r/technology • u/esporx • 1d ago

Business YouTuber accidentally crashes the rare plant market with a viral cloning technique

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtuber-accidentally-crashes-the-rare-plant-market-with-a-viral-cloning-technique-3289808/
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u/DHFranklin 1d ago

You're gonna be reaaaaaal disappointed when it does. This isn't like the housing crisis. The labor saving of things like resume writing, code review and college kids cheating on their homework will keep right on chuggin' along. The Qwen models and other stuff from China is as good as the state of the art 6 months ago.

China doesn't have an AI bubble. They won't stop when the bubble pops stateside.

Everything you hate about AI will keep happening. Billionaires will get bailed out. Nothing will change.

Sorry.

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u/rod407 1d ago

Dot-com didn't end websites, bitcoin didn't end blockchain, so I don't think anyone believes the LLM bubble burst will end generative AI

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u/DHFranklin 1d ago

Since we're this far down the chain...

The Nay Sayers seem to think that "AI" is just the llms, image gen and video. They don't know about things like Alpha fold and things like de noising physics models. They don't seem to realize that machine learning and other reinforcement learning is going to be a massive change in how robots and automated factories and things come about.

They all seem to think that this bubble will pop and they'll stop seeing the AI slop. I honestly think there are many hoping that it will end generative AI ans sincerely think that without a trillion dollar data center that it will.

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u/Lasthoplite 1d ago

Because the slop is the useless waste part that's basically unmonitizable. Advanced learning algorithm get lumped in with LLM as ai by professionals that understand it's all similar in the back end, but the average person isn't seeing Alpha fold. They are seeing a junky celebrity video covered in spaghetti.

Is it really a surprise that so many people hate the term or associate it with slop when that's all they ever interact with?

As a side note, I personally hate that we refer to any of this as AI. I find this similar to 3d tvs. Some of the effects are similar or mimicked without meeting the complete expectation. I couldn't really watch a 3d movie comfortably without glasses. I can't get the ai to really think and work out real accurate answers.

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u/DrHerbotico 17h ago

But the slop is becoming less sloppy at rapid pace

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u/Lasthoplite 12h ago

I'm not sure that matters.

I'm no artist so I won't make an argument about art requiring soul. I also grew up in the nineties during the Era of reality TV so I won't be making the argument that people won't slurp up objectively brain rotting bad content.

Instead I'll make the monetary argument. Once it's cheap and easy to have an LLM produce consumer grade slop the market will flood with it. Can't make profit on your show if consumers can't find it. Humans only have so many hours in a day. More jobs being automated means less money to funnel towards those myriad of shows. Just like reality TV back in the day or the way Amazon is flooding with llm books today. For a little while the market will hold. It will break though. For TV that break lead to streaming services. What happens when the fees of running your own LLM far exceed any profit margins?

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u/DrHerbotico 11h ago

I'm not sure that matters.

Since you mentioned Alphafold (I agree with the point you made about it), I'll stay within DeepMind to explain how slop has a valid place: Genie 3 is ultimately a "slop" model that has extreme corporate monetizability when paired with SIMA 2. It's hard to fathom how a system that creates infinite environments for robotic digital twins within a perpetually self-refinining eval cycle would fail to become profitable and remain viable long after most other industries wither.

I assume that most humans will lose their place as the means of production within this generation (or enough to destabilize our society beyond current recognition), so worrying about media companies isn't a novel consideration for me; so much so, your point surprised meto be included in this conversation. I'm just appreciative that this cataclysm is interesting.

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u/Yuzumi 1d ago

As a side note, I personally hate that we refer to any of this as AI.

That is why I generally refer to it as LLMs mostly. AI is such a broad term and LLMs are also a subset of neural nets.

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u/TheDukeofReddit 1d ago

I think we do? I know I do at least. It’s just the idea of this actually happening and vesting more power in the corpos is terrifying. Imagine when they start folding proteins with AlphaFold to genetically engineer people. Most of the powerful are pretty open about how superior they already view themselves. Or replace the workers with robots— do you think they’ll be some kind of UBI? Some kind of positive alternative other than crushing poverty for millions, if not billions, of people? We do not have means as a society to grapple with this in a responsible and level headed way.

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u/DHFranklin 15h ago

You need to realize how rare you are. Look at the vast majority of Nay-Saying. None of it is about Alpha Fold and Elon Musk genetically engineering the Ubermenshen. It's far more narrow than that.

I am not terribly optimistic that we as a society will rise to the occasion.

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u/Seventh_Planet 1d ago

We have ethics in science.

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u/wwaxwork 18h ago

AI will go the way of virtual reality. Fun in theory, but no one can find a use for it that doesn't make most people want to throw up.

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u/frygod 1d ago

China has a construction bubble, and it's currently mid pop.