[HN Gopher] AI Canon
___________________________________________________________________
AI Canon
Author : nihit-desai
Score : 448 points
Date : 2023-05-25 15:47 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (a16z.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (a16z.com)
| TradingPlaces wrote:
| Came for everyone roasting a16z. Was not disappointed.
| negamax wrote:
| I am sorry but I am not a believer in a16z anything after their
| massive crypto token scams and wealth extraction. We all need to
| move away from all these companies who continue to bloat in
| private and then have a big pay day as a public company.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Their crypto scams look like child's play compared to their
| 350MM investment into Adam Neumann AGAIN. Like whaaat? Were
| "Liz" Holmes and Martin Shrkeli not available? Or did SBF not
| satiate you enough?
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| They are ready to pump another stock again.
| rvz wrote:
| Oh sweet summer child.
|
| VCs exist to make money. They do not care what industry it is,
| unless it makes them a giant return.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| The submission has nothing to do with what you're complaining
| about. It's just a review of key papers, writings, and courses
| that are most pertinent to understanding the current state of
| AI.
| seizethecheese wrote:
| The publishing of this article was paid for with the intent
| of furthering a16z's reputation. I think addressing their
| reputation is relevant.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| that's nothing to be sorry about
| dpflan wrote:
| I mean, the `canon` here is not created by experts in AI. It is
| to put something on the internet to make a16z look legit on AI
| and get traffic.
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| The piece speaks for itself. It's very strong.
| dpflan wrote:
| OK, thanks for reassuring.
| moinnadeem wrote:
| I wouldn't go so far. I know the authors quite well, and as
| someone who has multiple publications in machine learning
| confeerences (and started a PhD in ML), they know their stuff
| well.
| dpflan wrote:
| OK, thanks for reassuring.
| [deleted]
| dekhn wrote:
| Do you include other parts of a16z like their biology
| investments? Do you believe the bio folks are doing scamming
| and wealth extraction (beyond the normal VC scamming and wealth
| extraction)? Or is it guilt-by-association, simple being in
| a16z when another part of the company did something dumb is
| enough to write them off?
| herval wrote:
| a16z took decades to build a reputation and less than a year to
| toss it in the fire. It's hard to take their current discourse
| around anything seriously (they constantly publish think pieces
| on hype topics like AI or games).
| tikkun wrote:
| Yes. I feel there should be some kind of anti-list of people
| who dumped SPACs and ICOs on the public.
|
| I personally feel it was pretty gross behavior (in many, but
| not all, cases), and the people who did the egregious ones
| mostly knew at the time that they were doing a zero sum wealth
| transfer to themselves.
|
| I personally avoid working with people who were involved in
| ICOs and SPACs where at the time of issuance a reasonable
| analysis could've shown that it was grossly overpriced to the
| public investors it was sold to (because in those cases, I
| believe that the issuer themselves should've known, and
| shouldn't have proceeded).
| sroussey wrote:
| I have the data. What would be a good UI for it?
|
| For example: https://embarc.com/capital/leadership/chamath-
| palihapitiya
| tikkun wrote:
| A list, ranked by person/sponsor, ranked by total value
| reduction across all SPACs they did since some time point
| (merger? before then?), and normalized for multiple
| compression by looking at the ratio of some overall public
| tech index between that date and now (so that they're not
| overly penalized by multiple compression from higher
| interest rates).
|
| Either presented as a list on a web page or a list in an
| infographic/image.
|
| Overall show how much wealth public investors have lost in
| aggregate from investing with that person, normalized to
| general tech stock market declines. How much did they lose
| relative to the market. Their alpha, or negative alpha, I
| suppose.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| e: Removed, not sure I really agree with what I wrote on
| further reflection
| AJ007 wrote:
| That just isn't a reasonable statement. No one forces
| someone to participate in a ponzi scheme.
|
| The problem with SPACS is these were companies that did not
| go the IPO route because they would not pass SEC approval.
| Companies should go public even if they are unlikely to
| survive, but what we saw was mostly fraud. They received
| absurd valuations based on exaggerated growth claims
| combined with imaginary non-GAAP accounting -- things you
| can't do in an IPO.
|
| Some of these participants will get in trouble. Enforcement
| is not immediate. a16z is probably going to end up in a lot
| of trouble over their cryptocurrency shenanigans. I think
| these guys pretty much burned their reputation in exchange
| for things like owning a $177m house in Malibu.
|
| The consequences will be felt by everyone, not just the
| shitco and shitcoin hucksters.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Fair enough, I didn't realize SPACs were effectively an
| end-run around SEC approval & GAAP accounting - and I
| worded too strongly for what was effectively an
| uninformed take.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Burning rep for wealth is kinda an SV trope, though,
| right? It's "fuck you money."
| ftxbro wrote:
| > the people who did the egregious ones mostly knew at the
| time that they were doing a zero sum wealth transfer to
| themselves
|
| sorry we can't all be dirt farmers in USA we got to get that
| bag or we die from medical cost
|
| EDIT: everyone downvoting me knows it is true
| bee_rider wrote:
| Lots of people out there have decent middle class careers
| working in technical roles outside the FOMO-based-startup
| sector.
| mediaman wrote:
| a16z's investment thesis completely centers around finding the
| next bagholder for their investments.
|
| They don't care about building enduring businesses that make
| them a lot of money because the businesses are actually driving
| that much value creation.
|
| They care about creating a hype cycle and dumping before the
| tide goes out and their investments crash on someone else's
| balance sheet.
|
| None of them could get on a podcast and say anything remotely
| rational or intelligent about their crypto investments: it was
| all pump and dump. In one interview, their head of crypto
| investments main value claim was "monetizing the sharing of
| your home wifi," and after some pushback resorted to deference
| to authority by saying the founders they invest in went to the
| right schools and nobody else could understand because "they
| weren't in the room."
|
| These are smart people who couldn't articulate a clear value.
| They obviously didn't believe any of it and just saw an
| opportunity to promote a Dutch tulip mania.
|
| Good fund for con artist "entrepreneurs" though. Same deal for
| Chamath and his SPACs.
|
| There's increasing hesitation among builders to take money from
| funds that have strayed this far from long-term value creation,
| because once they get addicted to short-term pump and dump
| profits and chasing the latest thing, it's hard to go back to
| supporting actual builders.
| EFreethought wrote:
| > resorted to deference to authority by saying the founders
| they invest in went to the right schools and nobody else
| could understand because "they weren't in the room."
|
| Marc Andreeson tried to defend Groupon's use of a non-
| standard accounting metric by saying all the critics didn't
| know what they were talking about because he was "in the
| room" when the decision was made, and the critics were not.
|
| Given how things worked out for Groupon, I think it's fair to
| say that non-standard accounting metrics are non-standard for
| a reason.
|
| That was one of many things that made me skeptical of pmarca
| and a16z.
| misiti3780 wrote:
| > In one interview, their head of crypto investments main
| value claim was "monetizing the sharing of your home wifi,"
| and after some pushback resorted to deference to authority by
| saying the founders they invest in went to the right schools
| and nobody else could understand because "they weren't in the
| room."
|
| Chris Dixon ?
