Comment by jacquesm

Comment by jacquesm 5 hours ago

That's a good question. During the .com boom everybody was investing in 'the internet' or at least in 'the web'. And lots of those companies went bust, quite a few spectacularly so. Since then everything that was promised and a lot more has been realized. Even so, a lot of those initial schemes were harebrained at best at the time and there is a fair chance that we will look in a similar way at the current AI offerings in 30 years time.

Short term is always disappointing, long term usually overperforms. Think back to the first person making a working transistor and what came of that.

simianwords 5 hours ago

I still don’t get it. What at a personal level is making Sam Altman make a suboptimal choice for himself if it is so obvious it won’t work out for him?

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Ekaros 2 hours ago

Marketing and name recognition? Used in other areas to generate wealth. Even steering OpenAI or partners of it to acquire right companies could be profitable for him.

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jacquesm 4 hours ago

On a personal level it will work out for him just fine. All he has to do is siphon off a fraction of that money to himself and/or an entity that he controls.
He's like Elon Musk in that respect: always doubling the bet on the next round, it is a real life Martingale these guys are playing with society on the hook for the downside.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system)

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- simianwords 4 hours ago
  
  How would he siphon off? He has no stake in OpenAI. And any other stake must be public. Or are you suggesting something more shady?
  Elon is the complete opposite of martingale. He has helped produce value beyond just bets. Spacex, Tesla and so on.
  
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  jacquesm 3 hours ago
  
  Sorry, I didn't realize that was a rhetorical question.
  
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SideburnsOfDoom 4 hours ago

> And lots of those companies went bust, quite a few spectacularly so.

pets.com "selling dogfood on the internet" is the major example of the web boom then bust. (1)

But today, I can get dog food, cat food, other pet supplies with my weekly "online order" grocery delivery. Or I can get them from the big river megaretailer. I have a weekly delivery of coffee beans from a niche online supplier, and it usually comes with flyers for products like a beer or wine subscription or artisanal high-meat cat or dog foods.

So the idea of "selling dogfood on the internet" is now pervasive not extinct, the inflated expectation that went bust was that this niche was a billion-dollar idea and not a commodity where brand, efficiencies of scale and execution matter more.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com#History

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