Is AI the next crypto? Insights from HN comments

>>kcorbi+(OP)
The cycle of these technologies is always the same:

    1. Initial introduction or release
    2. Major hype and influx of greed money. <- AI is here now
    3. Failure to live up to the hype, resulting in the tech becoming a punchline and gobs of money lost
    4. Renaissance of the tech as its true potential is eventually realized, which doesn't match the original hype but ends up very useful
    5. Iteration and improvement with no clear "done" or "achieved" milestone, it just becomes part of society

The bombardment of charlatans taking advantage of the term, coupled with commercials everywhere suggests we will soon hit stage 3 for AI. The Super Bowl commercials are usually the tipping point.

Crypto is at stage 3 now.

Not all technologies make it to steps 4-5.

Hell, I remember when social media followed the same path. And ecommerce before it. Or the web in general before that. And on and on it goes.

>>baggac+Jm
AI is at step 4, transitioning to 5

>>asicsa+Gq
You could argue ML is at step 4, but LLMs (called "AI" for some reason) are most definitely in the major hype/dumb money being chucked at it step.

>>baggac+hr
I'd definitely say LLMs are stuck on step 3: "Failure to live up to the hype"

They are certainly impressive, but their utility-to-hype/gimmick ratio is incredibly low right now, which could cause a crash. The greater the disappointment the greater the crash.

I'm reminded of 3D TVs. Remember those? Avatar came out in 2009. By 2016 the trend was dead. Despite the cries of "this time it's different." Of course, that time it was not different. The tech was impressive. Much more than the previous time the fad was around in the '80s. Remember the blue/red glasses? Absolutely not a single person talks about 3D TV today.

The 3D TV was a technical success but it was too much of a gimmick that it died out. My Facebook feed is a never-ending stream of AI generated garbage. I think people are going to tire of it, realize the images it makes are about as goofy as a 2004 MySpace page, and maybe it will stick around to fill out the useless corporate email and document bureaucracy and boilerplate framework code monkey BS.

But ChatGPT isn't writing Breaking Bad or The Sopranos anytime soon.

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