Or they're including AI as a buzzword in whatever they were already doing, and not exactly ignoring a new tool, but might be overselling how useful AI is to their thing?
Why almost lie though? Like, if I am a company and I integrate AI just to say to my investors that I got AI so that they can not feel FOMO is utterly bonkers and well, I don't know but the investors definitely don't sound reasonable and I think that the people who are somehow lending money to these investors who are investing on such basis definitely need to think about their life choices if the company in their portfolio is selected or not just because of this seemingly bizarre checkbox that most general public is actually in fact against of having.
I don't think anyone anywhere on the totem pole: from the junior engineer, to the engineering manager, to the founder, to the VC, to the investors, cares if it's actually AI. They just want to see the word there. Someone got it into their head that "AI is the thing now" and now the junior engineer isn't going to get hired unless he says AI. The Eng manager is not going to get promoted unless he talks about managing AI. The Founder is not going to be funded unless he says the company relates to AI. The VC is not going to line up investors unless he says AI. And investors have no clue what to do with their money, but heard somewhere that "AI is the thing now" and that's where they want to flush their money.
Nobody really wants any of this shit as a product.
Why sell shit that you don't want yourself/ aren't passionate about??
That is just exploitative of sorts on preying people who don't have enough knowledge about AI let's say...
And this behaviour shouldn't be condoned though
> And investors have no clue what to do with their money, but heard somewhere that "AI is the thing now" and that's where they want to flush their money.
This is where the system needs to change, People need to realize this that maybe AI is in a bit of bubble right now and not try to invest in such things...
But profits....
Shush, profits can come another day if business has good solid financials otherwise welp, that isn't investing, that's just speculating in the AI bubble
>Why sell shit that you don't want yourself/ aren't passionate about??
Best interpreation: you need to pay bills and this startup is your last hope after sending out 500 apps and getting 3 interviews back (2 interviews ghosted you after the first round and the 3rd said "overqualified" despite it being a senior role)
Worst interpretation: we're in a gold rush, and a lot of people will sell fool's gold if they can.
>Nobody really wants any of this shit as a product.
To be fair, the investor never cared about the product to begin with. It's a shame that that apathy spread all down the totem pole. But I guess taht's what happens when the consumer is no longer the audience of consumer products.
Literally every tech startup company out there is spinning itself as AI. I’m familiar with some of them well enough to know that the AI is bullshit. You could be running an SVM on some data and you’re now “powered by AI”. I’m not joking.
So like internet startups in the 90s. Like .com in the late 90s. Like social media startups in the late 2000s/2010s. It's all cycles. Every bubble is talked about on HN (and similar sites) because that's the purpose of sites like this.
maybe a big difference is those hype cycles were net-positive for developers. This is the first one in a while that has VCs and upper management salivating with the idea of cutting all the devs lose. Who do YOU think this is likely to replace first, technical developers or administrators?
It worries me a lot what are those devs without jobs now, will do next? Do they change to the dark side and start battling AI startups and technologies?
That's the stupid part. Nothing is actually automated yet. AI is just a smokescreen for the recession we're clearly in but no one wants to say out loud.
And I sense a reckoning on the horizon. There's a reason the 10's were filled with billionaire (now trillionaire) tech companies poaching any potential talent that can rise against them. That knowledge is still there and rife to disrupt.
>mention the word union here and you'll still get beat with a stick.
I'm in the games industry. It's slow but people are starting to wake up here. Only took decades of abuse, instability, and rampant layoffs in an industry alreaady known for regular layoffs. But you know the quote about Churchill and Americans.
I've also noticed many startups from prior YC batches that haven't found traction yet have pivoted to AI-related offerings. It's been kind of amusing to watch them become absorbed into the hype cycle, one by one.