Handy for nonces apparently.
Not the best start to this thread...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8d90qe4nylo

I'm particularly curious as to why we all want it
Why are we 'all' investing in it, apparently to make everyone redundant?
No job, no pay

I was told by a know it all school child that

Just like mankind has evolved via information, knowledge, failure and rules; AI too will will evolve over time for behind it is all those same principles. The biggest and most effective change is likely to be in the area of automation and robotics.

When that phase is here people will need to make a decision, does mankind choose ultimate capitalism over an element of socialism or redefine mankinds role in society.

Think self driving or robots driving cars, at the moment around globe many are earning a living by driving people around from A-B. Now suppose you have some software or robot doing the same job what do all those drivers do (they cannot all be coders and software engineers - robots and cars can be built by automation).

On the other end, think of car owners, many currently spend a large sum on one, park on their driveway, use it to travel to and from work. Majority of the time that huge outlay is parked up somewhere (up to 8 hours a day for those who simply use it to drive to and from work - depreciating at a fast pace). Now imagine investing in a car and getting it to drop you to work and then the car also earns until you are ready to be picked up again from either a highly specialised job or a job for which robotics and automation has yet to teach itself due to the amounts of data available.

So yes AI is nothing but vasts amounts of data which is being processed with pre-coded rules and instructions. In much the same way that we human use data and turn it into information and knowledge to help navigate our surroundings. The more data we are able to process and the more relevant the question we pose/input/frame the better the response and better we are able to navigate at speed. Think of a black and white striped horse in far away lands - which today a Zebra.

From which my take away was that
- Man focuses on the question - "Why" (taught to me as the key to problem solving and real knowledge)
- AI focuses on the question - "if" followed by a an element of "mathematical probability" for extrapolation
- From which it gathers more data which only changes the "mathematical probability" element but not the core "if" starting point.

So the AI is ultimately as good as the questions it poses and the data it has access to - probably why Deepseek know nothing about Tiannamen Square.

Now which companies in the world has vast amounts of data which they can leverage and use for the current phase of this AI journey.

It's precisely because Ive worked in tech that I have a strong nose for bullshit and in particular boards who make big stategic decisions without any clue what they are doing.

I recall one large project where we had to transfer all intercompany data "using XML" with the managers having zero idea what that was or if/why they should use it at all. In the end we consumed a lot of time designing app that encoded data into XML at one site, and decoded it at the other. Totally superfluous, Dilbert style fuckwittery.

We see similar with "blockchain use cases". That all seems to have gone quiet now because strangely it can do nothing that an off-the-peg database can do at 100x the speed.

So my angle is "what is the killer app". I read all sorts of stuff about legal work, compliance, speed, routine tasks etc. But this seems largely theoretical for the future. And then I wonder about how much of it is like my managers who had been ordered by their boards to "use XML" are now just receiving simiar orders to "use AI"...

I don't understand what Google and Meta actually with data that they weren't doing before. If the end goal is "targetting ads" then theyve been doing that for many years just based on keywords and sites visited. I didn't experience any change recently in the offering of funeral plans, viagra or philipino wives.

We are now a couple of years into "AI Hype" and still there doesn't seem to be an actual product that is new and innovative beyond glorified search engines and some bizarre artwork generators.


PS would just add in here that the quality of Google search responses has noticeably got worse over the last year or so. Anyone else noticed that?

Andrew have you considered that perhaps you considering AI to be a "killer app" maybe the issue.

I tend to think of it more as an "email"

Sure the system and technology is usable and comes at little or no cost and is bundled in every piece of communication tech (as AI will become eventually IMO). But consider what email itself achieves and how companies and individuals are using it for.

Similarly - the internet at one point was this mythical piece of technology that allowed you to strategically plan share your military plans and gave those who have it an advantage - but as it proved that advantage was temporary as everyone now uses the internet.

So AI - (or the processing of vast information) will just end up being a commodity and the real winners are likely to be those who have the data, networks and customers to leverage their operations to make maximum use of it.

In other words of those millions of annoying viagra ads sent by email may lead to someone buying it - followed by a female who shares the same address (physical or IP) buying a pregnancy test then later buying nappies could likely be sent a vouchers for membership to the local swimming centre.

The difference is it saves on costs of printing to send that same leaflet to every household in the vicinity. and is likely to me much more effective than the old say Tesco model of sending me cat vouchers in the post despite me not having a cat but may have accidentally used it buy a neighbour some a while ago.

The dangerous issue is the spend and direction of spend. For this I like Google in that it has committed to £80 million - but a large majority of that is for Data centres and infrastructure and not this killer app you mention.

However you will get companies who will try and manipulate the system (it is the nature of business) - take youtube you cannot watch something without an ad appearing every two seconds, you can however pay for them to stop this. Much the same way, you use an internet email and you get the screen which makes the circus seem dim, but pay for a service and they can disappear.