Go-dAmn Sachs is wrong often, but in this I think they’re on point. Learned from the Crypto insanity.
Goldman Sachs: AI Is Overhyped, Wildly Expensive, and Unreliable
Submitted 5 months ago by theangriestbird@beehaw.org to technology@beehaw.org
https://www.404media.co/goldman-sachs-ai-is-overhyped-wildly-expensive-and-unreliable/
Comments
Penguincoder@beehaw.org 5 months ago
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 5 months ago
It’s costing them money, and they’re not sure they’re going to get it back.
jherazob@beehaw.org 5 months ago
They’re not
anachronist@midwest.social 5 months ago
Naw if they’re publicly bashing it they’ve already dumped on all the downside risk onto their customers and now they’re net short.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 5 months ago
saying the quiet part out loud… big tech won’t like that.
I’ve found like, 4 tasks that are really helped with by AI, and I don’t have the faintest idea how you could monetize any of them beyond “Subscribe to chatgpt”
Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
With streaming services they’re proving it’s not viable to run a resource hog of a service with a measly monthly subscription.
With social media they’re proving it’s not viable to run a resource hog of a service for free, even with advertisement.
So naturally the best plan to monetize AI is to run a resource hog of a service with a measly monthly subscription and a free version without advertisements. /s
ArmokGoB@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
In other news: water is wet and bears shit in the woods
bluewing@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Sometimes that bear shits in my yard. And then the little asshole trashes my garden. I might buy a tag and shoot the son of a bitch this fall if he keeps it up…
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 months ago
Recently there was one in British Columbia that locked itself in a hot car, freaked out and tore up the interior completely, and then had to be rescued by the cops.
Tja@programming.dev 5 months ago
Plus water isn’t wet, it makes things wet.
jarfil@beehaw.org 5 months ago
AI has been overhyped since it first played tic-tac-toe in the 1950s. One definition of “AI” is: “an algorithm that people don’t understand… yet” 🤷
Letstakealook@lemm.ee 5 months ago
The stuff they’re calling ai now is just predictive text algorithms. I really can’t wait to stop hearing about this because it is all artificial with no intelligence.
EatATaco@lemm.ee 5 months ago
You know it’s funny how many times I’ve heard that “it’s just predictive text algorithms!” As a dismissal that I’m beginning to think we’re just predictive text algorithms.
tyler@programming.dev 5 months ago
LLMs have been shown to have emergent math capabilities (that are the opposite of what is trained) so you’re simplifying way too much. Yes a lot is just “predictive text” but there’s a ton of “this was not the training and we don’t know how it knows this” as well.
jarfil@beehaw.org 5 months ago
Not exactly.
LLMs are predictive-associative token algorithms with a degree of randomness and some self-reflection. A key aspect is that anything can be a token, they can self-feed their own output, creating the basis for a thought cycle, as well as output control input for other algorithms. It remains to be seen whether the core of “(human) intelligence” is much more than that, and by how much.
Stable Diffusion is a random image generator that refines its output based on perceptual traits associated with a prompt. It’s like a “lite” version of human dreaming, only with a super-human training set. Kind of an “uncanny valley” version of dreaming.
It just so happens that both algorithms have been showcased at about the same time, and it’s the first time we can build a “set and forget” AI system that can both make decisions about its own next steps, and emulate human creativity… which has driven the hype into overdrive.
I don’t think we’ll stop hearing about it, but I do think there is much more to be done, and it’s pretty much impossible to feed any of the algorithms with human experience data, without registering at least one human learning cycle, as in over many years from inside a humanoid robot.
Neato@ttrpg.network 5 months ago
Man I love it when billionaire assholes finally figure out what the rest of the world has been saying since the beginning.
AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
I mean, the rest of the world has been hyping AI since the start, no? Most companies are not run by billionaires.
anachronist@midwest.social 5 months ago
American Psycho (Sam Altman) and his chorus have been hyping AI and the rest of the world’s reaction has ranged from “these guys seem smart and chatgpt is impressive so what do I know?” to “isn’t this guy a bitcoin bro?”
