[code4tee]

Impressive round but it seems unlikely this game can go on much longer before something implodes. Given the amount of cash you need to set of fire to stay relevant it’s becoming nearly impossible for all but a few players to stay competitive, but those players have yet to demonstrate a viable business model.

With all these models converging, the big players aren’t demonstrating a real technical innovation moat. Everyone knows how to build these models now, it just takes a ton of cash to do it.

This whole thing is turning into an expensive race to the bottom. Cool tech, but bad business. A lot of VC folks gonna lose their shirt in this space.

[rsanek]

I was convinced of this line of thinking for a while too but lately I'm not so sure. In software in particular, I think it's actually quite relevant what you can do in-house with a SOTA model (especially in the tool calling / fine tuning phase) that you just don't get with the same model via API. Think Cursor vs. Claude Code -- you can use the same model in Cursor, but the experience with CC is far and away better.

I think of it a bit like the Windows vs. macOS comparison. Obviously there will be many players that will build their own scaffolding around open or API-based models. But there is still a significant benefit to a single company being able to build both the model itself as well as the scaffolding and offering it as a unit.

[mritchie712]

CC being better than Cursor didn't make sense to me until I realized Anthropic trains[0] it's models to use it's own built-in tools[1].

0 - https://x.com/thisritchie/status/1944038132665454841

1- https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/agents-and-tools/tool-use...

[jgraettinger1]

It still doesn't make sense. Cursor undoubtedly has smart engineers who could implement the Anthropic text editing tool interface in their IDE. Why not just do that for one of your most important LLM integrations?

[mritchie712]

I agree it doesn't make sense. I'd think they could alias their own tools to match Anthropic's, but my guess is they don't want to customize too heavily on any given model.

[klausa]

My gut feeling is that Claude Code being so popular is: - 60% just having a much better UX and having any amount of "taste", compared to Cursor - 39,9% being able to subsidize the raw token costs compared to what's being billed to Cursor - 0,1% some magical advantage by also training the model

Claude Code is just much _pleasant_ to use than most other tools, and I think people are overly discounting that aspect of it.

I'd rather use CC with slightly dumber model, than Cursor with a slightly better one; and I suspect I'm far from being the only one.

[ijidak]

I think we underestimate the insane amount of idle cash the rich have. We know that the top 1% owns something like 80% of all resources, so they don't need that money.

They can afford to burn a good chunk of global wealth so that they can have even more global wealth.

Even at the current rates of insanity, the wealthy have spent a tiny fraction of their wealth on AI.

Bezos could put up this $13 billion himself and remain a top five richest man in the world.

(Remember Elon cost himself $40 billion because of a tweet and still was fine!)

This is a technology that could replace a sizable fraction of humamkind as a labor input.

I'm sure the rich can dig much deeper than this.

[not_the_fda]

"This is a technology that could replace a sizable fraction of humamkind as a labor input."

And if it does? What happens when a sizable fraction of humamkind is hungry and can't find work? It usually doesn't turn out so well for the rich.

[dweekly]

I don't think most folks think very hard about where most wealth comes from but imagine it just sort of exists in a fixed quantity or is pulled from the ground like coal or diamonds - there's a fixed amount of it, and if there are very rich people, it must be because they took the coal/diamonds away from other people who need it. This leads to catchy slogans.

But it's pretty obvious wealth can be created and destroyed. The creation of wealth comes from trade, which generally comes from a vibrant middle class which not only earns a fair bit but also spends it. Wars and revolutions are effective at destroying wealth and (sometimes) equitably redistributing what's left.

Both the modern left and modern right seem to have arrived at a consensus that trade frictions are a good way to generate (or at least preserve) wealth, while the history of economics indicates quite the contrary. This was recently best pilloried by a comic that showed a town under siege and the besieging army commenting that this was likely to make the city residents wealthy by encouraging self-reliance.

We need abundant education and broad prosperity for stability - even (and maybe especially) for the ultra wealthy. Most things we enjoy require absolute and not relative wealth. Would you rather be the richest person in a poor country or the poorest of the upper class in a developed economy?

[ChadNauseam]

> The creation of wealth comes from trade, [...]

I'm not sure to what extent you meant this, but I don't know that I'd agree with it. Trade allows specialization which does increase wealth massively, no doubt. And because of how useful specialization is, all wealth creation involves trade somewhere. But specialization is just one component of wealth creation. It stands alongside labor, innovation, and probably others.

