Thread

1. 2001zhaozhao · 1790979207 · focus · HN ↗

   This couldn't be more true. Companies will be driven by AI harnesses (as defined by this article) that automate decision-making and prioritization. In the medium term, may the company with the best harness win.

   In the longer term, the downstream impact is massive commoditization of software and invalidation of most existing moats. Data moats are gone if you can simulate the data with AI. Even platform effects can be sidestepped if AI replaces one side of the platform.

   In addition, while right now agile startups have the advantage, at some point the balance will start tilting towards whoever has the most tokens (OR perhaps durable moats will trump even near-infinite tokens; we will have to see). Startups have a limited time window to have whatever impact in the world they are hoping to have, or to build a moat that won't be disrupted by AI, but there are few of them left in the world.

   The upside is that when there is a lot of commoditization, then the consumer benefits.

   1. ForHackernews · 1790979680 · focus · HN ↗

      > Data moats are gone if you can simulate the data with AI.

      This is a hilarious premise if you work in a domain where it matters even a little bit whether the data is correct or not.

      1. 2001zhaozhao · 1790980213 · focus · HN ↗

         You are assuming that getting the AI to generate correct (or accurate, representative) data will be very difficult. I would agree, but I think it will become possible in the long run.

         (Edit: alternatively you just use AI to get rid of the need for data to solve a problem, like Jev did for traditional classification models)

         I think current incentives definitely go against any efforts to build this. It's very hard to build this and be rewarded for it by, say, investors or your boss, because you can't really prove that your system is non-sloppy while your competitor's is (even if being non-sloppy is all that matters), because by definition your novel results are not verifiable or else the model labs will have already trained it into their model.

         But the same is true for high-quality AI systems in general. In general, I think AI model advancements will make the systems easier and easier to build until some small guy accountable to no one but themselvs can build it, and then it will actually be built.

         1. [deleted] · 1791037855 · focus · HN ↗

            [deleted]

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