• flashgnash@lemm.ee
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    46 minutes ago

    NFTs and crypto were dubious as to the value they provided

    LLMs on the other hand provide very tangible, immediate value to a large number of people

    Also they allow companies to save a ton of money on support at the expense of the user experience so of course it’s here to stay

  • Mossy Feathers (They/Them)@pawb.social
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    30 minutes ago

    Everyone’s trying to recapture the dotcom bubble; but they don’t realize tech is gonna need considerably more money than they already have to do something that crazy again. Furthermore, when it comes to AI specifically, if you give them the money they need to actually achieve AGI, then there’s a very real chance your investments will be worthless the moment they succeed.

  • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zip
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    3 hours ago

    I hope this is gonna happen but the problem is ai is actually powerful. The best result is if its just too expensive to make good enough to use for scary things.

  • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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    3 hours ago

    I hope this is the case, but I don’t really think so. I got a call Thursday from a friend and he told me he and his whole department were losing their jobs. He was pretty upset about it. Apparently management decided they could be replaced with AI.

    He and his team manage a medium sized in-house developed management application. It’s a combination of stock management, product management and sales tools. Because the products their company sells are pretty unique, they never found a good off the shelf application to do everything they wanted. So they developed their own and connected it to the off the shelf applications they have for ERP and CRM. Pretty slick and his team and him are praised across the company.

    Apparently the IT manager had gotten a very impressive demo for Microsoft Power BI with AI integration. Using AI tools to realtime develop an application. He was so impressed he decided they were going to fire the in-house team and have an external company use the AI to develop a replacement tool. The external company said they could use very cheap people as the AI would do basically all the work. And it would be done before the notice on the current team ran out (2 months).

    He called me kinda in shock about the whole thing. Like that’s not realistic right? That’s not something Power BI can do? With or without AI? And even with AI it can’t do that on such short notice? I told him he was right, that’s not how anything works and the IT manager got duped. Either way, they are out on their ass. Now they are very skilled people and will probably find new jobs right away, but it still sucks ass. AI sucks!

    • morbidcactus@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      I recall the AI insights feature years ago being a mess, flagged patterns across dimensions, unrelated trends etc, useless noise to slog through, if not outright dangerous if people just assume everything is actionable, maybe it’s gotten better but it’s going to rely heavily on data quality, good governance, the model itself.

      Straight up, this is not a good use case for Power BI, tabular is really good at aggregates and analytics, I’d not use it for management like this, especially if there’s already an existing application, as an enhancement though yeah go ahead, but not a full on replacement.

      I’d be willing to bet this won’t be done in 2 months and certainly not to budget, to do properly you need to understand business context, data model etc. I’m guaranteeing this is going to be sludge with half-baked power apps, people will complain about the change. Shit the change management for end users will take more than 2 months, took us years to get people to switch off of a barely maintained shift summary report to a Power BI version and that actually was a good use of the tool.

      This project gives me nightmares and I’m not even working on it.

  • nroth@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Not likely. The research folks were highly skeptical of crypto from the start, but not the latest AI advances. The AI is a fundamental technology that was developed by the scientific method and can be empirically examined right now. Crypto is an application of 1980s technology with the hope that it will gain momentum as a currency with enough marketing.

    • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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      50 minutes ago

      The research folks were highly skeptical of crypto from the start, but not the latest AI advances.

      Yes, they are very much skeptical.

      The AI is a fundamental technology that was developed by the scientific method

      Lol, what??? 😂

  • cmgvd3lw
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    7 hours ago

    I have to say, the technology behind cryptocurrencies is brilliant, but unfortunately, it got misused and got ironically centralised.
    NFTs are stupid.
    Now with hype train dying, we could see some real use of AI.

    • KinglyWeevil@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      4 hours ago

      You see, no one actually wants a digital currency. There have been several (nano was my favorite) that functioned especially well as a currency, because it used very little compute power to perform or verify transactions.

      But a currency is stable. Which means you don’t magically make money by holding or trading it. So it doesn’t get attention, and therefore doesn’t get widely adopted.

      Everyone likes Bitcoin because it’s speculative digital gold.

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        There are plenty of people who want a digital equivalent to cash from a privacy perspective.

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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      5 hours ago

      AI is useful, you just have to use it right. Most “titans of business” think it’s a replacement for humans. It’s infinitely obnoxious correcting them in a business setting.

    • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      NFTs of art was really not supposed to be anything more than a proof of concept. I think the original purpose of NFTs was to be able to have an NFT representing title to land or something that you could then barter or sell on the blockchain.