[lelanthran]

>> > The creation of wealth comes from trade, [...]

> I'm not sure to what extent you meant this, but I don't know that I'd agree with it.

At a very foundational level, all wealth comes from trade, even when there is no currency involved.

When two parties voluntarily make a trade, each party gets more value out of the trade than they had before, so the sum total of value after the trade is, by definition alone, greater than the sum total of value before the trade.

Small example: I offer to trade you a bag of potatoes for 2 hours of your time to fix my tractor, and you accept.

This trade only happens because:

1. I value a running tractor more than I value my bag of potatoes

2. You value a bag of potatoes more than you value 2 hours of your time.

After the trade is done, I have more value (running tractor) and you have more value (a bag of potatoes), hence the total value after the trade is more than the total value before the trade.

The only thing that creates value is trade. It's the source of value.

[utyop22]

Ultimately real wealth is all about enhancing the well-being of individuals in society by way of an exchange of assets.

All we have done is become more elaborate and sophisticated in this stuff but at the core, its been the same throughout much of time.

[zestyping]

Wow, that's a massive blind spot you've got there.

The value comes from doing the thing. Fixing the tractor creates value. Growing and harvesting the potatoes creates value.

Trading the potatoes for something you value more, yes, also creates additional value. But notice that potatoes have value to you even if you don't trade them for anything.

If you choke on a grape and a helpful volunteer saves your life, they create value. Nothing was exchanged, but they sure as hell generated wealth right there.

Labour and voluntary trade both create value. I wonder what sort of mindset one must have to forget that labour exists.

[elbear]

There are people who trade at a deficit just because they believe that's the only viable option. They see commerce as a zero-sum game.

[utyop22]

There's a subtle and nuanced difference between real wealth and financial wealth that most people never touch on.

[harmmonica]

Big question is whether it replaces and then doesn't create new opportunity to make up for those casualties. I'm not sold on this, but there's this part of me that actually believes LLM's or perhaps AI more broadly will enable vast numbers of people to do things that were formerly impossible for them to do because the cost was too great, or the thought of doing it too complex. Now those same things are not only accessible, but easy to access. I made a comment earlier today in the thread about Google's antitrust "win" where things I couldn't formerly have done without sizable and costly third-party professional help are now possible for near-zero cost and near-zero time. It really can radically empower folks. Not sure that's going to make up for all the job loss, but there is the possibility of real empowerment.

[alluro2]

I'm genuinely curious about how you and other people with similar outlook see this playing out, as it would kind of provide hope.

Scenario: You are a medium level engineer, who got laid off from a company betting on AI to replace a significant portion of their junior/medium level developers. You were also employing a middle-aged woman, to help with the kids after school and around the house, until you and your wife come back from work. She now needed to be let go as well, as you can't afford her anymore. The same thing happened to a large portion of your peers and work in the same industry/profession is practically no longer available. This has ripple effects on your local market (restaurants, caffes, clothing stores etc).

How do you see this as empowering and a net positive thing for these people individually, and for the society? What do they do that replaces their previous income and empowers them to get back to the same level at least?

[barchar]

Well, if everyone is unemployed there won't be much of a market for these newly AI enabled companies to sell into. Also, in the extreme, you'd have deflation such that it's worth hiring again. This would be very painful.

More likely automatic stabilizers and additional stimulative spending would have to happen in order to fully utilize all the new productive capacity (or reduce it, as people start to work less). It's politically hard to sustain double digit unemployment, and ultimately the government can always spend enough or cut enough taxes to get everyone employed or get enough people to leave the labor force.

[harmmonica]

I totally share your concern, but I think there's reason for hope assuming it's not Terminator-style AGI that destroys the world (bigger problems than unemployment in that case). Specific to your scenario, it seems like companies are laying people off today in the name of AI efficiency gains (that in itself is debatable, but let's assume that is why they're doing it--they think they can do the same if not more with less). But if you play out those same efficiency gains companies that are in growth mode ought to be able to use those efficiency gains to accelerate product development. So instead of laying people off, companies will be able to build product that much faster because their employees, and engineers in particular, can move so much more quickly. We're so early, though, and c-suite folks are so myopic that the troops haven't yet had time to show them that revenue growth is the real prize of AI/LLM's (and believe me it's always the some troops that show them the way).

