[sanderjd]

HN is always divided on "how much is the currently hype-y technology real vs just hype".

I've seen this over and over again and been on different sides of the question on different technologies at different times.

To me, this is same as it ever was!

[aleph_minus_one]

I basically agree, but want to point out two major differences to other "hype-y" topics that existed in the past that in my opinion make the whole AI discussions on HN a little bit more controversial than other older hype discussions:

1. The whole investment volume (and thus hope and expectations) into AI is much larger than into other hype topics.

2. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was president of YCombinator, the company begind Hacker News, from 2014 to 2019.

[sanderjd]

On (1): Investment volume relative to what? To me, it looks like a very similar pattern of investors crowding into the currently hot thing, trying to get a piece of the winners of the power law.

On (2): I'm honestly not sure I think this is making a big difference at all. Not much of the commentary here is driven by YC stuff, because most of the audience here has no direct entwinement with YC.

[famouswaffles]

>On (1): Investment volume relative to what? To me, it looks like a very similar pattern of investors crowding into the currently hot thing, trying to get a piece of the winners of the power law.

The profile of investors (nearly all the biggest tech companies amongst others) as well as how much they're willing to and have put down (billions) is larger than most.

Open AI alone just started work on a $100B+ datacenter (Stargate)

[sanderjd]

Yeah maybe I buy it. But it reminds me of the investment in building out the infrastructure of the internet. That predates HN, but it's the kind of thing we would have debated here if we could have :)