LLMs are (broadly-speaking) poorly-positioned to give you a strong verdict on plausibility of a frontier topic. That said - ChatGPT was exactly right in its response to OP!
"Very deep", "border-line impractical" "in a research-sense" is the perfect summary of this article itself! :)
This is one of my favourites from PG, not least because it's a bit antithetical to what I perceive as a growing trend among smart, ambitious people (for whom children might represent friction, inconvenience, etc)... as well as folks for whom COL is making the question irrelevant due to practical concerns.
Actually, it's really striking that even in America -- the developed country with the #1 highest birthrate -- still falls below the replacement rate. What is it that's inversely correlated between growing wealth and having children? Especially since it was likely to opposite for most of human history? (i.e. large families were a sign of wealth and power).
PS - I can't resist offering my own experience as a parent - what a treasure to have discovered that I'm capable of such love, and to get to watch this love transform me into a better person than who I was before. This kind of love demands everything of you, but through it you discover a truer and stronger version of yourself too.
Nice points! You reminded me that, actually, contrary to my hand-wringing, the IG algorithm is excellent (for me) when it comes to recommending music - and it's often artists with very few monthly listeners on Spotify.
Why is IG so much better than Spotify itself's algo? Or YouTube's? Or... etc? No idea. And also - it's always paid ads from these artists that get me.
So on the one hand, <insert my original point>; but on the other, as much as technology is perhaps driving the brand hollowness, it's also allow for more long-tail discovery precisely because it makes powerful marketing/advertising channels accessible to that girl making beats in her bedroom - so long as she has a bit of $ to deploy. It still may not be profitable for her (because: Spotify) but I also try to support these artists with merch buys, physical buys, etc.
Classic PG essay in a lot of ways, but I was expecting (a) the entire watch discussion to be 1/10th of its length, and (b) lead DIRECTLY into a social commentary around how every area -- politics, software dev, music creation & distribution etc -- are now firmly in their terminal brand ages.
A political admin lies directly to your face daily - well, the base doesn't care because they've bought into the brand. The Truth and principles are irrelevant.
A talented musician is making innovative, fresh music - but hasn't yet learned the ability to market herself on IG/TikTok - well, she won't reach an audience because she can't compete in a brand game dominated by marketers and AI-driven beat-makers. The music is irrelevant.
Creating software used to be a very human thing - empathetic understanding of the user's problems, a dash of inspiration and good taste, and you get some cool stuff and possibly a valuable company; but now, if all that's automated, what is it? The craft is irrelevant.
2) 'After processing' is wide enough to drive a truck through. What if processing takes a year? What if processing is defined as something involving recurring checks?
3) You have no contract with Persona or even LinkedIn beyond the fact that you agreed to LinkedIn's TOS (but didn't even read).
4) The company that acquires or takes-private Persona might have a very different of how it handles this.
5) What does verifying do for you, the user? I understand its value to LinkedIn and their ability to sell your attention to advertisers, but what do YOU gain?
"how incredibly good their google workspace suite of tools is" - is that a common sentiment on HN?
To me, Google Sheets is 10% of Excel on desktop (Mac), Slides are 5% of PowerPoint on desktop (Mac), and the integration between the two (copying and pasting linked charts from Excel to Powerpoint with formatting) makes it a completely non-starter to consider the Google alternatives as primary drivers.
I'm probably a power-user of both, granted, but I took for granted Sheets/Slides are still just toys compared to the real stuff, so curious if I'm missing something.
What a timeless banger, you fill in the blanks on this part:
'Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of __________ <American political leader> dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when __________ <American political leader> gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred?"'
A bit of nuance: yes, Carney said that but he didn't just offer up the opinion unprompted - it was in response to a direct press question about if China or the US is a more predictable partner right now.
And even then, he didn't lead with "China is!" but wandered his way into offering the assessment.
The context makes his comment on this seem less nakedly provocative (not that it'll matter either way - the headline will be the headline, and the Trump admin will use it however they see fit as usual).
Some of this analysis seems a bit lazy for the Economist.
Apple is in the "AI-related companies in the SP500" group? Microsoft too? Tesla too? Amazon too? But... if these companies' AI efforts fail, 95%+ of their revenues would be unaffected. So big stretch to paint them with that brush.
Nvidia, OK that one is obvious. Meta, Alphabet, OK.
But MOST of the companies listed in that chart are only "AI companies" in the sense that EVERY tech company building peripheral AI into their products is an AI company.
Case in point: if Apple stock goes 'on sale' as part of an AI-bubble sell-off, are you really deciding whether or not to buy based on their AI-ness?
Tales as old as time, especially in tech: rich monopolistic incumbents not seeing the writing on the wall of a new paradigm shift; seemingly invincible execs brazenly displaying their (incorrect) hot-takes; and the inevitable enshittification of the new paradigm as it turns from revolutionary movement to ruling-class incentives.
Ah, I see now that I read too quickly - the "open demo environment" was clearly referencing the idea that the vendor (Filevine) would have a live demo, NOT that each client wanted an open playground demo account that is linked to a subset of their data (which would be utterly insane).
"Companies often have a demo environment that is open" - huh?
And... Margolis allowed this open demo environment to connect to their ENTIRE Box drive of millions of super sensitive documents?
HUH???!
Before you get to the terrible security practices of the vendor, you have to place a massive amount of blame on the IT team of Margolis for allowing the above.
No amount of AI hype excuses that kind of professional misjudgement.
