Ed Zitron also said that consumers were losing interest in ChatGPT in January 2024, that AI models were reaching their upper possible limits in Feburary 2024, that ChatGPT and similar products were "not particularly useful for anything", that hallucinations could not possibly be reduced in models, etc.
He's a churlish AI skeptic that isn't worth listening to.
Google will win the AI war. I really don t see how things can be different. The true question is how much the involvement of Sergei Brin will have been a major part of that win.
[but now that I work in a big corp, I can understand how one smart guy saying “shut the f..k up, managers. I show the path” can be extremely disruptive in those kind of environments. For the better!]
Timing is the key: if the burst happens, let's say, in the next 12-18 months apple is very well positioned, but every month without the bubble popping add pressure on apples executives and, at some point, the pressure will be so high that they will have to do something (most probably something really silly from the business perspective).
Anyway, I think they are really well positioned for local inference, if local inference will be a thing they will be fine.
Local models running on Apple hardware are definitely a thing, a low-hanging fruit they are harvesting right now while every pure-play AI company is losing money.
Is this investment advice? Otherwise, who cares? Don't tie your identity to being a fan of a company. Apple clearly did not intend to fumble their attempts at AI they way they have. Arguments that "Actually, Apple is the smartest at AI" are boring.
It's so popular to think this is a bubble. Some aspects likely are, but the zeal for this to be a bubble is disturbing to me. I get that there will be winners and if you're not one of them, you might be more likely to want this thing to pop. In my mind, that's not the right disposition, you should want the gains to be spread as equitably as possible.
There are three companies I am confident will survive an AI bubble popping: Google, Microsoft and Apple.
A lot has been made of Google's recent earnings being cash flow negative (I think for the first time ever?). Building data centers is something Google is very good at. They've also partially or wholly insulated themselves from a collpase by using Special Purpose Vehicles ("SPVs") where the collateral for loans is simply the GPUs. Even the physical building and the land its own is leased from another subsidiary. Google is still a cash cow. I also think they may break the NVidia mohnopoly with their own TPU hardware given enough time.
Microsoft too is a cash cow and seemingly hasn't bet the farm on Copilot.
And Apple is a real dark horse here. They, like Microsoft, don't seem to have bet the farm on AI but also, they're in a unique position to drive a move to local LLMs with their own silicon. Their ARM CPUs use a shared memory architecture. Nvidia strictly segments the market by limitng VRAM on consumer GPUs. Apple can get around that. They just don't have the raw FLOPS to compete yet. There have been rumors they're targeting the M7 series in 2028 for a big jump in AI performance.
This market is going to boil down to performance-per-Watt (IMHO) and that's going to be interesting to watch as NVidia moves up to an annual product cycle. what will the new generation do to existing deployements when hardware 1-3 years is at a severe PPW disadvantage? we'll see.
Personally I just want to be able to buy 64GB of RAM for $200 and an SSD for under $100 again. You know, like 2025.
This seesawing of perspectives on apple’s ai strategy reminds me of that Alan Watts story:
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
I think people, especially in the valley / sf, truly under estimate how much the average person dislikes AI anything. If you know anyone who does anything in marketing outside of tech they'll tell you if people see the word AI it generally means they'll hate it with out even knowing what it is.
AI may burst in terms of the subscription model pushed by large corporations here in the US. AI is here to stay as a technology, there is no question at this point that it is powerful effective and a transformative development in human history. Not sure where we go from here but AI is not going away.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 24.9 ms ] threadWhat! Ends with a cliff-hanger!? I NEED TO KNOW WHAT POINTS HE MISSED!!!
(but not badly enough to buy a $100/mo subscription).
He's a churlish AI skeptic that isn't worth listening to.
Anyway, I think they are really well positioned for local inference, if local inference will be a thing they will be fine.
A lot has been made of Google's recent earnings being cash flow negative (I think for the first time ever?). Building data centers is something Google is very good at. They've also partially or wholly insulated themselves from a collpase by using Special Purpose Vehicles ("SPVs") where the collateral for loans is simply the GPUs. Even the physical building and the land its own is leased from another subsidiary. Google is still a cash cow. I also think they may break the NVidia mohnopoly with their own TPU hardware given enough time.
Microsoft too is a cash cow and seemingly hasn't bet the farm on Copilot.
And Apple is a real dark horse here. They, like Microsoft, don't seem to have bet the farm on AI but also, they're in a unique position to drive a move to local LLMs with their own silicon. Their ARM CPUs use a shared memory architecture. Nvidia strictly segments the market by limitng VRAM on consumer GPUs. Apple can get around that. They just don't have the raw FLOPS to compete yet. There have been rumors they're targeting the M7 series in 2028 for a big jump in AI performance.
This market is going to boil down to performance-per-Watt (IMHO) and that's going to be interesting to watch as NVidia moves up to an annual product cycle. what will the new generation do to existing deployements when hardware 1-3 years is at a severe PPW disadvantage? we'll see.
Personally I just want to be able to buy 64GB of RAM for $200 and an SSD for under $100 again. You know, like 2025.
Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”
The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”