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| _> a16z 's investment thesis completely centers around
| finding the next bagholder for their investments._
|
| To be fair, that's all of VC investment thesis, not just
| a16z. VC is by definition early stage investing, the
| objective being to build up a project enough that it can be
| either IPO'd or sold to a bigger company, providing the
| returns for the next round of early stage investments. a16z
| is nothing unusual there.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| The phrase "the next bagholder" means that it isn't worth
| it.
|
| If, for example, you buy a house with a fucked up
| foundation, fixing and selling it isn't finding the next
| bagholder. Covering it up and selling it ASAP without
| disclosing it is finding the next bagholder.
| kristianc wrote:
| No, the objective is to add value by making it a better
| business. Not to pump it up full of hype so you can palm it
| off on a greater fool.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| > None of them could get on a podcast and say anything
| remotely rational or intelligent
|
| > main value claim was "monetizing the sharing of your home
| wifi,"
|
| Let's see, we have a big stagnant incumbent monopoly, a last-
| mile moat that allows them the monopoly, and a proposed
| strategy for attacking the moat. Most ISPs have a "no-
| sharing" clause, but it isn't difficult to brainstorm
| potential workarounds: seeding connections into high-density
| locations, netflix boxes, even possibly a legislative play in
| a sympathetic area. Of course, the crux is in the execution
| of the workaround, but I'd expect this to have some
| complexity to it and I wouldn't expect a random a16z podcast
| host to necessarily have details at that resolution. I
| certainly wouldn't call them an idiot for not having all the
| details handy.
|
| You seem pretty darn sure that it's a prima-facie idiotic
| idea, however. Can you back that up and explain your
| reasoning? Or are you just not remotely rational or
| intelligent enough to imagine a business that doesn't already
| exist? (See, I can be an asshole too!)
| blairbeckwith wrote:
| Crypto has done absolutely nothing to warrant anything
| beyond the most cursory dismissal.
| snapcaster wrote:
| Darknet markets, political dissident funding, the money
| laundering via mining trick, etc.. All pretty big
| innovations even if you don't like them
| jjoonathan wrote:
| With that attitude, nothing ever would. I'm glad VC
| exists. Without people taking long odds, our world would
| be much poorer.
| kristianc wrote:
| People don't owe crypto a 'good attitude'. The only
| justifiable attitude toward it is a healthy scepticism
| until it proves to be anything more than a glorified pump
| and dump scheme. So far, it hasn't cleared that bar in
| over a decade of trying.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| It's an ISP. They provide internet service and bill
| people for it.
| [deleted]
| sneak wrote:
| This is simply objectively inaccurate, and reflects very
| poorly on the speaker's levels of bias when such false
| claims are parroted.
|
| It's fine to not like cryptocurrency, but don't lie about
| it.
|
| Ransomware would not exist without cryptocurrency: it was
| a major innovation (that subsequently enabled tons of new
| use cases, many of them criminal, some of them not).
| bckr wrote:
| There's something about this comment that's tongue in
| cheek, and something that's earnest, and I cannot
| decipher it
| ABeeSea wrote:
| Reminds me of this tweet[0]:
|
| >Sick of people calling everything in crypto a Ponzi
| scheme. Some crypto projects are pump and dump schemes,
| while others are pyramid schemes. Others are just
| standard issue fraud. Others are just middlemen skimming
| of the top. Stop glossing over the diversity in the
| industry.
|
| [0]
| https://twitter.com/patdennis/status/1518637225789042688
| xk_id wrote:
| Embarrassing to post nonsense like this in 2023.
| freejazz wrote:
| > Or are you just not remotely rational or intelligent
| enough to imagine a business that doesn't already exist?
| (See, I can be an asshole too!)
|
| Weird how you accuse someone of being "not remotely
| rational" yet you seem to completely reject the idea of
| reasonability
| popcorncowboy wrote:
| > a16z's investment thesis completely centers around finding
| the next bagholder for their investments.
|
| Boom, yes, this. I think a big part of the (for lack of a
| better phrase) butt-hurt the best of HN feels towards a16z is
| summed up by the Obi-wan scene where he's screaming at Anakin
| about how he was supposed to be the chosen one blah blah
| you've hurt my feelings because I truly believed you could
| have been something you are clearly not etc.
|
| In reality, a16z are shrewd, smart operators, and it's a
| valid, scary effective investment thesis to be able to push
| waves higher due to your own gravitas. If you had the
| Buffet/Elon effect (genuine ability to move markets) and
| could, why wouldn't you trade on it?
|
| The "they were the best of us and now look at them" is a sad,
| hard reality lesson for anyone feeling it, and utterly
| irrelevant to a16z.
| CPLX wrote:
| > If you had the Buffet/Elon effect (genuine ability to
| move markets) and could, why wouldn't you trade on it?
|
| Because trading on it to extract other people's money as
| part of fraudulent schemes will destroy your reputation.
|
| The only reason to do it is if you feel your reputation is
| unearned and worthless and this is the best thing you can
| do with it.
|
| There are definitely other ways to make a living.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| The only reputation that matters is the reputation of
| making money.
|
| That's the _only_ business investment firms have ever
| been in. To believe otherwise is naivete.
| CPLX wrote:
| Clearly that's not correct.
|
| A reputation for making money _unfairly, and at the
| expense of others_ is, and has always been, extremely
| relevant to your ability to convince other people to do
| business with you.