"The best case scenario is that AI is just not as valuable as those who invest in it, make it, and sell it believe."
This is the crux of the OP's argument, adding in that (in the meantime) the incumbents and/or bad actors will use it as a path to intensify their political and economic power.
But to me the article fails to:
(1) actually make the case that AI's not going to be 'valuable enough' which is a sweeping and bold claim (especially in light of its speed), and;
(2) quantify AI's true value versus the crazy overhyped valuation, which is admittedly hard to do - but matters if we're talking 10% of 100x overvalued.
If all of my direct evidence (from my own work and life) is that AI is absolutely transformative and multiplies my output substantially, AND I see that that trend seems to be continuing - then it's going to be a hard argument for me to agree with #1 just because image generation isn't great (and OP really cares about that).
Higher Ed is in crisis; VC has bet their entire asset class on AI; non-trivial amounts of code are being written by AI at every startup; tech co's are paying crazy amounts for top AI talents... in other words, just because it can't one-shot some complex visual design workflow does not mean (a) it's limited in its potential, or (b) that we fully understand how valuable it will become given the rate of change.
As for #2 - well, that's the whole rub isn't it? Knowing how much something is overvalued or undervalued is the whole game. If you believe it's waaaay overvalued with only a limited time before the music stop, then go make your fortune! "The Big Short 2: The AI Boogaloo".
You've got your finger on the pulse of something that open source has always represented to me: freedom of the creator and others to just... do what they want with it (subject to the license of course).
Don't like what the main developer is doing with it? You're free to fork and continue on your way if they don't see it your way. If you lack the skills or time to do that, that's your problem - you're not entitled to the maintainers' labor.
The freedom cuts both ways, and by adding in elements of social contracts and other overlays onto the otherwise relatively pure freedom represented by OSS, you end up with the worst of both worlds.
THAT ALL SAID - there's an important distinction between a given piece of software that's open source versus a "true project", which is larger-scale, more contributors involved, might be part of mission-critical systems, etc, where the social dynamics DO need to careful thought and management.
But even that seems to be more a question of specific types of OSS business models which is related but not the same as the licenses and overall social dynamics around OSS projects.
In fact, the entire movie's point is that simply HEARING others tell you those things doesn't do anything! The inner journey of the character getting to a place where he believes it himself -- or rather believes himself to be worthy of a greater path -- is THE crucial part.
So the example is exactly opposite the author's intent.
That said, I liked the article and agree with its point. In fact, I'd guess that effective leaders all have learned techniques and ability to remain calm/comfortable in having these blunt conversations that cut to the chase (but still value and hear people).
Every other type of business I come across or analyze makes me think "Man, there really is nothing as good as SaaS" and I thank my lucky stars I was here for it.
High 80%+ gross margins; high retention/recurring revenues (if you're doing it right); easily metric'd (CAC, LTV, conv%, etc); capital specialized for deploying into it (most VC of the last decade); alignment with clients w.r.t. value/impact (or they don't renew); straightforward lining up of 'value to customer' and pricing; common benchmarks and shorthands for valuation multiples; etc.
Simple business to understand / run / grow, assuming you have a good product in a good market.
Strong agree. For every time that I'd get a better answer if the LLM had a bit more context on me (that I didn't think to provide, but it 'knew') there seems to be a multiple of that where the 'memory' was either actually confounding or possibly confounding the best response.
I'm sure OpenAI and Antropic look at the data, and I'm sure it says that for new / unsophisticated users who don't know how to prompt, that this is a handy crutch (even if it's bad here and there) to make sure they get SOMETHING useable.
But for the HN crowd in particular, I think most of us have a feeling like making the blackbox even more black -- i.e. even more inscrutable in terms of how it operates and what inputs it's using -- isn't something to celebrate or want.
Always overlooked point in these pro/anti-spreadsheet discussions:
A spreadsheet gives you a DB, a quickly and easily customized UI, and iterative / easy-to-debug data processing all in a package that everyone in the working world already understands. AND with a freedom that allows the creator to do it however they want. AND it's fairly portable.
You can build incredible things in spreadsheets. I remain convinced that it's the most creative and powerful piece of software we have available, especially so for people who can't code.
With that power and freedom comes downsides, sure; and we can debate the merits of it being online, or whether this or that vendor is preferable; but my deep appreciation for spreadsheets remains undiminished by these mere trifles.
It's the best authoring tool we've ever devised.
EDIT TO ADD: the only other thing that seems to 'rhyme' with spreadsheets in the same way is: HyperCard. Flexible workbench that let you stitch together applications, data, UX, etc. RIP HyperCard, may you be never forgotten.
I agree with you for the most part. But the same medical establishment that pumped opioids everywhere, demonized fat instead of sugar, claimed tobacco was fine, overprescribed mental health drugs, etc is perhaps not a slam-dunk example of why we should trust the "expert consensus" on emerging treatments and techniques.
Compounding the issue is the eye-rolling hypocrisy that in the so-called "Land of the Free", a healthcare system controlled by the gatekeepers of big pharma and for-profit companies gets a blind pass... but putting certain plants (that you can grow yourself) into your own body is considered a serious felony...?
There's at least a sliver of daylight here that mean YMMV (which I'm sure you and I would agree on) - but if you lack the freedom to choose anyways, then it doesn't matter. And the people who decide for you are clearly part of a system that is compromised by regulatory capture, political polarization, and the insatiable greed of American healthcare.
"Very deep", "border-line impractical" "in a research-sense" is the perfect summary of this article itself! :)