Indeed. In several remote ethnographic studies I did for organisations in the past year, few people are overly impressed with LLM tools and the common sentiment was "Too early. Maybe later." There is an increasing weariness with tech hype. These AI companies may be hurting themselves in the long run.
You have a very sobering and realistic outlook on things. Not just in this article but the handful of others I've read so far which is why I subscribed. Looking forward to seeing more of your analysis / takes on things which help me see reality more clearly. Thank you for your insights on matters that matter more than most.
I am involved in creative industries, with a strong background in visual arts. I am often nonplussed by how generic these images are, and how difficult it still remains to obtain something really original put of these tools. So I would agree with mr Merchant's analysis.
Once past a very impressive demo in a localized context, I'm lost on where extending this becomes useful ... let alone a sustainable business. An AI-generated Giphy is hardly a compelling.
I might start willingly lending my attention when you extend the video length and add synchronized sound, dialog, and layer in storytelling and direction. But that's visual storytelling, and GAIs ability at even just written storytelling has been boringly average. By design, really.
Thus this feels like another photocopied page from the shock-and-awe-but-useless emerging tech playbook. Watching these videos, I feel like a robotics company just shared video of a robot doing parkour or dancing to The Contours. And for some odd reason I cannot come up with any valid reason why I or any business would want that... let alone pay them $400,000 for the pleasure.
Great perspective, as always! I really hope more people reporting on this kind of news learn a bit more about it before republishing these companies’ press releases.
It’s making me feel more and more like a pedant every day but it drives me crazy that we’re all just going along with calling this shit “AI” like that isn’t the biggest marketing tool they have. The double whammy of Open AI being neither “open” nor “AI” is maybe the worst of all.
Here’s hoping a few of us have learned a bit from the last few years! Thanks for the insight!
And tech is also managing to both be in full hype mode and treat its workers worse (layoffs, pay cuts, unreasonable targets).
Something very typical is happening: finance bros and MBA-educated executives and VC bankers are pushing the boom despite barely understanding the technology. They want to see “numbers go boom” without understanding much else. They have the money and the power so no one says anything, except under their breath.
The more I look at this hype cycle driven tech culture the more I wonder what it is that California has actually given humanity in terms of innovation besides a rapacious form of VC-funded marketing. It’s almost like they learnt from Hollywood how to create reality.
Very good reference point with these examples. Thank you. The 'pervasive sense of inevitability' also is a very good way to characterise an important aspect of 'GPT-fever'.
The final paragraph's "if we accept" sadly probably should start with "we're going to accept (in the short term)" as there is little chance well-reasoned analysis like this is going to make a dent in our imagination. As a species, imagination is our forte (and the evolutionary advantage of our brains), reason far, far less so.
On the topic of stalling. ChatGPT usage may be stalling. But (a) it now has a competitor and the free version of BARD is at the level of the paid version of GPT (4). I don't know if that has been calculated in yet. More importantly, (b), it's not just 'use' that is stalling, performance of LLMs themselves has largely stalled and even more size hasn't done much. A lot of effort has been spent in 'programming' in/around these platforms, as in all the fine-tuning developed by OpenAI between 2019 and 2022, and all the 'engineering the hell around limitations' that is going on behind the scenes as well. Two explanations of the diminishing effect of sizing and the 'engineering the hell out of it are these: https://ea.rna.nl/2024/02/07/the-department-of-engineering-the-hell-out-of-ai/ and https://ea.rna.nl/2024/02/13/will-sam-altmans-7-trillion-ai-plan-rescue-ai/
I'm not even sure why companies like Disney are pushing this.
They want to save money, I get that. But they're killing their own business model with this stuff.
If everyone can produce a Disney quality movie in their basement, then Disney has no business. No one will subscribe to their streaming service or go see their bland movies. They'll watch sora ai movies they make themselves.
I definitely agree with the socio-economic argument about the enormous powers these platform companies are amassing.However, “OpenAI’s CHATGPT is shedding users.. and have peaked” or “Some of the videos.. definitely aren’t good” doesn’t seem to be a strong argument for not getting dragged into a technology that is yet to reach a fraction of its potential.
“…this tool will unleash creativity and make the impossible possible…” that describes a human artist!
