kredd

We both know I didn't write it down with the hopes that I'll act on the at some point in the near future, and want to avoid my imaginary competitors. Even though, in reality, I will ponder about it for another week or two, give up without actually getting anything done, then regret for never trying :)

A bit tangential, but I think we will see a good chunk of small teams building competing products in different software business segments, by just doubling on productivity and offering a cheaper option due to less operational overhead (reads: paying engineers). I can think of at least two businesses that can be competed in costs if the team can automate a good chunk of it.

I’ve talked to hundreds of people at bars around the world, and although I don’t remember their names, I can recall general conversations with each of them. I can’t recall anything that I’ve tapped-liked off the top of my head, because it’s very short and one-sided interaction.

But these businesses get it all wrong because they lack the communal kitchen and eating areas.

The problem as I see, given a choice, people rather eat/do/listen/feel things that they want, not the things they’re being forced on. In the past, you didn’t really have a choice and was forced to do what everyone is doing. Now, to live in such communities, you’ll have to get rid of the choice. Which also sucks.

Doesn’t really matter when the percentage of childless adults is growing every year. I just scoff and move on.

You’re thinking about power and money, but also should consider culture exports. I’d say it’s a combination of being a friendly nation to the west, being different, actively promoting culture internationally through media and, you know, still 3rd/4th largest economy. An extreme amount of recent travel in Japan also shows people some unique perspectives that people haven’t seen in their home countries (cleanliness, public infrastructure and etc.). I understand you can experience some of it in China as well, but there’s a massive difference between visiting Tokyo and Shanghai/Hong Kong.

Also add millions of people who grew up with anime in 1990s/2000s who are professional adults now. That helps as well.

Meh, I personally like it. It's a bit of liberating feeling to never, ever think about health insurance here in Vancouver. Obviously has ups and downs (especially for non elective surgeries), but it's my personal preference.

I totally agree, but I’ve also worked on a project with 0 customers spending about $2M/year on AWS, and there was absolutely zero incentive from the stakeholders to reduce the cost. There’s a certain disconnect between boots on the ground engineers, and decision makers when it comes to infra management.

Why make $1 when you can make $100?

We've had legal marijuana since 2018 up here in Canada, and from the statistics it looks like the market has almost caught up. The closest comparison I can think of is piracy and beginning of streaming wars (like Spotify and Netflix). Sure piracy is free, but a significant chunk of people started subbing for the services because of the convenience. If you'll only save about $5 per purchase, but have to get cash, arrange everything and etc., that might be just enough friction for you to just go to one of the billion stores nearby.

If 5% of population (14M people) can afford an iPhone, it's already bigger than a lot of potential markets around the world. I'm sure they do a much more thorough analysis at Apple though.

You can argue that, but there are legitimate "AI" workflows that have already been adapted in workplaces where things function well enough. I'm sure 99% of it is just slop, most companies will fail, but some things will survive, become commoditized and taken for granted in about 5 years.

I definitely agree, but again, if you look at the app usage times across every single demographic, those type of use cases are such a minuscule portion that it's just some noise. In my opinion, GPT/AI will cause more changes in workplaces, than in casual consumer spaces.

The problem is, vast majority of smartphone usage is done for entertainment and social networking purposes (IG, TikTok, Twitter, HN, gaming, Netflix and etc.). If you’re mostly scrolling and consuming, I can’t imagine how current AI tooling can help you other than some summarization of texts. Sure, for productivity cases it might be legitimate, but that’s not what supermajority of people use a phone for.

Still not a problem for Meta/TikTok/YouTube though, as people go there to consume content on purpose. But I agree, will be fun to see how Google and others will deal with it.

They require completely different levels of viewing patterns and complexity. It’s such a reductionist take.

Like again, I get what you’re saying, and I agree with it. But my point was, once everyone can generate Pixar-quality movies, they will simply lose the appeal. Maybe it should be that way, maybe it shouldn’t, but crowded market just desensitizes people and makes them shrug.

There will be winner-takes-it-all productions, and that’ll come mostly from the companies with the highest marketing budgets.

The biggest uphill battle that AI content creation companies will have to fight is kind of societal. They’ll need to change public’s perception that AI=“low effort”.

The counter point is, if it makes it so easy to make it, it’s just… meh. We get used to things extremely fast.

Even in traditional art. The Black Square was revolutionary in its specific way, but the copycats aren’t talked about.

