Microsoft employees are doubtful of AI's capabilities and company's AI bet (opens in new tab)

The C-suite operates in the universe of big ideas and are being presented demos and mockups that imply more capability than is actually possible. And the employees have to actually deal with the rubber hitting the road. They can see that the tech is half-baked and are dealing with the real problems users experience, and there is an intuitive sense that customers aren't going to pay subscription prices for something that fails in an embarrassing and opaque way for every N times it's invoked.

It's also difficult for engineers to understand how a sustainable industry can be built on tech where the primary method of "engineering" it is to try doing something (training a new model, changing a prompt) and hope it will work rather than knowing what will and won't. The potential to get trapped in a local maximum or burn massive resources for insufficient return is too high, and the cost of switching models is too low to build any moat based on model quality.

At the end of the day this is the only thing tech investors are excited about, so the market will dictate strategy until the bottom falls out for whatever reason. The video is not assuring on this front, saying that CEOs are just staying the course without much indication they have a reason to believe a return is around the corner.

Aren’t we all skeptical? What’s the real value exactly.

Overestimating in the short term, underestimating in the long term.

Roy Amara called it.

I have had a theory for a loooong time that Ai is causing a massive stock bubble, especially in the tech space. Microsoft finally realising how much of an oopsie they made with ai could cause a domino effect.

Everyone should be skeptical. Right now it’s following the pattern of every other stupid bubble. It’s also further the “post truth” nature of our modern society, so … yeah. Not great?

fundamentally, windows gained popularity as a personal computer

that translated well into business since people were familiar with how to use windows

the efficiency problems microsoft faces as an organization are disjointed from people trying to stay in touch effectively.

ai solves a lot of problems people can imagine having when being pitched the equivalent of digital timeshare, which mathematically does well when projecting for growth, but the vast majority of people look to get out of their timeshares when it becomes a burden on their lives.

slop is a new term, but why do we all know what it means already?

Ignite is going on this week, as you can imagine, it is all about Azure and AI.

So far I haven't seen any rational or critical thinking in this area. So, it's nice to see a little glimmer of hope here, that someone might at least say 'wtf are we doing?' The power consumption of these useless data centres is slap in the face to all of us with efficient cars, houses full of shitty LED lightbulbs, and low flush toilets. We shouldn't let them burn the planet to insert automatically incorrect text, fucked up faces and extra fingers.