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Anthropic's IPO prospectus shows AI vision, surging costs

143 points · 150 comments · 6thbit

2ss · 1790639528 · focus · HN ↗
2 things can be true:
-LLMs profoundly change society -The LLM business is mangled in terms of ROIC vs CoC
Such a business already exists - airlines.
This nuance is what many here refuse/find difficult to understand.
1. CoolestBeans · 1790641225 · focus · HN ↗
  Well said, the technology can be transformative while being structurally challenging to build a viable business around.
  1. runarberg · 1790642134 · focus · HN ↗
    But the technology also doesn’t have to be transformative either. I for one am not convinced.
    The two things being true may as well be: LLM will not be transformative and the LLM business is mangled in terms of ROIC vs CoC.
    In fact given the behavior of AI companies, I actually consider it more likely then not that the effects of the technology is severely over-hyped. I for one do not trust the words of the people who mangle their business in terms of ROIC and CoC. Why should I?
    CookieCrisp · 1790642536 · focus · HN ↗
    LLM's are already transformative. I get thinking it isn't going to solve all the world problems, but, companies throughout the entire world are already using it at enormous numbers. Transformative means it changes the world, it already has. It does not mean it changes your life.
    runarberg · 1790650919 · focus · HN ↗
    By this metric then leaded gasoline and the Deep water horizon oil spill, and Reagan era deregulations were also transformative, so was the Apollo mission, the SETI program and even Eurovision. Arguably Alchemy was also transformative even though it was unsuccessful, because the scientific funding that went into various attempts led into many vital discoveries.
    If this the criteria we are using form something being transformative, then being transformative is truly unremarkable in this context, to the point of being a distraction.
    CookieCrisp · 1790659408 · focus · HN ↗
    I just will never understand how you all can have your head so deep in the sand.
    archagon · 1790713575 · focus · HN ↗
    Attempting to understand perspectives that feel alien to you will be good for your personal growth. (Try asking your LLM.)
    ben_w · 1790677220 · focus · HN ↗
    If LLMs are "only" transformative in the sense of leaded gasoline or the Apollo mission, that's a massive change all by itself.
    If LLMs are "transformative" in the same sense as counting "alchemy because of the scientific funding that went into various attempts led into many vital discoveries", what's going to be our version of "actually we can turn lead into gold now, we just have better things to do with the capability"?
    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation
    owebmaster · 1790681929 · focus · HN ↗
    "actually we can turn lead into gold now"
    Isn't it vibecoding? Turn out it's not really gold
    ben_w · 1790682428 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I don't think so.
    We do have the means today to turn literal lead into literal gold.
    The energy is better spent on almost anything else and the gold is radioactive afterwards, but we can do it.
    The closest analogy I'd have for vibecoding is combustion engines. Historical antecedent was a toy, early industrial ones took a lot of fuel and were only useful to pump water out of the coal mines that supplied that fuel, but kept getting improved until they made a critical quality leap that took them from "slightly worse than a horse" to "marginally better than a horse" and then there were suddenly a lot of unemployed farriers.
    But literal-lead-to-gold took a while longer than that, and a different set of inventions behind it.

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