| wslh wrote:
| If you know you will receive your cut as LP you don't
| care while you are not the defraud one.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Yeah. That's why hedge funds and private equity in
| general went out of business 40 years ago.
|
| Seriously. As someone that grew up in the 80s and watched
| how Milton Friedman's id was unleashed, and continues to
| run rampant today, there's little evidence to support
| your thesis.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _only reputation that matters is the reputation of
| making money_
|
| Within this context, totally agree. It's where a16z has
| failed: its returns are subpar. The other failures flow
| from that.
| pigscantfly wrote:
| Just curious, are there any sources you could share on
| that? Or is this the kind of intel you need to be in the
| really, really in-crowd for in order to know what's
| really going on?
|
| [Edit]: Can't reply that deep in the thread, but thanks
| for the insight!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _are there any sources you could share on that_
|
| a16z started lagging in 2016 [1]. That led to the crypto
| fund in 2018 [2] and registering as an investment adviser
| in 2019 [3]. The '18 crypto fund did well [4], so they
| quadrupled down on the crack pipe and returned to form
| [5].
|
| [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/andreessen-horowitzs-
| returns-tr...
|
| [2] https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/25/andreessen-
| horowitz-has-a-...
|
| [3] https://www.thestreet.com/investing/cryptocurrency/an
| dreesen...
|
| [4] https://www.theinformation.com/briefings/a16zs-first-
| crypto-...
|
| [4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/andreessen-horowitz-
| went-all-in...
| moron4hire wrote:
| "Here lies Jonathan Koren. He made a lot of money."
|
| No, this Gordon Gecko philosophy is why the 2010s were a
| cultural wasteland.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a16z are shrewd, smart operators...if you had the Buffet
| /Elon effect (genuine ability to move markets) and could,
| why wouldn't you trade on it_
|
| Because you want to keep it. a16z's returns have been
| bottom-tier for a while. It's partly why they switched
| models from VC to retail asset manager. (The other part was
| to trade crypto.) That lack of returns translates to a lack
| of carry, which corrodes one's ability to attract and
| retain talent. It's a doom loop they've been floundering in
| for at least half a decade.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You know that "don't anthropomorphize the lawn mower" bit
| about Larry Ellison and Oracle? Same story different org.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5170246
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=33m
| gcanyon wrote:
| I'll never forget when I was at HBO in the '90s (large
| Oracle shop at the time) and we were trying to figure out
| an Oracle product. I wasn't core to the effort; I was
| just trying to help, since the people smarter than I was
| were completely stuck.
|
| So I asked for the install cd. I figured I could install
| the product in question (Oracle Forms? It's been too long
| and I barely remember) and poke around, and maybe a
| beginner's eyes would see something the masters missed.
|
| I stuck the cd in my computer and clicked the installer.
| It asked which install file I wanted to execute. There's
| more than one? Yep, several. And not all in one folder,
| clearly labeled. They were in several different places on
| the cd, and named things like x39usethis21 and
| yz2nousethis982. It was a completely garbage experience.
|
| And to be clear, this wasn't some hand-crafted one-off.
| This was a silk-screened, mass-produced, official Oracle
| product.
|
| So I went to the documentation, also on the cd. It wasn't
| in text files, or even standard html files -- there was a
| special documentation reader application, because of
| course there was -- even though the files were obviously
| (nearly) standard html. And again, the documentation app
| wanted to know what file to start with, and the doc files
| weren't well organized, and didn't have an obvious
| starting place. So I opened the most likely candidate,
| which turned out to _not_ be the documentation root. But
| it did have a menu of links, and there was one that was
| labeled "index" or "start here" or something.
|
| I clicked the link and got a 404. Double-check: yes, it's
| pointing to a location on the cd, just not one where
| there's a file.
|
| There's more to the story, but the above pattern
| continued throughout. And the experts never got the tool
| to work, after months of trying, with Oracle consulting
| on speed-dial.
|
| This confirmed what I've described since the '80s as
| Canyon's Law of Inverse Usability: the price of a product
| and the usability of that product tend to correlate
| inversely.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| I also discovered that law. Sometimes I've even declared,
| "This software really sucks. We must be paying $200,000 a
| year for this."
| cdme wrote:
| It's still a thing with Oracle. I worked at a large music
| retailer running on ATG/Oracle commerce and I don't think
| I ever saw documentation on how any of it worked.
|
| The folks on the backend had it running and, if they were
| out, you were SOL. It was 7+ sites running out of a ~10
| year old code base with an alarming amount of technical
| debt. I'm sure it wasn't cheap.
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| I think a16z and other SV companies got rich by being lucky in
| their investments in a low interest rates environment. Maybe
| they then bought into their own hype, or they've trapped
| themselves in overpromises to the people they've raised money
| from, and that's why they're now pumping crypto. They have no
| other options.
|
| I'm curious to see what happens in the next couple of years and
| which big VC firms will remain given the current economy...
| pcbro141 wrote:
| You don't have to be a believer in a16z to find this list of AI
| resources useful.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _don 't have to be a believer in a16z to find this list of
| AI resources useful_
|
| One wonders why the authors published with them, as well as
| what down-round portfolio company a16z are using this to
| shill.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| I doubt there are any down-round AI portfolio companies
| right now. It's too hot.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| It's a list of links to websites. Not a journal or book.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bowsamic wrote:
| Also not a fan after one of their members went on twitter
| saying that all non STEM education should be eradicated
| hackernoteng wrote:
| You should never be a "believer" or trust ANY VC. They are
| blood suckers who only want to make 10x their money
| seizethecheese wrote:
| And are willing to fund 9 failures... nobody else will do
| that and it's impossible without gunning for the 10x return.
| snewman wrote:
| This is oversimplified at best. Not all VCs are created
| equal. A broad-brush characterization like this removes any
| incentive for VCs to behave well (if everyone will assume the
| worst of you, why bother trying to build a good reputation),
| and discourages entrepreneurs from vetting their investors
| (why bother, if they're all equally bad).
| rvz wrote:
| They don't care.
|
| The goal for all VCs is to make large returns from
| startups, Otherwise they underperform. VCs know that 90% of
| these startups fail and will make sure that they are highly
| unlikely to lose. Even if it means dumping on retail at
| higher prices via selling SAFEs in 'crowdfunding
| campaigns'.