On a larger level, I would just ask your fictitious medium-level engineer what are they able to do today, with an AI/LLM, that they were unable to do before? As a very basic example, and one that is already true with existing LLM's, a mid-level engineer who wanted to build an app might've formerly struggled with building a UI for their app. Now, sans designer, a mid-level engineer can spin up an app UI much more quickly, and without the labor of finding and actually paying a designer. That's not to say there's no value left in design, but if you're starting out it's similar to how bootstrap (dating myself here) was an enabler because you were no longer in need of a designer to build a website (was still a huge time suck and pain in the ass though). You can multiple that by a bunch of roles and tasks today because LLM's make it possible to do things you just formerly wouldn't have been able to do on your own.

Last thing is the much more high level. Every time some new tech is introduced there's a lot of concern about displacement. I think, again, that's valid and perhaps moreso with AI. But it does seem to me like major new tech always seems to create a lot of opportunity. It might not be for the exact same people like your mid-level engineer (although I think it might for him/her), but I stay hopeful that the amount of opportunity created will offset the amount of suffering it will cause. And I don't say that in some kind of "suffering is ok" way, but just like revenue growth is the be all end all for so many companies, tech brings change and some suffering is a part of that. Prior skills become less important, new skills are preferred. Some folks adapt. Others thrive. Some are left behind.

If you're still checking in on this thread, and you actually read my diatribe, do you think I'm totally full of it? Again, I don't know that I would bet it would work out this way. Actually I probably would bet on that. But I'm definitely hopeful it will.

[unethical_ban]

Kill us off or else let us starve while they watch the world burn from their killer AI drone protected estates.

[xpe]

> Everyone knows how to build these models now, it just takes a ton of cash to do it.

This ignores differential quality, efficiency, partnerships, and lots more.

[utyop22]

Maybe in enterprise.

But in the consumer market segment, for most cases, its all about who is cheapest (free preferably) - aside from the few loonies who care about personality.

The true lasting economic benefits within enterprise are yet to play out. The trade off between faster code production vs poorer maintained code is yet to play out.

[xpe]

> But in the consumer market segment, for most cases, its all about who is cheapest (free preferably) - aside from the few loonies who care about personality.

On what basis do you know this? Or more like your personal impression — based on asking how many people? Your friends?

[utyop22]

I have a wide ranging sample of folks I've spoken to and observed their usage.

[xpe]

>10? >33? >100? >333?

Just informal conversations? Or surveys of some kind? I’m genuinely curious. After studying statistics and research design, I have learned to be very cautious at what I conclude.

I often talk with various people outside of my usual peer and work groups, but I wouldn’t know how to get anything close to an unbiased take given the social constraints. Maybe I would notice large shifts over time.

Observation: LLMs are pretty new in the scheme of things and information diffusion seems pretty different across age groups, geographies, and professions. This makes it pretty hard to even be confident that one knows how to collect good data.

[dcchambers]

And unfortunately, the amount of money being thrown around means that when the bottom falls out and its revealed that the emperor has no clothes, the implosion is going to impact all of us.

It's going to rock the market like we've never seen before.

[jononor]

Hope it stays long enough to build up serious electricity generation, storage and distribution. Cause that has a lot of productive uses, and has historically been underdeveloped (in favor of fossile fuels). Though there will likely be a squeeze before we get there...

[axus]

The electricians in data center country report they are earning a lot of money.

[nathan_douglas]

It'd be an interesting time for China to invade Taiwan.

[m101]

Why is this downvoted when it's spot on.. if reality < expectations so much money is sitting on extremely quickly depreciating assets. It will be bad. Risk is to the downside.

[dcchambers]

Being critical of AI companies on Hacker News is pretty tough these days. Either the majority of people are all-in and want to bury their heads in the sand to the real dangers and risks (economical, psychological, etc) or there's just lots of astroturfing going on.

[aoeusnth1]

All of the top upvoted comments are calling or implying this is a bubble. It seems to me the majority loves to imagine themselves persecuted in their home turf.

[criemen]

I'm not so confident in that yet. If you look at the inference prices Anthropic charges (on the API) it's not a race to the bottom - they are asking for what I feel is a lot of money - yet people keep paying that.

[worldsayshi]

Yeah, a collapse should only mean that training larger models become non viable right? Selling inference alone should still deliver profit.

[cruffle_duffle]

Their employers are paying that money. The jury is still out on how wisely that money is being spent.

[1oooqooq]

you say it can't go much longer, yet herbalife is still listed.

[AbstractH24]

Where are we in that cycle though? How close to the top?