      • Snot Flickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 hours ago

        NFTs were created in a code jam and had no intents to become title transfer tools.

        It was and always be limited by the amount of data the NFT can contain. They went with URLs because they are small enough to fit. An actual land deed title document? Too big to fit into an NFT. Simply not enough bytes to go around.

        This was the strict limitation from the very beginning. The only thing an NFT actually verifies “ownership” of is a URL.

        • Mossy Feathers (They/Them)@pawb.social
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          31 minutes ago

          Nfts legitimately confuse me.

          “Why can’t you put the whole image in an nft?”

          “It’s too big”

          “Why is it too big?”

          “It’d take too long to generate.”

          “Okay, but why?”

          “Because nfts can’t hold that much information.”

          “Okay, but why?

          “Because it’d take too long to generate.”

          “Okay, but why would it take too long to generate???

          “Fuck you, stop wasting my time.”

          “Oooookay. I really don’t understand but okay, fuck you too I guess.”

          Does anyone know why nfts are so small? Everything I’ve read says that they’re fucking tiny, but nothing explains why they can’t be larger, why being larger would be too slow, and so on. They honestly seem like a decent answer to the digital ownership problem of “I want to resell this game like I could 20yrs ago but I can’t because it didn’t come on a disc”, however I get sent in a circle whenever I try to figure out what makes nfts so unwieldy and impractical.

          (Not that I think anyone should be able to own a digital good; I pay for digital things because I want to support people, not because I think digital ownership is a legitimate concept. Imo, because digital things can be copied as many times as you want, you can’t truly own a digital item, and nor should anyone be allowed to try and revoke said item unless said item is illegal for other reasons. However… As long as we live in a capitalist society hell-bent on applying the concept of ownership to a system that’s only limited by your hardware, I think people should have the ability to actually “own” their digital goods (in a traditional sense), which includes things like the right to not have a company take them away whenever it feels like it and the ability to sell digital goods like an IRL market.)

        • NateNate60@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          While the NFT can’t contain the entire title document, it can contain the hash of the title document, and then the title document is simply recorded elsewhere on-chain.

          • m88youngling@slrpnk.net
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            4 hours ago

            I agree with this. A title to land ownership is in itself just a piece of paper, it’s not the land you’re owning. It’s effectively serving the same purpose as the hash idea you’re suggesting

  • hperrin@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    I think AI has some specific uses that it would be great at, but it’s getting shoved into places it doesn’t belong. (Kind of like how everything had touch buttons for a while.)

  • Johanno@feddit.org
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    6 hours ago

    Crypto was stupid from the beginning, NFTs are even more stupid. And people who knew about the tech told everyone so, before the idiots bought the shit to get rugpulled.

    Ai art is bad for artists, but not inherently bad bs.

    • Hobthrob@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      AI art is antithetical to art. Art requires artistic intent.

      It could have some limited application for very early exploration in commercial art, or perhaps as very limited tools used in existing art software, but generative art is inherently pointless and you need artists to be able to do incremental iterations properly, which is required for real work, which isn’t supported yet. I’ll sure it’ll get better and more convincing, but it’s still inherently pointless to use AI for art, since the is supposed to be human expression.

      • khaleer@sopuli.xyz
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        1 hour ago

        I love Ai defenders who are ready to tell you what art is and what artists wants. Like maybe instead of recomending this cloud based bullshit app, first try to pick up a pencil actually?

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          3 hours ago

          AI art is human expression in the same way that the Gaussian blur tool is. It’s a bunch of math spitting out a pattern based on specific inputs.

          All while currently being as ethical as the fast fashion industry producing scam versions of high fashion products.

          It has the potential to be very useful in certain applications, but right now, all it really does is create Content to be consumed. Kinda like elevator music or that horrible Corporate Memphis style that has invaded every piece of corporate media/advertising in recent years. Soulless and without meaning. It’s pretty high quality slop, all things considered, but slop nonetheless.

    • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      “crypto was stupid from the beginning”

      How? Do you find debit cards stupid?

      “people who knew about the tech told everyone so”

      completely untrue.

      people at the forefront of cryptography and economics were excited about the Bitcoin white paper because cryptographic digital currencies is an obvious-in-hindsight evolution in currency.

      they were so excited about it that they joined nakamoto in creating cryptocurrencies, collaborating and developing new technologies until it was launched and beyond.

      “idiots bought the shit to get rugpulled”

      how exactly is gaining 400,000% in value over a decade a “rug pull”?

  • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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    6 hours ago

    totally whiffed on crypto.

    at least 130 countries are working on developing national cryptocurrencies.

