[HN Gopher] The AI PR Industrial Complex
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The AI PR Industrial Complex
Author : tim_sw
Score : 72 points
Date : 2023-05-05 14:10 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bigtechnology.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bigtechnology.com)
| dade_ wrote:
| 'Take IBM, for example. Just this week its CEO Arvind Krishna
| said his company would pause hiring for back-office roles that AI
| might replace, suggesting AI could take over as many as 7,800
| positions.'
|
| In 10 years, IBM has gone from announcing curing cancer with AI
| to announcing the elimination of some roles with AI. I can't wait
| for what they announce in another 10 years!
| [deleted]
| Animats wrote:
| Although, because LLMs actually work, the companies that are
| doing it are getting the attention, not the ones just blithering
| about it.
|
| Unlike the metaverse and crypto.
| nullsense wrote:
| When I played around with VR and crypto I remember thinking
| "this is cool!".
|
| When I play around with things like GPT-4, and LLaVA i think
| "this is insane".
| bertman wrote:
| [flagged]
| kantrowitz wrote:
| Solid summary!
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Why was this flagged? I see two direct responses of "good
| summary." Was it political? Offensive somehow?
| the_only_law wrote:
| There's a negative reaction to chatgpt generated comments.
| Personally I understand it somewhat as there seems to be a
| number of bots running around making useless comments on a
| site that's always prided itself on being better than
| everyone else. I don't really mind these sort of summary
| type comments, but I suppose enough people do.
| newswasboring wrote:
| People don't like ChatGPT summaries. It's not authentic
| enough for them. I tried it once, had the exact same
| experience.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Good summary.
|
| Just not clear what the point is -- I mean aren't all these
| points obvious to everybody? Nobody actually thought IBM was
| doing layoffs because AI, or that politicians have any
| understanding of AI. Just seems like venting.
| bertman wrote:
| >I mean aren't all these points obvious to everybody?
|
| Pretty much, yeah. Ironically, this makes rants like OP part
| of the AI PR Industrial Complex.
| uoaei wrote:
| You are in a tiny bubble full of smart people if you think
| this was obvious to anyone, relatively speaking.
| AuBon320 wrote:
| [dead]
| horeszko wrote:
| In the last 2 years I've seen companies go from hyping
| cryptocurrencies to metaverse and now to AI. And each time they
| announce it as if it's the be all end all and they're going all
| in with the new tech and it will change everything.
|
| I can't help but sense the desperation the 3rd time around, I
| think a lot of these companies get swept up in the hype because
| they don't really have a sense of where they are going.
|
| It's like the growth has ran out or something.
| uoaei wrote:
| Techno-optimism tells us "everything will be fixed with this
| _new_ , _disruptive_ approach! "
|
| Meanwhile, the solutions to our problems today basically mirror
| the ones we've been using for centuries.
|
| It's like in the face of all this insane tech profit people
| decided that it's better to be impatient and extractive rather
| than patient and foundational. You see it in all the ventures
| going "I started a startup for the express purpose of
| justifying its sale to someone much larger". When it ends up
| being a relatively pointless innovation whose sole purpose is
| to be a VC money sponge.
| jabradoodle wrote:
| > Meanwhile, the solutions to our problems today basically
| mirror the ones we've been using for centuries.
|
| What exactly does this mean?
| uoaei wrote:
| You don't need an automated energy hog HVAC system when
| passive cooling and good insulation have been successfully
| used for millenia. You don't need an automated vertical
| hydroponic warehouse or huge expensive carbon-sucking fans
| when simple land management strategies result in healthy
| productive topsoils that are strong carbon sinks. These are
| microcosmic examples of a macrocosmic concern.
|
| In general, successful technologies of the past, up until
| about the time we started converting fossil fuels to energy
| at industrial scales, were about _decreasing_ human energy
| requirements by taking advantage of existing and mostly
| passive physical phenomena. Then a precise notion of
| "capital" came into focus and less than 100 years later the
| profit motive demanded extractivist methods of
| unconstrained "growth". This approach ends up re-
| calibrating the accounting qua "efficiency" from energetic
| to monetary, which introduced significant disconnects
| between what can be called "sustainable" growth in the
| physical vs fiscal contexts.
| rcme wrote:
| Yes, it does feel like growth across the sector has diminished.
| Especially for VCs, there's very few 1000x opportunities left.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Any time there is a gold rush there are a lot of scammers that
| will try and prey on people with gold fever. ChatGPT,
| Midjourney and Copilot already see a ton of use though, and
| they're the first real "AI" products, so I think it's already
| proven not to be vaporware.
| mepian wrote:
| If I remember correctly, the first real AI product happened
| 44 years ago:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macsyma#Commercialization
| Loughla wrote:
| What is midjourney being used for other than to make amusing
| reddit pictures and general messing around by laypeople?