Indeed. In several remote ethnographic studies I did for organisations in the past year, few people are overly impressed with LLM tools and the common sentiment was "Too early. Maybe later." There is an increasing weariness with tech hype. These AI companies may be hurting themselves in the long run.
You have a very sobering and realistic outlook on things. Not just in this article but the handful of others I've read so far which is why I subscribed. Looking forward to seeing more of your analysis / takes on things which help me see reality more clearly. Thank you for your insights on matters that matter more than most.
I am involved in creative industries, with a strong background in visual arts. I am often nonplussed by how generic these images are, and how difficult it still remains to obtain something really original put of these tools. So I would agree with mr Merchant's analysis.
Once past a very impressive demo in a localized context, I'm lost on where extending this becomes useful ... let alone a sustainable business. An AI-generated Giphy is hardly a compelling.
I might start willingly lending my attention when you extend the video length and add synchronized sound, dialog, and layer in storytelling and direction. But that's visual storytelling, and GAIs ability at even just written storytelling has been boringly average. By design, really.
Thus this feels like another photocopied page from the shock-and-awe-but-useless emerging tech playbook. Watching these videos, I feel like a robotics company just shared video of a robot doing parkour or dancing to The Contours. And for some odd reason I cannot come up with any valid reason why I or any business would want that... let alone pay them $400,000 for the pleasure.
Great perspective, as always! I really hope more people reporting on this kind of news learn a bit more about it before republishing these companies’ press releases.
It’s making me feel more and more like a pedant every day but it drives me crazy that we’re all just going along with calling this shit “AI” like that isn’t the biggest marketing tool they have. The double whammy of Open AI being neither “open” nor “AI” is maybe the worst of all.
Here’s hoping a few of us have learned a bit from the last few years! Thanks for the insight!
And tech is also managing to both be in full hype mode and treat its workers worse (layoffs, pay cuts, unreasonable targets).
Something very typical is happening: finance bros and MBA-educated executives and VC bankers are pushing the boom despite barely understanding the technology. They want to see “numbers go boom” without understanding much else. They have the money and the power so no one says anything, except under their breath.
The more I look at this hype cycle driven tech culture the more I wonder what it is that California has actually given humanity in terms of innovation besides a rapacious form of VC-funded marketing. It’s almost like they learnt from Hollywood how to create reality.
Very good reference point with these examples. Thank you. The 'pervasive sense of inevitability' also is a very good way to characterise an important aspect of 'GPT-fever'.
The final paragraph's "if we accept" sadly probably should start with "we're going to accept (in the short term)" as there is little chance well-reasoned analysis like this is going to make a dent in our imagination. As a species, imagination is our forte (and the evolutionary advantage of our brains), reason far, far less so.
On the topic of stalling. ChatGPT usage may be stalling. But (a) it now has a competitor and the free version of BARD is at the level of the paid version of GPT (4). I don't know if that has been calculated in yet. More importantly, (b), it's not just 'use' that is stalling, performance of LLMs themselves has largely stalled and even more size hasn't done much. A lot of effort has been spent in 'programming' in/around these platforms, as in all the fine-tuning developed by OpenAI between 2019 and 2022, and all the 'engineering the hell around limitations' that is going on behind the scenes as well. Two explanations of the diminishing effect of sizing and the 'engineering the hell out of it are these: https://ea.rna.nl/2024/02/07/the-department-of-engineering-the-hell-out-of-ai/ and https://ea.rna.nl/2024/02/13/will-sam-altmans-7-trillion-ai-plan-rescue-ai/
Can you, for once in ur life, stop spreading misinformation
“it’s automating the act of stitching together renderings of extant video and images.”
This is not true. These kind of statements may ring true to your non-technical audience but they erode the base of your other arguments
I'm not even sure why companies like Disney are pushing this.
They want to save money, I get that. But they're killing their own business model with this stuff.
If everyone can produce a Disney quality movie in their basement, then Disney has no business. No one will subscribe to their streaming service or go see their bland movies. They'll watch sora ai movies they make themselves.
I definitely agree with the socio-economic argument about the enormous powers these platform companies are amassing.However, “OpenAI’s CHATGPT is shedding users.. and have peaked” or “Some of the videos.. definitely aren’t good” doesn’t seem to be a strong argument for not getting dragged into a technology that is yet to reach a fraction of its potential.