Fah_Q@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
“Today” AI is Over hyped, Wildy expensive and unreliable. This is like the quote about the Internet not catching on, or how nobody would ever need more than 640kb of ram. honestly y’all make me chuckle.
TehPers@beehaw.org 5 months ago
You’re right. Once it settles into its niches and the hype dies down, it won’t be overhyped anymore because everyone will have moved on.
I’ve been working with generative AI for years now and we still struggle to solve real world problems with it. It isn’t useless or anything. It’s way too unreliable, and this isn’t one of those things where time will solve it - it’s being used to solve problems that have no perfect solutions, like human interfacing and generating culturally-appropriate and visually-accurate images. I’d expect it to improve at those tasks over time, but the scope needs to drop from every problem humanity has ever faced to the problems that these models are good at solving.
Milk_Sheikh@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Correct. Dress it up however you like, but LLM and ML programs are probability gamblers all the way down. We’re building a conversation tool, that doesn’t truly comprehend the language because it’s a calculator at its core - it’s like asking your eyeballs to see in UHF frequencies.
They’re called “computers” for a reason, and we are deep in the myopic tech tree of further and further complexity. The current wave of AI has solid potential, but not globally for all applications. It is a great at ‘digital assistant’ roles and is already killing it in CCTV monitoring software. Mindjourney can make incredible images, but it can’t make art. ChatGPT can write, but it’s a terrible author or speechwriter.
coffeetest@beehaw.org 5 months ago
I agree with this. Its wildly misunderstood and it’s the name. AI is absolutely the most amazing marketing name for it but its only a thin veneer of our sci fi dreams. Over time that veneer might get a bit thicker but it wont be what people think it will be. It is good at certain things, like you know, being a large language model, but it a (very) limited subset of what human intelligence is.
Fah_Q@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
You sound like a teacher from the 80s telling a student that they won’t always have a calculator with them. Your lack of imagination solving problems with AI is and will remain yours. Automation and AI is going to change the entire world much like the automobile devastated the Horse transportation industry. Just as the Amazon killed the Malls. You just fail to see how you fit into this new strange future, and surprise you just perhaps don’t.
Umbrias@beehaw.org 5 months ago
The internet is a funny analogue!
Because it experienced the dot com crash under almost the same sort of circumstances.
Fah_Q@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
Yeah thank God after the dot com crash, the Internet completely disappeared. That was a close one it almost destroyed society. Lol
todd_bonzalez@lemm.ee 5 months ago
Not really comparable.
AI has lots of potential for the future, and Goldman Sachs continues to invest in that sector.
They are specifically talking about the bubble of Generative AI startups, none of which have any long term viability as they either produce a novelty, or they produce something so inaccurate that nobody would trust it after using it.
They aren’t the people saying that the Internet won’t catch on. They’re the ones warning you that dot com is a bubble.
They’re right.
Fah_Q@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
Hail to our Lord and Savior Goldman Sach. They are the word and the life I shall never doubt them again. I fall on my knees and beg forgiveness from the corporations. The profits have spoken and they have increased 5 percent every quarter. So let it be written so let it be done.
LukeZaz@beehaw.org 5 months ago
I find comments like these on places like Beehaw almost amusing in a way. It’s like watching a drunk person stumble from a bar all the way to a courthouse and getting upset the clerk won’t sell them more liquor.
Seriously though, I’m not sure what you hope to accomplish here. Just about everybody here disagrees and isn’t keen on a take like this, and I’d figure you’d have been able to tell as much before posting. So… are you just here to argue?
ShepherdPie@midwest.social 5 months ago
I look at it more like autonomous driving which we’ve been told is just around the corner for close to a decade now.