|
| Is it being used in an industry and I'm just not aware of it?
| tudorw wrote:
| I'm using it to visualise math.
| xenodium wrote:
| Interesting. Got any image you can share?
| tudorw wrote:
| I throw stuff up on;
|
| https://github.com/tudorw/MultiDimensionalTopologicalMani
| fol...
|
| and here's an experiment using it to visualise a 'gestalt
| dashboard' concept;
|
| https://github.com/tudorw/GestaltVisualisation
|
| drop into https://twitch.tv/m88t #AI Nursery where I demo
| apps and take requests to try on Kaiber, MidJourney,
| Blockade Labs, etc
| valdiorn wrote:
| Gaming industry is HEAVILY bought into text to image. For
| concept art, textures, background scenes, filler content,
| etc. So many use cases.
|
| Same with web design (for filler images, background art,
| etc), and design in general; basically, anything you'd
| previously employ a concept artist for, you can now do most
| of their work with midjourney or similar tools.
|
| https://aituts.com/midjourney-web-design/
|
| https://80.lv/articles/a-shoot-em-up-game-made-with-
| midjourn...
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| I think what many people today are calling AI will in the
| future be thought of as just a very high level
| programming language.
| spaced-out wrote:
| Just one anecdote but I went to this modern art museum in
| Seattle last weekend that's small but well regarded:
| https://www.museumofmuseums.com/
|
| I saw several mixed media pieces there (one was a diorama
| IIRC), which said some part of the artwork was done with
| Midjourney.
| nivenkos wrote:
| Loads of places where before you'd just have amateur art /
| no art.
|
| We used it for department logos, etc. - it makes sense when
| it's so cheap.
|
| For it to really grow though it needs to be able to be more
| domain-specific, like being able to generate 2D and 3D
| animations, spritesheets and isometric sprites, 3D models,
| normal maps and textures and being able to maintain a
| consistent style as a context (like ChatGPT).
| filoleg wrote:
| > For it to really grow though it needs to be able to be
| more domain-specific, like being able to generate 2D and
| 3D animations, spritesheets and isometric sprites, 3D
| models, normal maps and textures and being able to
| maintain a consistent style as a context (like ChatGPT).
|
| Heavily agreed. Just like how the smartphone revolution
| ended up in tons of businesses that create things around
| that ecosystem (from apps for many specific domains to
| tooling to whatever else), the current "AI" revolution
| will kick off creation of viable companies that apply the
| models in functionally practical ways to specific domains
| (including things you've mentioned like 3D models,
| textures, and tons more).
|
| At least that's my hypothesis. The only caveat that I can
| think of is that the currently available "AI" would need
| to be actually functionally viable for those subdomains.
| But that's a split responsibility between the state of
| "AI" itself and the companies making tools for all those
| specific domains beijg able to actually make a good use
| of the models.
| extortionist wrote:
| The game High On Life used Midjourney to create additional
| environmental art like posters and advertisements.[1]
|
| The twitter account for the remake of System Shock used
| Midjourney to create an advertisement, and said they'd be
| continuing to use AI for art and possibly in other
| areas.[2]
|
| I've seen other random postings from people saying that
| it's being used especially for generating concept art for
| games.
|
| [1] https://www.eurogamer.net/high-on-life-contains-ai-art-
| and-v... [2] https://twitter.com/SystemShockGame/status/165
| 34450087776747...
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Exactly. Unlike the metaverse and cryptocurrency people want
| to use AI tools. If only to make them more productive so they
| can take up a second job to afford to live.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| Big question: will AI last longer than spiral croissants? I vote
| Yes.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAbPaWosphk
|
| Yesterday morning, I saw a line of 15 people waiting to get into
| a bakeshop that apparently has them. LLMs take a little more time
| & investment than spiral croissants.
| screye wrote:
| unrelated, but spiral Kougn-Amann's have been a thing for a
| while now. The supposed best-in-the-world croissant bakery also
| sells them [1].
|
| Would highly recommend both the croissants and Kouign-Amanns.
|
| [1]
| https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187147-d14788...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I bought one of those and asked the clerk how to pronounce
| it. It was very noisy but I think she said either koog-a-MAH
| or KOOG-a-mah. How do you say it?
| armchairhacker wrote:
| ML/AI has been over-hyped before diffusion models and ChatGPT. I
| remember in 2017 hearing AI buzzwords and seeing AI hackathon
| projects alongside VR and crypto, and apparently it's been going
| on to some extent since the early 2010s. But seeing LLMs show
| genuine intelligence and general reasoning has definitely pushed
| the hype exponentially further.
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