Thread

1. bunderbunder · 1790711630 · focus · HN ↗

   They talk a bit about where the AI companies are supposed to get their revenue from. I’d like to see these analyses go a step further and talk about how those AI customers are supposed to come up with that money as well.

   For example, the article suggests $1T from enterprise productivity tooling. A quick Google suggests the global enterprise productivity tooling market is only worth about $0.1T right now.

   Do we really expect all the world’s corporations to suddenly up their annual spend by 1,000% on average? Why?

   1. kingstnap · 1790712123 · focus · HN ↗

      > enterprise productivity tooling market

      AI is not a replacement for powerpoint and excel. You can't substitute those.

      White collar worker salaries is ~$30T+ global.

      1. EA-3167 · 1790712419 · focus · HN ↗

         Please don't cover up one insane claim with an even less plausible one.

         1. kingstnap · 1790713167 · focus · HN ↗

            I'm very confused by what you mean.

            My point was that AI isn't some productivity software thing. The addressable market is white collar work that can be done on a computer.

            You think its implausible for AI to replace some fraction of white collar workers? To me this is directionally exactly where this is heading?

            1. shimman · 1790715249 · focus · HN ↗

               Agreed. The literal CEOs of these companies, and their acolytes, have been proudly proclaiming that you can replace all types of workers with AI. We know they have their anti-human sentiments but this is nothing new, as you said.

               1. owebmaster · 1790718941 · focus · HN ↗

                  Meanwhile they pay $500k for the same roles they want other companies to automate (using their products).
            2. tovej · 1790718650 · focus · HN ↗

               If that white collar work disappears, so does most of the demand in the entire economy.
            3. owebmaster · 1790718836 · focus · HN ↗

               > You think its implausible for AI to replace some fraction of white collar workers?

               Yes, it is. Software already did it. Better software (AI) can only marginally change what's already automated.

               1. eurhe · 1790719218 · focus · HN ↗

                  Yup spot on.

                  Either people don’t want to believe or they find it difficult to understand.

                  The only pipe dream AI has is to replace the human in totality. Otherwise it’s at best a complement.

                  1. EA-3167 · 1790720244 · focus · HN ↗

                     It's the old Upton Sinclair line, at the end of the day there's so much money on the line and so much pressure to buy in that people just do. People are easily influenced and overwhelmed by their environment, especially when economic and social incentives are strong to do so. We saw it here with the blind worship of Elon Musk many years ago, then Crypto, then NFT's, and now with this. In every case it wasn't as if there was NOTHING there to admire, whatever I feel about Musk personally SpaceX has achieved remarkable things. Admittedly crypto and NFT's are a lot less useful outside of speculation and some really dark use cases. ML really is incredible and it's going to be something that helps humanity cope with the sheer volume of information that's become available.

                     But that's been conflated with "Actually a $2T Anthropic IPO makes perfect sense because they're going to replace white collar work."

         2. micromacrofoot · 1790716752 · focus · HN ↗

            the people at these companies really believe the insane claims

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