    Bitcoin goes from $15 to $62,000 in ten years

    crypto market cap goes from $11 billion to two trillion dollars in ten years.

    The only people calling crypto a failure are ig’nant or covered in salt.

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 hours ago

      Crypto is a speculative market. That doesn’t make it a good currency - in fact, it makes it a very bad currency. Bitcoins changing in value so much and so rapidly makes them awful for use as a daily currency, and they’re backed by fiat currencies anyways because otherwise, they’d have no value.

      The only reason people care about crypto is because they think they can make a lot of money off of it when they hand the bag off to somebody else.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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        3 hours ago

        “[Fiat currency] is a speculative market. That doesn’t make it a good currency - in fact, it makes it a very bad currency. [Dollars] changing in value so much and so rapidly makes them awful for use as a daily currency, and they’re backed by [gold] anyways because otherwise, they’d have no value.”

        yes, yes, go on.

        “The only reason people care about [fiat] is because they think they can make a lot of money off of it when they hand the bag off to somebody else.”

        It’s good that fiat currency never really got a foothold or it looks like you wouldn’t have any argument.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 hour ago

          Bitcoin dropped 0.68% 2 days ago, rose 1.13% yesterday, and has dropped 0.93% today. By comparison, the dollar dropped 0.00995% in the last 24 hours compared to the Euro, with the largest change being a +0.14703% change compared to the Australian dollar.

          On Jan 1st, 2018, 1 bitcoin was worth $15,196.60. One year later, it was worth $3,851.92. As of this moment, it’s worth $61,721.47, has dropped 6.11% this week, and gone up 10% in the last 30 days - making it worth $5,613.31 more than it was at the start of September.

          Since 2017, 1 bitcoin has gone up 1,291.05% in value. 1 USD in 2017 is worth $1.28 today - an increase of 28% over 7 years and an average inflation rate of 3.64%. The current inflation rate compared to the end of last year is now 2.53%. If this number holds, $1 today will be worth $1.03 next year.

          Tell me which one is the more stable currency to base your product’s prices on. Pricing things in Bitcoin is like pricing them in stocks.

          • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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            1 hour ago

            or like The fluctuations in gold, silver, fiat or commodities when they first appeared in the market.

            Good thing none of those panned out or you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

    • stabby_cicada@slrpnk.netOP
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      6 hours ago

      at least 130 countries are working on developing national cryptocurrencies.

      CBDCs aren’t cryptocurrencies.

      As for the rest, “It’s good because it’s making lots of money” isn’t as persuasive an argument as you think it is.

      • Zos_Kia@lemmynsfw.com
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        6 minutes ago

        I don’t think GP is arguing that crypto is a good thing here. They are refuting the meme which calls crypto a dead fad.

        As mind boggling as it may sound, crypto is still a very strong industry, raising about 10 billion per year. Sure it has gone down by more than half since the hype years but that’s still very comfortable numbers.

        Again, not saying it is a good thing. But just because it doesn’t make mainstream headlines anymore doesn’t mean it’s dead.

      • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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        5 hours ago

        “CBDCs aren’t cryptocurrencies”

        Love to hear how you think cryptographic digital currencies aren’t cryptographic digital currencies.

        “As for the rest, “It’s good because it’s making lots of money””

        cryptocurrencies are exceptionally popular tech with very active communities developing new technology that is constantly gaining popularity and value.

        by your flawed metrics, solar power is “hype”.

        • stabby_cicada@slrpnk.netOP
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          6 hours ago

          Love to hear how you think digital currencies aren’t digital currencies.

          Not all digital currencies are cryptocurrencies. CBDCs are digital implementations of government-backed fiat currencies. If you don’t understand the difference I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.

          by your flawed metrics, solar power is “hype”.

          Solar power produces energy. Cryptocurrency produces nothing and wastes energy doing it.

            • marduk@lemmy.sdf.org
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              6 hours ago

              Strange hill for them to die on… A quick search makes it obvious that CBDCs use cryptography

              • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev
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                4 hours ago

                Strange hill to die on. A quick search makes it obvious that credit cards use cryptography.

                Hey dude, cryptography != cryptocurrency. Cryptography just says “yes, this person made this transaction, I am sure of it as a computer because this math checks out”.

                • marduk@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  18 minutes ago

                  Wait, so you’re telling me that every time I swipe my VISA and smugly explain to the cashier that I’m a crypto bro, I’ve been the fool all along? Please excuse me while I begin to question everything in my life

              • Varyk@sh.itjust.works
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                6 hours ago

                yup, they must have realized the hole they’re digging isn’t getting any shallower.