Fah_Q@lemmynsfw.com 5 months ago
Let me propose how will anyone get rich with automatic cars?
cogitase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
If there’s one job I think AI could definitely replace, it’s crafting reports by investment bankers.
anachronist@midwest.social 5 months ago
Funny you should mention that McKinsey published a paper a few months back concluding that GenAI will take over most of the jobs in America because it was good at doing what McKinsey Associates do. Missed by the authors is that the job of a McKinsey associate is to confidently spout nonsense all day long and that’s actually exactly what chatgpt is programmed to do.
coffeetest@beehaw.org 5 months ago
That is so funny.
chatgpt: “Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents a transformative investment opportunity, characterized by robust growth potential and broad applicability across industries. The AI market, projected to exceed $190 billion by 2025, offers substantial upside in sectors such as healthcare, finance, automotive, and e-commerce. As businesses increasingly adopt AI to enhance efficiency and innovation, associated firms are poised for significant returns. Key investment areas include machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, and AI-driven analytics. Despite risks like regulatory challenges and ethical concerns, the strategic deployment of capital in AI technologies holds promise for long-term value creation. Diversification within this space is advisable to mitigate volatility.”
esaru@beehaw.org 5 months ago
If that is what Goldman Sachs says, than most likely the opposite is true.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 5 months ago
I mean, ask pretty much anyone familiar with the workings of AI who doesn’t have a vested interest, and they’ll say the same thing.
I’d also say that it does have applications, but it’s going to take a moment for all the bullshit artists to move on to the next thing so the grown-ups can work. It’s like graphene research circa-2011.
They might also say that the moment it does work reliably we should be scared.
bl4kers@beehaw.org 5 months ago
If Goldman Sachs said that, than most likely the opposite is true.
What makes you say that?
esaru@beehaw.org 5 months ago
There are studies that suggest that the information investment firms publish is not basdd on what they believe to be true, but what is good for their own internal investment strategy. And in many cases for serving their investment strategy, it benefits them to publish the opposite of what they believe is true.
Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
Hopefully this will have an impact
Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Goldman Sachs has not invested in AI.
Their statement is factual though, on all three points. nVidia’s share price alone should alarm people. It’s the new dot com bubble.
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 5 months ago
It’s a gold rush and NVIDIA is selling the shovels
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
ICastFist@programming.dev 5 months ago
“will this large spend ever pay off?”
That’s the neat part: it won’t!
scytale@lemm.ee 5 months ago
They’re just not invested in it yet. Once their money is in it, they’ll suddenly say it’s the best thing in the world.
bitwolf@lemmy.one 5 months ago
About damn time the narrative starts to change.
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 5 months ago
Yeah.
clmbmb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
D’oh!
halm@leminal.space 5 months ago
Oh, so now we’re supposed to pay attention? Internet pundits came to the same realisation from the beginning, but we don’t have the same kind of purchasing power.
BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world 5 months ago
But it is killing jobs, and that’s what’s important.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 months ago
Yep, as wildly expensive and unreliable as AI is, so are staff.
Watch as loads of people get laid off, they realise the AI can’t do their jobs after all, but you know who can give it a go? Some guy in a third wold country on $3 an hour.
theluddite@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
It’s not a research paper. It’s a report. This may seem like a nit-pick, but journalists need to (re-)learn to carefully distinguish between the thing that scientists do and corporate R&D, even though we sometimes use the word “research” for both. The AI hype in particular has been absolutely terrible for this. Companies have learned that putting out AI “research” that’s just them poking at their own product but dressed up in a science-lookin’ paper leads to an avalanche of free press from lazy credulous morons gorging themselves on the hype. I’ve written about this problem a lot. For example, in this post, which is about how Google wrote a so-called paper about how their LLM does compared to doctors, only for the press to uncritically repeat (and embellish on) the results as a headline. Had anyone in the press actually fucking bothered to read the paper critically, they would’ve noticed that it’s actually junk science.
tal@lemmy.today 5 months ago
A big part of the problem – and this is not a new issue, goes back decades – is that a lot of terms in AI-land don’t correspond to concrete capabilities, so it’s easy to claim that you do X when X is generally-perceived to be a much-more-sophisticated thing than what you’re actually doing, even if your thing technically qualifies as X by some definition.
None of this in any way conflicts with my position that AI has tremendous potential. But if people are investing money without having a solid understanding of what they’re investing in, there are going to be people out there misrepresenting their product.
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 5 months ago
Just like how it’s no coincidence that they change the definition of AI to AGI.
dev_null@lemmy.ml 5 months ago
Same with all cryptocurrencies having a “white paper”, as if it was anything other than marketing crap formatted like a scientific paper.
verstra@programming.dev 5 months ago
It started as actual unpublished technical descriptions of underlying technology.