| alanpage wrote:
| And why should we trust their judgement about anything, after
| they put money into Adam Neuman's new company (after the WeWork
| debacle)?
|
| CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/15/a16z-to-invest-in-adam-
| neuma...
| rchaud wrote:
| The article linked in the OP is mostly a list of other links
| you can visit to learn about the types of AI that are coming to
| market, and some background. Those links are not authored by
| A16z themselves.
|
| I generally would not read anything authored by A16Z partners,
| those just feel like bad inspirational speeches authored by
| Thomas Friedman.
| pseudostem wrote:
| A thousand times echoing your sentiment, everyone on this
| thread seems dismissive, but the webpage linked carries some
| links which I would want to come back to later.
|
| If the source itself is a problem, we wouldn't want to listen
| to anyone for some reason or another.
| teej wrote:
| Adam Neuman, with support from a16z, has an excellent track
| record returning capital to Americans while leaving Chinese &
| Saudi investors to hold the bag. That is why they invested.
| nologic01 wrote:
| Nvidia is 25% up on "AI guidance", a16z publishes "AI Canon".
|
| Its settled -> AI is the new crypto
| boringg wrote:
| Anyone else feel like we've seen peak A16z at this point?
| EFreethought wrote:
| Or is it nadir a16z?
| boringg wrote:
| max or min -- good question.
| dbs wrote:
| I was quite surprised to see Sequoia getting involved in crypto
| fiascos.
|
| My data sample is very small but I have a pretty good track
| record of shifting career focus in the last 20 years. In
| particular, 2000 and 2008 were two HUGE shifts for me as the
| writing was on the wall before crisis hit. Common theme to drive
| change: too much competition. I jumped out from areas where there
| was still tremendous growth to be seen but no serious money to be
| done.
|
| I'm calling a third.
| gist wrote:
| Pompous to use the word 'canon' to describe what amounts to a
| bunch of links and thoughts/opinions. Implies the authors of the
| various articles are the authoritative source/experts to which
| there is no point disagreeing.
| uptownfunk wrote:
| Wow, why so much hate against a16z. There's a really funny clip
| about Marc on the Rogan podcast where he is like "I have to come
| on Rogan, there's so much clout" or something to that effect.
| Rogan was immediately like "igghh".
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Getting whiplash from the 90 degree handbrake turn the crypto
| grifters have taken into being AI grifters.
| foobarbecue wrote:
| Yeah. What's the next grift? Maybe quantum computing?
| mirekrusin wrote:
| Why everybody (including this a16z dude) underestimates/not
| mentions:
|
| 1. quality of input data - for language models that are currently
| setup to be force-fed with any incoming data instead of real
| training (see 2.) this is the greatest gain you can get for your
| money - models can't distinguish between truth and nonsense,
| they're forced to follow training data auto-completion regardless
| of how stupid or sane it is
|
| 2. evaluation of input data by the model itself - self evaluating
| what is nonsense during training and what makes sense/is worthy
| of learning - based on so far gathered knowledge, dealing with
| biases in this area etc.
|
| Current training methods equate things like first order logic
| with any kind of nonsense - having on its defense only quantity,
| not quality.
|
| But there are many widely repeated things that are plainly wrong.
| Simplifying this thought - if there weren't, there would be no
| further progress in human kind. We constantly reexamine
| assumptions and come up with new theories leaving solid axioms
| untouched - why not teach this approach/hardcode it into LLMs?
|
| Those two aspects seem to be problems with large gains, yet
| nobody seems to be discussing them.
|
| Align training towards common/self sense, good/own judgement, not
| unconditional alignment towards input data.
|
| If fine-tuning works, why not start training with first
| principles - dictionary, logic, base theories like sets,
| categories, encyclopedia of facts (omitting historic facts which
| are irrelevant at this stage) etc. - taking snapshots at each
| stage so others can fork their own training trees. Maybe even
| stop calling fine-tuning fine-tuning, just learning stages. Let
| researchers play with paths on those trees and evaluate them to
| find something more optimal, find optimal network sizes for each
| step, allow models to gradually grow in size etc.
|
| To rephrase it a bit - we're saying that base models learned on
| large data work well when fine tuned - why not base models
| trained on first principles can continue to be trained on
| concepts that depend on previously learned first principles
| recursively are efficient - did anybody try?
|
| As some concrete example - you want LLM to be good at math?
| Tokenize digits, teach it to do base-10 math, teach it to do
| addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation,
| all known math basic operations/functions, then grow from that.
|
| You want it to do good code completion? Teach it bnf, parsing,
| ast, interpreting, then code examples with simple output, then
| more complex code (github stuff).
|
| Learning LLMs should start with teaching tiny model ASCII,
| numbers, basic ops on them, then slowly introducing words instead
| of symbols (is instead of =) etc., then forming basic phrases,
| then basic sentences, basic language grammar, etc. - everything
| in software 2.0 way - just throw in examples that have expected
| output and do back-propagation/gradient descent on it.
|
| Training has to have a way of gradually growing model size in
| (ideally) optimal way.
| moinnadeem wrote:
| I would hold skepticism for the moment.
|
| I know the authors from the blog post quite well. Say what you
| will about the firm, but one of the authors have been investing
| in machine learning since 2016, and another has a PhD in CS
| (including a SIGCOMM test of time award!)
|
| I come from a strong ML background (multiple publications, PhD
| dropout), I would say that the canon is actually quite good.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Medium matters. Anyone making public statements should
| understand as much.
| gist wrote:
| > and another has a PhD in CS
|
| Sorry to say but 'big deal'.
|
| > one of the authors have been investing in machine learning
| since 2016
|
| Ditto.
|
| I have been doing something (in another field) since the mid
| 90's. I would say most people would consider me an expert. I
| get referrals for what I do from 'top' people investors in
| tech. I also went to what most would consider 'a top college'.
| I would never want to be positioned as being right or expert
| because of the amount of time I spent doing something or the
| college that I went to, or who trusts me, but actual things
| that I have done that point to my expertise (not a halo of some
| type).
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| I agree with both you and the commenters roasting a16z, tbh.
| davidhunter wrote:
| I hope Tyler Cowen can ask Marc Andreessen how AI works so that
| we can all learn something from the master
| dpflan wrote:
| Who is the master on how AI works?