I think the AI Seinfeld will be remembered for a while, but random spin offs will be forgotten. Just like how Twitch Plays Pokemon was huge, but follow ups got forgotten. AI art will need to find uniqueness angle at each step, because the complexity aspect will never be there.

Eh, different bubbles of people I think. My tech-loving friends (including me), aren't fan of AI art because how low effort everything is. Some funny memes, but even then you get used to them and move on. It was definitely "cool" when it came out, but if it's simple still images, icons, and etc., they're kinda meh, at least for me. What Adobe did with the rotation tool is pretty cool, and if we start seeing effects of such AI art, that would be a bit different. But again, it has to be used in a specific way to inspire anyone.

I'm actually curious what the people around you find cool about AI art. Nothing has "awed" me in the past 16 months, I would say.

That's exactly what I thought! "Is that UofT?"

It’s a fairly calculated move, as they know market for engineers isn’t in the best shape, so a significant chunk will keep working with no complaints. They also ramped up hiring heavily, if the number of messages I get from Amazon’s recruiters is an indicator.

Profitable? None. For fun? Well, I made a stupid app for myself (showing all routes I’ve walked through in my city, that gets data from HealthKit), got pressured by friends to share my walking progress in a local subreddit which went semi viral, and people started asking what app I was using.

I had absolutely zero intentions to market it, but seems like there was a niche need as other apps weren’t making it simple for the feature I was looking for. Gives you dopamine hits when you can see others using the app, especially when you know you’re doing it just for fun and no money is involved.

I understand this is a hot-topic, and definitely an extremely nuanced issue, but as a person who knows people who took the MAID (Canadian euthanasia process) way out for a terminal illness, I will be forever grateful for it. It’s not uncommon to meet people whose elder relatives went through it as well, after years of constant pain up here.

It definitely has shortcomings, but I genuinely hope the fixes will not result in rolling back the program completely.

I generally agree, but when AI generated content is actively trying to avoid being labelled as “AI generated” it kinda gets depressing. Because in the end, it will just make the entire industry “seem” worthless, akin to AI generated pictures.

I’d rather let the end user know if it was made by humans or not, and let the marker decide. If people love listening to such content, let it be. But hiding how it was made, feels a bit disingenuous.

If You leave the website, your eyes won't catch a headline that's on the side that you might also click, spending more time on your website. Which translates to more money.

Fair. Exceptions definitely exist, but unless it's location based subreddit, I, personally, wouldn't trust it. There are fun methods that I've been told about. Like marketing companies maintain multiple very real life looking accounts, participating in discussions for months/years with no product affiliations, and very casually throwing in plugs which eventually generate revenues. Or giving a list of 10 items, and inserting their product in between, as a sale is better than no sale. Or marketing a competing product in a very obvious way, then replying from another account telling how it's an ad to eventually lead sales to themselves.

I have no idea how intensive these are, as I most of these over bar drinks when I was traveling. Could've just been someone making stuff up as well. But my marketing friends have confirmed that they use Reddit very heavily, as it's a great sales funnel if you play it right.

If you know anyone who works in marketing/PR, ask them how they use Reddit. That has been gamified as much as SEO since about 2020. I’m assuming, anything except “why is there a fire in this street?” kind of posts are just ads at this point.

What sort of actions do you think we can take where the dangerous side effects (like creating deepfake pornography) won’t be as easily accessible as illegal streaming of TV shows? Only let big private companies to train models? Make open sourcing of weights illegal? Make usage of LLM tools generally illegal? All those are as enforceable as torrenting around the world.

Pretty much anyone that I’ve talked to that somewhat works in AI industry, the attitude is “let it rip right now, and deal with the consequences as it’s going to happen one way or another”. I’m not sure where I stand on this issue, but the reality is, it’s inevitable whether we want it or not.

I generally understand this sentiment as a couple of my best friends work in theatre industry, although I have no inclination towards anything related to arts. That being said, you don’t need mass market to get second order effects. Especially for tourism industry.

Not everyone who visits NYC goes to a Broadway show, but they know of the industry and how it attracts the talent. Not everyone who goes to Berlin dances their night out till 6am, but they know of it. These subsidies help to create the image of the city, and in some sense help the residents to identify with their surroundings. I understand it’s a bit lame, but I don’t mind some of my tax dollars going into an industry that I never directly benefit from.