That said, I think this is a lot like when a celebrity runs a "charity auction" but you can only participate using the obscure crypto currency they are vested in.

It's a kind of pumping scam. Not enough people are using AI to make videos so here is a way to try to make people use AI to make videos. On "vibes" you have no choice.

The desperation propping up the bubble keeps becoming more and more visible.

Meta Vibes is a new facebook AI video "creation" tool and tiktok like short form video feed.

I think it's just a way to create more demand for those data centers. People who really want to make content have found limited uses for AI, but have also experienced backlash from their audiences.

"Vibes" skips this problem by eliminating this segment of the audience. Everything in vibes is AI and anyone can be a "creator" ... wow.

Will we see "viral vibes?" (this new jargon is destroying my soul)

If AI was really the wonderful creative tool it's sold as people would line up to pay for it. You wouldn't need to push it, you wouldn't need to give it away to boost up the usage numbers.

Imagine if it could really make, say a video that was what you wanted. Not something that's kind of like what you wanted that gives you motion sickness, but work of a quality of a master animator working with you for a month to get it right.

But it can't deliver.

This is what I keep coming back to.

@futurebird It's kinda breaking my mind too. I'm not genius about anything, but I'm pretty good at anything that I have spent the time developing the skill through the classic, painful ways, and the pleasure of using the skill is something that... I guess people are not ever experiencing, in a lot of cases, now?

Maybe a big chunk of us won't ever again?

As a fan of "Hard SF," I always thought of "classic" SF from the Verne/Wells as closer to Fantasy - John Carter just thinks himself to Mars?

But tip o the hat to Wells. We nascent Morlocks have found a way to identify the ancestors of the Eloi.

Disruptive technologies ... disrupt by changing the way people do things.

And there are a lot of people who desperately want AI to be very disruptive.

But, I've never seen so much top-down pushing to try to make this happen.

Forcing people to use it at work. Adding it to applications.

If people wanted an AI word possessor they would stop using google docs to have it, and THEN those apps would be forced to add it.

We skipped that step.

You know... the one where it's organically popular.

Part of the push is alarmism. So, even "anti-AI" ... "concerns" can overplay the usefulness of this set of technologies.

And, I hate saying it but these are not totally useless bits of tech. It's just not the revolution we are being told it is. It's not good enough at doing what it claims for this to be true.

If "vibes" is still around in two years I will be SHOCKED.

This is making me feel crazy, kind of like the crown of Saint Wenceslas. Which I keep finding people saying is "so beautiful" and I'm just like: no. no that is not true.

But, hey, at least the crown of Saint Wenceslas is old. It's a real object from the distant past and that is a little glamorous and interesting.

I keep saying "but it doesn't really work" and that keeps on ... not being an issue. But, for technology, "working" is kind of the whole point.

And it's a little sad. Because it's not like there aren't a few dozen exciting use cases for LLMs and image generation engines.

For example speech to text. Using an LLM to clean up dictation, which tends to be horrible, is pretty effective. What LLMs do well is find the most obvious answer, produce what is typical. Good for when you want to guess what someone said.

But something so practical and modest isn't the imagined role for this tech.

No. You must agree it will change everything.

@futurebird I agree *and* the mundane, low risk use cases don't make business sense because someone needs to buy a $50k+ GPU + cooling infrastructure, memory, cups, staff, just to run one of these models. It is a shame because if they had been focusing on solving some actual, mundane problems (like dictation) instead of world domination, they might have developed something that we won't have to empty the great lakes just to keep cool.

What am I saying though... none of this stuff makes business sense. All these companies are losing money hand over fist. I am starting to think we are in the Wiley e coyote over a cliff part of the AI bubble

And it's a little sad. Because it's not like there aren't a few dozen exciting use cases for LLMs and image generation engines.

For example speech to text. Using an LLM to clean up dictation, which tends to be horrible, is pretty effective. What LLMs do well is find the most obvious answer, produce what is typical. Good for when you want to guess what someone said.

But something so practical and modest isn't the imagined role for this tech.

No. You must agree it will change everything.

Which brings me back to "meta vibes" ... normally a platform where people post original content can allow the platform owner to monetize advertising and data collection.

With Vibes there is no new content, just recycled images generated by the platform itself. Will that really produce large audiences?

Maybe for a moment at best, but it's very limited.

The more consequential impact would seem to be getting more people to use AI to generate video keeping the servers humming. Making noise.

If AI was really the wonderful creative tool it's sold as people would line up to pay for it. You wouldn't need to push it, you wouldn't need to give it away to boost up the usage numbers.

Imagine if it could really make, say a video that was what you wanted. Not something that's kind of like what you wanted that gives you motion sickness, but work of a quality of a master animator working with you for a month to get it right.

But it can't deliver.

This is what I keep coming back to.

Disruptive technologies ... disrupt by changing the way people do things.

And there are a lot of people who desperately want AI to be very disruptive.

But, I've never seen so much top-down pushing to try to make this happen.

Forcing people to use it at work. Adding it to applications.

If people wanted an AI word possessor they would stop using google docs to have it, and THEN those apps would be forced to add it.

We skipped that step.

You know... the one where it's organically popular.

@futurebird FOMO is powerful in tech investment.

Disruptive technologies ... disrupt by changing the way people do things.

And there are a lot of people who desperately want AI to be very disruptive.

But, I've never seen so much top-down pushing to try to make this happen.

Forcing people to use it at work. Adding it to applications.

If people wanted an AI word possessor they would stop using google docs to have it, and THEN those apps would be forced to add it.

We skipped that step.

You know... the one where it's organically popular.