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| I think this is referencing an interview where Tyler Cowen
| interviewed Andreessen and asked him directly about the true
| value of crypto and use cases and the response was...
| lackluster (imo).
|
| https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/marc-andreessen/
| dpflan wrote:
| The original comments seems sarcastic now. The answer that
| stands out here and is really the only answer from MA is:
| "Money". Whoever has the most tokens and those tokens
| increase in perceived value, benefits because they sell
| their tokens. It's not those little micropayments to
| podcaster (which are possible myriad ways without tokens);
| its the market forces driving up token price on tokens that
| were obtained at $0.00 by early investors...So they found a
| lucrative business of dumping tokens, that really seems all
| that web3 became. I will always cherish knowing about the
| Axie Infinity situation and crazy explanations for why that
| business model was the future!
| zxienin wrote:
| Looking at the content list, all I need now is Brain - AI
| interface that "uploads" all of it to my brain neural net.
|
| </cheeky>
| personjerry wrote:
| Nice, later this afternoon I'll have ChatGPT read these and
| summarize them for me
| CharlesW wrote:
| How do you think they wrote it? (Reminds me of this:
| https://marketoonist.com/2023/03/ai-written-ai-read.html)
| sharemywin wrote:
| Build AI or just invest in chip makers?
|
| https://a16z.com/2023/01/19/who-owns-the-generative-ai-platf...
|
| Over the last year, we've met with dozens of startup founders and
| operators in large companies who deal directly with generative
| AI. We've observed that infrastructure vendors are likely the
| biggest winners in this market so far, capturing the majority of
| dollars flowing through the stack. Application companies are
| growing topline revenues very quickly but often struggle with
| retention, product differentiation, and gross margins. And most
| model providers, though responsible for the very existence of
| this market, haven't yet achieved large commercial scale.
|
| In other words, the companies creating the most value -- i.e.
| training generative AI models and applying them in new apps --
| haven't captured most of it
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Would love to learn how a16z measures who is 'creating the most
| value.' My guess? Vibes and a conflation of "customer facing"
| and "value creation."
|
| And I would disagree - the chipmakers have produced most of the
| value and are reaping massive rewards right now. Certainly, the
| new LLM wrappers are not the value creators.
| sharemywin wrote:
| the value creators are all the researchers that have invested
| untold hours into designing the models and collecting the
| data.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I think both those researchers and the researchers who did
| the same but with chip design are "value creators"
| gtirloni wrote:
| Selling shovels continues to be profitable.
| lwneal wrote:
| This is a fine list, but it only covers a specific type of
| generative AI. Any set of resources about AI in general has to at
| least include the truly canonical Norvig & Russel textbook [1].
|
| Probably also canonical are Goodfellow's Deep Learning [2],
| Koller & Friedman's PGMs [3], the Krizhevsky ImageNet paper [4],
| the original GAN [5], and arguably also the AlphaGo paper [6] and
| the Atari DQN paper [7].
|
| [1] https://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/
|
| [2] https://www.deeplearningbook.org/
|
| [3] https://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Graphical-Models-
| Princi...
|
| [4]
| https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2012/file/c...
|
| [5] https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661
|
| [6] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature16961
|
| [7] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14236
| hintymad wrote:
| The sad truth is that people nowadays can't even pass through a
| 15-minute podcast without checking out their Twitter feed
| multiple times. So, I'm not sure how many people would read
| through a 800-page textbook.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Well, there is a trick to reading a lot: don't live for the
| thrill of finally finishing a book or a paper. Instead enjoy
| the process of reading and understanding every paragraph.
| javajosh wrote:
| I think you'll find that the "screen brain" effect dissipates
| after about 20 minutes of discomfort. I've noticed this
| effect with novels and text books.
|
| Note that I don't think it's a great idea to just "read
| through" an 800 page text book even if you can - you've got
| to do exercises and check your own knowledge or else you will
| be spinning your wheels.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| These hucksters have found the next thing to latch on to, I see.
| seydor wrote:
| > Research in artificial intelligence is increasing at an
| exponential rate.
|
| but then most of the list is transformers & stablediffusion.
|
| Anyway, oobabooga and automatic1111 are doing more to spread AI
| than many of those papers.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| From the people who bought you web3. Look where the crowd is
| going, run to the front and shout "Follow me!".
| xpe wrote:
| > Research in artificial intelligence is increasing at an
| exponential rate.
|
| Probably in the blundering sense of "exponential", meaning _a
| lot_. But what are some specific numbers? (such as publications)
| esafak wrote:
| See _stat.ML_ in
| https://tableau.cornell.edu/t/PublicContent/views/arXivSubmi...
|
| via
| https://info.arxiv.org/about/reports/submission_category_by_...
| marcosdumay wrote:
| So, it's not even monotonically growing.
| dplavery92 wrote:
| Eh, it's a little tricky. A lot of research marketed under
| the "AI" umbrella would be categorized under cs.LG
| (https://arxiv.org/list/cs.LG/recent), cs.CV
| (https://arxiv.org/list/cs.CV/recent), cs.CL
| (https://arxiv.org/list/cs.CL/recent), and to a lesser
| degree cs.NE (https://arxiv.org/list/cs.NE/recent). Oh, and
| of course, cs.AI (https://arxiv.org/list/cs.AI/recent). Not
| every one of those areas has grown monotonically, but the
| growth in CV and CL especially has been explosive over the
| last ten years.
| cubefox wrote:
| No recent data seems to be available.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-artificial-intelli...
|
| Edit - Arxiv ML publications double every 23 months:
| https://twitter.com/MarioKrenn6240/status/131462299513926451...
| dpflan wrote:
| Looking at the authors, was this created by experts in AI? Is it
| sufficient to truly be a `canon`?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Doesn't seem like it to me and it skews very non-technical, but
| I can vouch for some of the sources they link - Sasha Rush's
| Annotated Transformer is great
|
| If I were to give a critique, it seems too skewed towards
| things business/product people would find interesting that
| aren't actually all that impactful (Tesla's self-driving, for
| instance) and also seems skewed to things I see in certain SF
| twitter bubbles.
