I would at least 772 00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:45,920 Speaker 1: tip my hat to them if I could find something, 773 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:50,040 Speaker 1: anything that I looked at and could say, Wow, that's 774 00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:52,680 Speaker 1: really useful in my daily life. I got nothing, and 775 00:40:52,719 --> 00:40:56,280 Speaker 1: I've really looked. You can email me easy that's echoes 776 00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:59,560 Speaker 1: Abetter offline dot com if you have one. But I've 777 00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,440 Speaker 1: yet impressed by one of those emails, So please try harder. 778 00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,200 Speaker 1: And the really worrying part is that other than AI, 779 00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,440 Speaker 1: many of these companies don't seem to have any other 780 00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:15,320 Speaker 1: new products. What else is there? What are the things 781 00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:18,120 Speaker 1: do they have to grow their companies? No? Really, what 782 00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,040 Speaker 1: do they have? The new iPhone? I bought the new iPhone. 783 00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:23,920 Speaker 1: I'm a little pig point cooin coin. I bought the iPhone. 784 00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:26,319 Speaker 1: I bought the new one, and I've bought it every year. 785 00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:28,520 Speaker 1: I am that guy I sell the old one about 786 00:41:28,560 --> 00:41:31,399 Speaker 1: the new one. This is the first year. I think 787 00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:33,600 Speaker 1: from the beginning where I bought it and being like 788 00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:35,640 Speaker 1: why did I do that? Man? What does this do? 789 00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,600 Speaker 1: And that's because I think we're hitting a wall. This 790 00:41:39,640 --> 00:41:41,719 Speaker 1: is the rock combubble. I talked about a few months ago. 791 00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:46,160 Speaker 1: They've not got anything. There's nothing, They've got nothing. And 792 00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:50,879 Speaker 1: that really is the problem, because when everything falls, when 793 00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:54,360 Speaker 1: everyone realizes, when the markets look at tech and say, wow, 794 00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:56,400 Speaker 1: you're not going to grow forever. You're not going to 795 00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:58,040 Speaker 1: come up with a new wiz bang that you can 796 00:41:58,080 --> 00:42:01,440 Speaker 1: market to everyone and make billions in returns. You're not 797 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:05,520 Speaker 1: going to do that. No, they're not going to react 798 00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,640 Speaker 1: well at all, because when you take away the massive 799 00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:12,320 Speaker 1: growth that tech has, you have a very annoying industry 800 00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:15,520 Speaker 1: full of annoying young people that will piss off the markets. 801 00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:19,359 Speaker 1: They will piss off those with the money. The tech 802 00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:21,440 Speaker 1: industry has a terrible rep with the government and a 803 00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:25,480 Speaker 1: terrible rep with society. The reevaluation of these companies will 804 00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:30,400 Speaker 1: be merciless, and there are very few friends left, and 805 00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:32,680 Speaker 1: I think there will be a cascade down to the 806 00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:35,399 Speaker 1: other companies in the tech space, just in the same 807 00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:38,280 Speaker 1: way that it will hit workers who will get laid 808 00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,320 Speaker 1: off when all of this falls apart. Despite none of 809 00:42:41,360 --> 00:42:44,040 Speaker 1: these people doing anything wrong other than the people up 810 00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:47,800 Speaker 1: top having no creativity, no real innovation, and no understanding 811 00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:52,600 Speaker 1: of real people's problems. I hypothesize a kind of SUBPRIMEI 812 00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:55,799 Speaker 1: crisis is brewing where almost the entire tech industry is 813 00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,239 Speaker 1: brought in and a technology sold at this insanely discounted rate, 814 00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,320 Speaker 1: heavily sentralized and subsidized by big tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, 815 00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:07,160 Speaker 1: and Google. At some point, this incredible toxic burn ray 816 00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:09,799 Speaker 1: is going to burn through GENERATIVEAI and it's going to 817 00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:12,319 Speaker 1: catch up with them. And when the price increases come 818 00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:16,280 Speaker 1: or companies realize that these features are not that useful 819 00:43:16,440 --> 00:43:19,919 Speaker 1: and they see the lack of user adoption, they're going 820 00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:23,279 Speaker 1: to start getting nervous. But right now are in the 821 00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,239 Speaker 1: piss take section of the economy. Right now we're seeing 822 00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:30,360 Speaker 1: the egregious share like Salesforce charging two dollars a conversation 823 00:43:30,480 --> 00:43:34,720 Speaker 1: for their new agent Force product. But eventually the markets 824 00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:39,319 Speaker 1: will catch up because the money isn't there. And when 825 00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:42,279 Speaker 1: these prices go up, I'm not confident that will have 826 00:43:42,560 --> 00:43:45,920 Speaker 1: much of a generative AI industry left. And that's assuming 827 00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,400 Speaker 1: that these companies still have enough money. It's assuming that 828 00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:52,080 Speaker 1: open ai is able to raise another six and a 829 00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:55,040 Speaker 1: half billion dollar round in the next six to eight months. 830 00:43:55,680 --> 00:43:58,440 Speaker 1: How long can they do that? For? How many times? 