[dofm]

And yet this doesn't turn out to be Meta's problem at all.

https://uk.pcmag.com/ai/165970/meta-exploring-option-to-sell...

Meta bought too many GPUs, has spare GPU capacity and they are exploring renting that capacity out.

The problem is not that the models need too much to do the job. If that were the case, Meta would not have spare capacity.

The problem is that the models currently can't be made to do the job.

[laweijfmvo]

I think Meta’s massive compute investment was never about its 100,000 engineers running coding models, but its 3,500,000,000 users wanting to use AI in every single product (and some new ones: Meta AI, glasses, etc.) So I would think that’s the part that’s not being utilized anywhere near the amount they hoped...

[maccard]

Do the 3.5 billion users want to use AI, or do meta want to not get left behind and have shoehorned AI into all their products?

[dofm]

Literally the only value the Facebook AI provides is amusement when the suggestions are so comically wrong/off-colour/surreal etc.

[dofm]

Right. But that's the same thing, isn't it? AI can't be made to do the job in those products. The only products it can do are shallow toys.

[TheOtherHobbes]

The idea that users wanted AI was always a fantasy. Especially for Meta's products.

The whole hype cycle has been pure delusion. Just like the Metaverse hype cycle before it.

[alex1138]

Yeah this type of conflation gets used a lot

A common one is "users don't care about privacy. that's why they use facebook. [zuckerberg was right?]"

No, you silly, silly people. People want to use products that allow them to communicate or reconnect with people or ...

They don't 'want' constantly changing privacy settings or changing TOS. If this is the best HN can come up with, ostensibly filled with S Valley people... well, it says a lot

[lanstin]

I think this is the problem for companies with a single person atop - when the company needs things they aren’t good at, the company cannot respond effectively. Zuckerberg was good at running a company to sell ads on an addictive platform; whether that will make him good at the next ten years of profitable tech innovation is difficult to see; people hate ads and dislike the addictions, so Anthropic or whom ever has to walk a different path; they have multiple smart people working together to find that path; Meta does not seem to have that collective vision of competing experts to draw on.

[dboreham]

I suspect there are many things AI can do to help people and make their lives better. But that's not how business works: products get made and marketed because they make their owners more money. Totally different goal.

[PaulHoule]

Meta's AI is the stupidest in the business.

Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and other models can discuss and affirm my "foxwork" practice whether it is talking about natural history, fox legends, ritual magic, altar work, autonomic control, blessings, writing, character acting, costume design, skin care, selection of perfumes that will herald my unique natural scent, marketing and customer service, photography gear, "therian" gear, bags for holding my gear, street photography, etc. They always write like somebody who's read much more widely than anyone I've ever met and rival the legendary Tamamo-no-Mae for "speaking intelligently about any subject" [1]

Meta AI can crack jokes and that's about it. I guess there's a market for "stupid talk" but it's not that big.

[1] Like help me fix my washing machine that won't drain, come up with master narratives for the "polycrisis", talk about why Casey Handmer is wrong about space manufacturing, find papers about the social network of who sleeps with who at a high school, etc.