|
| Directly linking lesswrong posts also seems a bit... cringe-y
| for a VC.
| natural219 wrote:
| Seems like a good list, I enjoyed the comic explainer of stable
| diffusion and learned a thing. Thank you to the authors and a16z
| for publishing this :).
| ryanSrich wrote:
| Looking at these comments, I can't think of another VC that has
| burned as much goodwill among technical people as a16z has. Don't
| get me wrong, it's well deserved, but it's just surprising how
| universal it seems to be (at least in this thread).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| e: Removing because I think this is distracting from the main
| conversation & potentially flamebait.
| cguess wrote:
| a16z have always been sleazy, and their entire crypto/NFT run
| just proved it further. Their hook towards AI the moment the
| NFT/Crypto market started crashing shows how little they
| believe their own bullshit. I don't have a problem with
| people getting wealthy, I have a problem with a16z because
| they did it by pushing crypto scams on normal, everyday,
| people by convincing the world it was the future while
| knowing full well it was shit all the way down.
|
| Now they're trying to to do it again. AI is important, but
| it's simply not the "all things will be different in six
| week, so invest now or get left behind!" that they're doing.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| It's so easy to throw out meta-commentary and to
| pscyholigize[1] people based on a single prompt that you then
| don't even have to defend ("people are reading this as more
| of a[...]"). Oh, were a16z good or bad, or neutral? Uh,
| doesn't matter as long as I get to express my little pet-
| peeve.
|
| [1] Using "ressentiment" is on the level of accusing someone
| of having father/mother issues (the Freud variant).
| digging wrote:
| That seems unrelated to the issue at hand, which is that
| people have specific grievances with a16z
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I don't deny that, what I am saying is that a broader
| 'grievance culture' has arisen in HN that previously was
| much more muted.
| rchaud wrote:
| Have a look at HN threads on topics like corporate
| diversity, women in tech, or H1B visas.
|
| One man's 'objective critique' is going to be another
| man's 'grievance culture'.
|
| In any case, A16z attracts more dislike because their
| image is that of influencers and hype men. You won't see
| the same dislike of Kleiner Perkins or others because
| they keep a low public profile.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| Why do you think that is ?
| jfoster wrote:
| I wouldn't say you're entirely wrong about that trend, but
| that is clearly not why a16z is facing criticism here.
|
| What is large or successful about their crypto currency, web3
| or nft endeavors?
| solarkraft wrote:
| I've been here for a few years longer than that and haven't
| observed that trend. Feels like it's always been that way to
| me.
|
| Seems to me like it goes all the way back to that Dropbox
| comment.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I was thinking about the Dropbox comment actually as
| emblematic of the sort of current I was thinking of, but
| one that I perceive as growing larger.
|
| It might be bias on my part - I work in deep NLP and maybe
| I'm just feeling the heat there for the first time.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Speaking as someone who worked for FB for five years, it
| really sucks when people seem to hate the thing that
| you're in to.
| rchaud wrote:
| Why should that matter? They are not addressing you
| personally.
|
| Look at all the negative posts about Google, Youtube and
| ads. Do you think the adtech engineer visitng HN cares
| one iota?
| sanxiyn wrote:
| They do. (Source: talked to Google adtech engineers.)
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Dunno, all I was saying is that it was more difficult for
| me than a regular visit to HN. It actually made me a
| _lot_ more sceptical of the average commenter on things I
| didn't know anything about.
| akira2501 wrote:
| My take is the opposite. Hacker News has turned increasingly
| away from Hackers and more towards Marketing. Understandably,
| some of us resent the apparent astrotufing of this site and
| react accordingly.
| jhp123 wrote:
| I'm inclined to agree that the vibe has shifted a bit. HN
| users have always shown a lot of hostility towards certain
| groups, like journalists, politicians and financiers. VCs,
| founders and tech executives were more often seen as part of
| the in-group. I think the explanation is simple: many HN
| users are tech employees, and they've had a rude awakening
| with recent layoffs as to who is the master and who the
| slave.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| Wouldn't a more reasonable explanation be that a16z destroyed
| their brand through years of questionable investments,
| excessive hype, cringe inducing behavior and being very
| obnoxious, very publicly. Also not a fan of their push to
| "American Exceptionalism" aka weapons dealing and mass
| surveillance.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Sure, except for the fact that I see this same trend of
| very young accounts making very negative comments for any
| sort of successful new tech trend.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| I don't think anyone here is commenting on the AI trend,
| they're commenting on a16z.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The point is a16z is wholly unqualified to offer
| commentary on AI. The authors are qualified. But I'm
| immediately sceptical given their choice of affiliation.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Right, I am making a comment about the overall tenor of
| the website, which requires looking at multiple threads.
|
| You're saying "No, they just really hate a16z" and I'm
| saying huh, it is interesting that all of the threads on
| new technology, whether it is LLMs or crypto or whatever,
| tend to have people who "really hate [xyz]".
|
| Honestly, it speaks to the magnitude of the LLM
| breakthrough that HN is at least mixed on that topic.
| bluefishinit wrote:
| Fwiw I'm a huge fan of LLMs and not a fan at all of a16z
| for the reasons I stated. I think you're reading too much
| into _this_ thread.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| If you actually joined the website 13 days ago though,
| I'm not sure if you are really in a position to evaluate
| the shift in culture over years timespan?
| criley2 wrote:
| Lot of talking down to new users coming from a 3 year old
| account on a website that's been up for 15+ years.
|
| This site would be better if users like you read and
| followed their own advice.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I'm not talking down, in fact I think it is likely they
| have either been lurking for much longer than they've had
| an account or this is not their first account. That's the
| case for me, for instance.
|
| There's no higher "status" or anything to be gained on
| how long you spend on this silly site, I just think it is
| relevant to the specific conversation.
| natural219 wrote:
| That's the point lol. Hacker news guidelines clearly
| state... _sigh_ whatever
| superzamp wrote:
| Now that we have good language models, it would be great to
| see what would a quantitative analysis of this perceived
| increase in ressentiment actually lands as results. I lean on
| agreeing with your comment, but also curious to see if we're
| both hallucinating.
| [deleted]
| bsder wrote:
| Crypto. Folks like Andreesen pissed off all sides.