831 00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:01,120 Speaker 1: How many years? A VSA he's willing to prop up 832 00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:05,480 Speaker 1: open AI. How many years is Microsoft ready to burn 833 00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:09,840 Speaker 1: capital to make what a billion or two on Generative AI? 834 00:44:10,560 --> 00:44:14,440 Speaker 1: This is embarrassing. It's bad business and it's bad product. 835 00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:19,319 Speaker 1: Satch an Adela, Sundarpishi, sam Ortmon, the whole lot of them. 836 00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,120 Speaker 1: They should be absolutely fucking ashamed of themselves. They're insult 837 00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:26,000 Speaker 1: to innovation and insult Silicon Valley and insult to their consumers. 838 00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:30,520 Speaker 1: And what happens, you tell me this when the tech industry, 839 00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:33,200 Speaker 1: the entire tech industry, relies on the success of a 840 00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:35,960 Speaker 1: kind of software that only loses money and doesn't create 841 00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:39,440 Speaker 1: much value when it does so. And what happens when 842 00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,239 Speaker 1: the heat gets too hot and these products become impossible 843 00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:45,960 Speaker 1: to reconcile with, and that everyone realizes that none of 844 00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:50,360 Speaker 1: these companies have anything else to sell. I really don't know. 845 00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:59,280 Speaker 1: I'm scared. I'm not trying to do fud, doing a fud, fear, uncertainty, 846 00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:01,840 Speaker 1: in doubt, told to spell these things out, but I 847 00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:06,320 Speaker 1: am worried because really the only other alternative to what 848 00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:10,000 Speaker 1: I'm saying is that they magically make this profitable, that 849 00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,680 Speaker 1: they just keep doing this until it goes into the green, 850 00:45:13,160 --> 00:45:16,040 Speaker 1: despite no one appearing to know how, despite their not 851 00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,040 Speaker 1: being a path there. How willing are you to believe 852 00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:22,520 Speaker 1: them after they've lied to you for so many years? 853 00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:27,960 Speaker 1: How ridiculous is this really? How ridiculous have you been 854 00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:31,239 Speaker 1: thinking this is? How much can you let them coast on? 855 00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,040 Speaker 1: They'll work it out? Because they haven't. They haven't worked 856 00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:36,200 Speaker 1: it out for a while. It's been over a decade 857 00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:39,320 Speaker 1: since the last significance consumer tech innovation. It's been a 858 00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,040 Speaker 1: ton on the chip side. But what is there for you? 859 00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:44,879 Speaker 1: And I? Not really much? And I don't think there's 860 00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:47,560 Speaker 1: much in this industry either, And I worry that the 861 00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:51,160 Speaker 1: tech industry is building towards a really grotesque reckoning, with 862 00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:54,160 Speaker 1: a total lack of creativity, enabled by an economy that 863 00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:58,480 Speaker 1: rewards growth over innovation, and monopolization over loyalty, and management 864 00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,280 Speaker 1: over those who actually build things. The people in control 865 00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:03,880 Speaker 1: of the tech industry are not the ones who built it. 866 00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,880 Speaker 1: These people are management consultants. Even Samultman is one of them. 867 00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:12,680 Speaker 1: These people are superficially interesting and superficially smart, just like 868 00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:17,520 Speaker 1: jat GPT. And I worry, I worry so much, So 869 00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:21,160 Speaker 1: promise me, dear listener, then The next time someone tells 870 00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,240 Speaker 1: you they'll work it out, that this stuff is the future, 871 00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:26,120 Speaker 1: tell them some of this shit, send them the podcast, 872 00:46:26,280 --> 00:46:28,000 Speaker 1: or just yell at them at the top of your voice. 873 00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:31,240 Speaker 1: Don't even need to use words, but I'm so grateful 874 00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:41,400 Speaker 1: to have you as listeners. Thank you for listening to 875 00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,400 Speaker 1: Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline 876 00:46:44,440 --> 00:46:47,080 Speaker 1: theme song is Matasowski. You can check out more of 877 00:46:47,120 --> 00:46:50,719 Speaker 1: his music and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com, m 878 00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:54,879 Speaker 1: A T T O S O W s ki dot com. 879 00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:57,879 Speaker 1: You can email me at easy at Better Offline dot 880 00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:00,200 Speaker 1: com or visit Better Offline dot com to find more 881 00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,560 Speaker 1: podcast links and of course, my newsletter. I also really 882 00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:05,839 Speaker 1: recommend you go to chat dot Where's youread dot at 883 00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:08,359 Speaker 1: to visit the discord, and go to our slash Better 884 00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:11,560 Speaker 1: Offline to check out I'll Reddit. Thank you so much 885 00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:15,400 Speaker 1: for listening. Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. 886 00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,439 Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool 887 00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:21,799 Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 888 00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,280 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.