Eric Schmidt's AI prophecy: The next two years will shock you

[majormajor]

> Could AI help you build a competitor to beat TikTok in just a few minutes? Maybe in the next couple of years, according to Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO.

Seems like there's an obvious flaw in this premise since it could also help a billion other people do the same thing so in that case... no, pretty much none of you are "beating TikTok"?

Same way that creating a N64-level game in 2024 doesn't get you the same press or audience as it did back then.

I think we're already at the point where programming skill isn't the barrier between making "netflix history-based tinder" or whatever.

So are we really just talking about making a shit-ton more spam of all sorts? App spam, super-SEO spam, fake social-media post spam, etc.

Is making it easy to make race-to-the-bottom spam plays gonna give you ROIs on hundreds of billions or trillions for OpenAI or whoever else?

On one hand, MS made a lot of money selling Word despite it being harder to make money as a writer now that the barrier to entry is so low. On the other hand, the capital costs to create Word were far lower, and the market-barrier to entry for Word replacements back in the 80s and 90s was higher.

[exsomet]

You’ve hit the nail on the head here. It feels like everyone who keeps saying AI is going to make it easy to churn out billion dollar businesses is only one step short of selling their latest guru course.

1. Type a prompt into AI

2. Copy/paste the answer

3. Exit for $3b

Never mind that pesky business stuff.

[fullshark]

It's becoming more and more obvious the number one product this industry sells is shares in companies. Everything is about getting the price of those shares as high as possible for the anxious billionaire/institutional investment class whenever they go on the market.

[ein0p]

I work at one of the top companies in this field. Schmidt doesn’t know anything about this. I do think we’ll make significant efficiency gains (by which I mean inference, weight, and sample efficiency, all three) but I do not see any technology in the foreseeable future that’d mean a qualitative, or even significantly quantitative change in capability. So in the next few years at least we’re going to be in the flat portion of the sigmoid with only very gradual progress in what these models can do. Which is fine, because they already can do a lot, and FOSS needs time to catch up.

[rainm4n]

In a similar position as you, I fully agree. I see no step wise function like gains in the foreseeable future, merely the incremental improvements you mention. Though I'm not surprised Schmidt would put these words in a sentence and express them publicly.

[panarky]

Let's stipulate that Schmidt himself isn't hands-on, so you're correct in the sense that he doesn't have first-hand knowledge.

Can we also agree that he's probably not a complete idiot, he's probably not intentionally trying to deceive, and he has a reputation that he'd prefer to protect and enhance. More likely he's repeating what knowledgeable people in the upper echelons of the industry have told him.

If that's true, then shouldn't we put some weight in what he says? Even if it's not first-hand knowledge, even if he's only repeating what knowledgeable people told him, it's not likely to be all bullshit is it?

[Nesco]

It feels more like a ad for getting people to invest in AI that anything else. Plus Eric Schmidt hasn’t got a lot right lately in my opinion

[deepfriedchokes]

“Everyone needs to return to the office.” (Because me and my rich friends are all heavily invested in commercial real estate.)

“The next two years of AI will shock you.” (Direct quote: “I invested lots of money” subtext: me and my VC buddies need an exit.)

[djaouen]

> Say to your LLM, ‘Make me a copy of TikTok. Steal all the users, steal all the music, put my preferences in it, produce this program in the next 30 seconds, release it, and in one hour, if it's not viral, do something different along the same lines.’

I think it all boils down to value. Sure, in a few years time, that might be possible. But what is the value in doing that? How am I bettering my own or anyone else's life by doing that? Say what you will about social media, but it at least has theoretical value: the spread of ideas. What does this level of AI have?

[buildbot]

The hero worshiping of people who’ve made a lot of money is really boring. What impact does this “prophecy” have? None. It’s just bullshit. Just like the work from home causing Googles issues, it’s just vibes bullshitting.

[dvfjsdhgfv]

It's hard to seriously take advice who blames Google's lacluster AI results on remote work.

[rpy]

[Eric patting a big box of H100s] this bad boy is going to generate so much slop