|
| The "crypto true believers" are pissed off because they got
| extracted like the pyramid scheme players they were. The
| "crypto is a scam" people are pissed off because it was bloody
| obvious that it was a pyramid scheme and these people are
| getting off scot free while the plebians take it in the shorts.
| And the crypto pyramid players got pissed because the big boys
| have the money to extract the payout better than they do.
| zht wrote:
| not to mention a glance at Andreessen's Twitter reveals someone
| who is deeply confused about almost everything, with a
| confidence that I can't seem to figure out the origin of
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| It's because Andreessen is the HN reader's ideal VC, on paper.
| He is (was?) highly technical, he built a very successful
| product with Netscape. He also came of age during the first
| tech bubble and in theory should be able to see through the BS.
|
| Yet nearly every public statement he's made since becoming a
| full-time VC has been about pumping the worst companies and
| claiming they're the future. Airbnb, WeWork, a metric f'ton of
| crypto startups.
|
| It's almost painful watching the inventor of Netscape trying to
| postulate to Tyler Cowen how Web3 is the new internet:
|
| https://twitter.com/liron/status/1537186589486460928
| CSMastermind wrote:
| Not to take anything away from Netscape, I do think there was
| interesting technical things happening with that browser, but
| the company never made money.
|
| I would go as far as to say their 'real' product was an
| avenue to attack Microsoft - not the browser they made.
|
| They got a lot of money by positioning themselves as an anti-
| Microsoft vector, had a huge IPO as an unprofitable company
| during the dot com boom, successfully entrapped Microsoft in
| an anti-trust case, then got acquired by AOL.
|
| Of course I'm not a billionaire and I don't doubt it took a
| lot of skill to earn that money. I'm just not sure those are
| the same skills you need to build a profitable business or
| useful product.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| They probably would have made money in the medium term, but
| MS gave their browser away for free. The empire strikes
| back.
| [deleted]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| SoftBank. Tiger. There are investors with negative brand value;
| take their money, but expect it to make future fundraising and
| business harder.
| ryanSrich wrote:
| I think this is going a bit too far. Not a single other VC is
| going to look at you negatively for raising from a16z.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Not a single other VC is going to look at you negatively
| for raising from a16z_
|
| Have seen it directly. Not automatic dismissal. But
| dismissing the valuation, which puts a founder in down-
| round territory out of the gate. (Also, questions about
| naivete.) We saw similar issues with SoftBank when they
| were in the late stages of their reputational shredder.
|
| It's similar to the crowdfunding penalty. Is it money?
| Sure. Does it impact going-forward fundraising prospects?
| Of course.
| akiselev wrote:
| Don't forget Sequoia Capital now too, after the SBF fiasco
| [1]. Though maybe their reputation hasn't quite reached the
| gutter yet.
|
| [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20221109050305/https://www.se
| quo...
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Is there any large VC shop left with their reputation
| intact?
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Accel
| pharmakom wrote:
| Balderton
| derwiki wrote:
| Kleiner, Khosla?
| [deleted]
| Keyframe wrote:
| > Kholsa?
|
| Martins beach
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Don 't forget Sequoia Capital now too, after the SBF
| fiasco_
|
| Single fiascos rarely tank brands.
|
| Sequoia still has a braintrust that makes it profitable to
| associate with. Andreessen is increasingly a refuge for
| those who have no other choice, are in on the grift or are
| being grifted.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Sequoia still has a braintrust that makes it
| profitable to associate with._
|
| That's why this single fiasco is so damaging: the
| braintrust has proven to be a farcical joke. The guy was
| playing video games while on their funding calls and they
| called it "genius." Zero due diligence, just brown
| nosing.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why this single fiasco is so damaging: the braintrust
| has proven to be a farcical joke. The guy was playing
| video games while on their funding calls and they called
| it "genius."_
|
| Sequoia balance their SBFs with solid, profitable bets.
| That means they can keep raising funds, keep paying out
| carry, and through both of those maintain staying power.
| I don't love reducing this to economics, but at the end
| of the day if you can't pay your LPs, you can't pay your
| GPs, and when you have second-rate GPs you're going to
| wind up with second-rate founders. Sequoia brings home
| the bacon. Andreessen lives on management fees.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> Sequoia balance their SBFs with solid, profitable
| bets._
|
| SBF was such a bad bet with so little due diligence that
| I don't think this is going to be true going forward and
| probably hasn't been for a while. They were running on
| zero interest rates and brand momentum so let's see how
| much money their next fund returns.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _were running on zero interest rates and brand momentum
| so let 's see how much money their next fund returns_
|
| "Let's see" means they're still in the game. Anyone might
| stumble in the future. The difference between Sequoia and
| a16z is Sequoia might stumble, a16z already has.
| akiselev wrote:
| You're just moving the goal posts. Sequoia has already
| stumbled.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _You 're just moving the goal posts. Sequoia has
| already stumbled._
|
| The goal post is and always has been returns. I've been
| consistent on that [1].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36074612
| kvetching wrote:
| perfect timing i was just prescribed vyvanse + adderall
| yellow_postit wrote:
| I'd buy a copy of these all bound into a nice book as a point in
| time in the industry collectible.
| WoahNoun wrote:
| It's just a list of links with no real substance. Don't they have
| some crypto scams to attend to?
| lucasmullens wrote:
| The links are the substance. Do you see no value in compiling a
| list of resources? They also explain why each article was
| included which helps quite a bit.
| orsenthil wrote:
| Usually this is written as awesome- list in a github repo.
| Imnimo wrote:
| The trick here is that they get to put their own think pieces
| alongside actually influential work and pretend like the two
| deserve to share a stage.
| rdli wrote:
| I was an early member of the CNCF community (circa 2016), and at
| the time I thought "wow things are moving quickly." Lots of
| different tech was being introduced to solve similar problems --
| I distinctly remember multiple ways of templating K8S YAML :-).
|
| Now that I'm spending time learning AI, it feels the same -- but
| the innovation pace feels at least 10x faster than the evolution
| of the cloud native ecosystem.
|
| At this point, there's a reasonable degree of convergence around
| the core abstractions you should start with in the cloud-native
| world, and an article written today on this would probably be
| fine a year from now. I doubt this is the case in AI.
|
| (Caveat: I've only been learning about the space for about 4
| weeks, so maybe it's just me!)
