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0 pointssoulofmischief2d ago0 comments

Yes, one car did Mach 1. And the first production car, the Benz Velo, could only go 12mph. It's an apt analogy.

As I mentioned to OP, applying future aspirations to the current space is incorrect. Some people are able to understand the progression of industrial automation, some people aren't. But if you look at the current batch of frontier models and say, "I just don't see how this is going to be useful", then you're in the camp of those in the 80's who didn't understand personal computers, or in the 90's who didn't understand the web. In hindsight, the technologies evolved massively and found routine use cases that no one initially predicted.

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bee_rider1d ago· 2 in thread

I think my main contention about the analogy is that Mach 1 cars are sort of a ridiculous target, a thing that only happened once just as an attempt to break a barrier, more like a tech demo. Billion dollar startups are very rare of course, but they are real things that happen for practical reasons as part of the industry.

Saying that the person you replied to was looking for the former when they really wanted the latter seems uncharitable. Especially given that replacing most of the engineering department doesn’t seem to be too outside the scope of what some in the space are promising(?).

soulofmischiefOP1d ago

Billion dollar one person startups are a silly target too, because as we approach that possibility, society will adjust.

I know Sam Altman peddled this concept, but he's not representative of the culture and principles of the entire AI/ML space. So it was wrong of OP to attempt to use his words against the entire idea of neural models.

bee_rider1d ago

I do think the point that solo companies that could have been billion dollar start-ups might get a lower market cap if they can be done solo with AI tools is a good one. But that seems a lot more nuanced than calling the idea something like a Mach 1 car.

I think this is like pointing out that we lowered the speed of sound as technology developed, so a Mach 1 car doesn’t mean the same thing anymore, if we want the analogies to line up. Of course I’ve stretched the analogy well past any hope of making sense at this point, haha.

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