[esafak]

To win big financially you have to be able to use AI better than others. Even if you use it merely as well as the next person, your productivity has increased, reducing costs, which is a good thing. The bad news for some is that they are not enjoying the parts of the work left over from automation.

[conartist6]

I don't see how that can be. There is no exponential return on "investing" in using AI real good.

Investing in your understanding and skill, on the other hand, has nearly limitless returns.

[esafak]

I did not speak of "exponential" returns, but it is now feasible for one person to compete with a team, or a small team with a big one, due to co-ordination costs and the difficulty of assembling the right people.

[conartist6]

What?? That isn't a complete idea. It has always been possible for a small team to compete with a big one.

As someone on a very small team competing with a very big one I don't have time for anything that can't bring exponential returns. I have no time for LLMs.

[esafak]

What even is an exponential return? You need to be more precise with your terms.

[conartist6]

An investment in a person has superlinear returns: with time the human student becomes the teacher. Each person you teach might teach two more people, with the overall trend following exponential growth deriving from the value of the initial investment in a single person.

LLMs promise to speed you up right now in direct proportion to the amount you pay for tokens while sacrificing your own growth potential. You'd have to be a cynic to do it -- you'd have to believe that your own ideas aren't even worth investing in over the long term

[esafak]

Returns for who, the company or the student? Juniors are often a net negative for companies. Some stay that way because they just won't learn. You would get further by hiring seniors and learning from them.