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > At this point, there's a reasonable degree of convergence
| around the core abstractions you should start with in the
| cloud-native world, and an article written today on this would
| probably be fine a year from now. I doubt this is the case in
| AI.
|
| It's a continuous process. It is way, way, way better than it
| was 8 years ago. Most of the frameworks can export models
| between each other/delta some layers, ONNX actually largely
| kinda works.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Also 4 weeksish in. I am not a good future seer.
|
| I tried learning ML years ago but got bored. Not even stable
| diffusion budged me to even look at it again.
|
| But ChatGPT?!! Hell yeah I am motivated now! I will not be
| ashamed to say I am jumping on the bandwagon!
|
| More seriously I want to at least deeply understand the tech
| that will change our lives.
| ssn wrote:
| Hope this is an "in progress" article.
|
| Not a single resource or pointer mentioning "ethics"?
| zeroxfe wrote:
| > Andrej Karpathy was one of the first to clearly explain (in
| 2017!) why the new AI wave really matters.
|
| Geoff Hilton had been saying this well before 2017. I remember
| his talks at Google ~2013ish.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Schmidthuber did it in the 90s too, probably.
| etiam wrote:
| Or 2007
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=90154
| king_magic wrote:
| It's almost offensive how this "AI Canon" leaves out landmark AI
| results from... what, before the 2020s? (or 2017, I suppose)
| Honestly reads like something generated by ChatGPT.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| A16Z: Friendship ended with Blockchain. Now AI is my best friend.
|
| What's the last investment A16Z was actually ahead of the curve
| on? I guess it isn't important, since from their position, they
| don't rely on being ahead of the curve in order to make good
| investments, they make their investments good through their
| network and funding abilities.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Yes, this is how money is made in finance.
|
| Outside of the major market makers, every financial firm is
| desperately trying to flee anything with any semblance of
| public liquidity because they can't beat the market makers &
| John Q Public without insider trading.
|
| Private tech firms are a great way to flee liquidity.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| The early investors still always make bank. A 5x is nice.
|
| >By Q1 this year, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz's
| (a16z) flagship crypto fund had returned almost five times for
| early backers, according to documents reviewed by Semafor. The
| firm sold a portion of its tokens right before crypto's bear
| market began in May, meaning that early investors are
| guaranteed a successful return.
|
| https://protos.com/the-crypto-bets-of-a16z-crumble-early-inv...
|
| I'm reminded from one of my favorite quotes from Margin Call,
| one of my favorite movies. He's talking about the big Goldman-
| esque firm they work for, but it applies here too.
|
| "I've been at this company for 10 years, and I've seen things
| you wouldn't believe. When all is said and done, they do not
| lose money. They don't mind if everybody else does, but they
| don't lose."
| mtremsal wrote:
| From the same movie, another quote that applies to VC
| trendsetting as a business model:
|
| "There are three ways to make a living in this business: be
| first; be smarter; or cheat. Now, I don't cheat. And although
| I like to think we have some pretty smart people in this
| building, it sure is a hell of a lot easier to just be
| first."
|
| Not sure about cheating being off-limit given the crypto
| debacle...
| jhp123 wrote:
| If you click the domain on this submission, you'll see loads of
| articles from a16z on the topic of generative AI.
|
| Click back a couple years and you'll find this page:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=a16z.com&next=2981684...
| with submissions like "DAOs, a Canon"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29440901
| rchaud wrote:
| Lest we forget, here is their piece de resistance, dripping
| with VC gravitas, about the role of tech in the midst of the
| covid crisis: "It's Time To Build" [0]
|
| What did they end up investing in? NFTs and shitcoins.
|
| [0] https://a16z.com/2020/04/18/its-time-to-build/
| BLanen wrote:
| That's because we need to cut taxes to incentivize these
| geniuses of industry to make actual things!
| toolz wrote:
| I'll take JPEG monkeys over perpetual war funding any day
| of the week.
| throw_pm23 wrote:
| The fallacy of the excluded middle, also known as a
| "false dilemma" or "false dichotomy", is what happens
| when two options are presented as being the only
| possibilities when, in fact, there may be other options
| that exist.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _What did they end up investing in? NFTs and shitcoins._
|
| Believe their cryptocurrency/defi/web3 fund is aloof from the
| main fund?
| the-grump wrote:
| Another twist: Billionaire Marc 'It's Time to Build'
| Andreesen Is a NIMBY
|
| Link: https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7bbd9/billionaire-
| marc-its-...
| rchaud wrote:
| Par for the course for the super-rich.
| cdme wrote:
| Steph Curry is as well despite his progressive public image
| (he's also got FTX entanglements)
| fhub wrote:
| I think his objections were valid "taller fencing and
| landscaping to block sight lines onto our family's
| property."
|
| I would hate to be a celebrity and have people recording
| me all the time, especially at home.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| TBF, the roll of a VC isn't to be on the cutting edge of
| science, but rather business, and generative AI is very new
| business, even if it isn't very new science.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > if it isn't very new science
|
| it's pretty new "science." at least last 8 years or so
| pvarangot wrote:
| https://archive.org/details/matrix_201703
| totetsu wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I remember it being talked about on the tv
| show 'beyond 2000' in the 90s
| [deleted]
| whimsicalism wrote:
| generative AI?
| peyton wrote:
| It's at least 40 years old. Think Gibbs sampling was
| invented the 1980s
| nightski wrote:
| Honestly the links in the article are really good whether you
| hate a16z or not.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| Well, that is a good list. I would guess that I have only
| previously read the content from about 15% of the links, oh well!
|
| Like everyone else, starting about a year and a half ago I have
| found it really difficult to stay up to date.
|
| I try to dive deep on a narrow topic for several months and then
| move on.
|
| I am just wrapping up a dive into GPT+LangChain+LlamaIndex
| applications. I am now preparing to drop most follows on social
| media for GPT+LangChain+LlamaIndex and try to find good people
| and companies to follow for LLM+Knowledge Graphs (something I
| tried 3 years ago, but the field was too new).
|
| I find that when I want to dive into something new the best
| starting point is finding the right people who post links to the
| best new papers, etc.
| par wrote:
| It's a good resource but I hardly think a16z is the team to host
| the 'AI Canon'.
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