Growing AI presence is re-energizing parts of San Francisco | Hacker News Reader

Growing AI presence is re-energizing parts of San Francisco

washingtonpost.com

57 pointsaways68 comments

Summary: Meetups, especially AI meetups, are back in SF.

Love to see it, but we're also seeing the same thing happen here in DC with the meetups I run, so it's not especially newsworthy?

That only summarizes the first two paragraphs. The article goes on about VC funding and office expansions among other things.

  The flow of venture capital dollars into AI and machine learning companies in San Francisco hit new highs this year, with start-ups raising $18.5 billion in the first quarter — about 82 percent of U.S. investments in the segment

There's no denying the fact that SF is the place for AI startups.

To emphasise: folks are getting funded at these meet-ups. They’re functional beyond shop talk and idea swapping.

One difference I would guess is scale. In SF there are AI meetups every day, and the big ones on weekends have literally hundreds of developers actively writing code all day. There are typically at least 2 events with >100 developers every Saturday and probably 20-30 of various smaller sizes.

I live in DC, what meetups do you run? I would love to join

Data Meetups mostly! https://www.datacommunitydc.org/

We've actually got a Generative AI this week!

https://www.meetup.com/genaidc/events/296812601/

Cool, so there are AI meetups, which are finite sessions inside random cafes and businesses. But what about literally everything outside those meetups, like the horrifying human experience involved in the commute/walk/bike to and from said meetups?

You act like the meetups are happening in the Tenderloin.

I don't care to attend an AI meetup, but I just googled "sf ai meetup" as a thought experiment. First result is 3rd and mission. A very tame block. I could get on the N Judah and wind up near there and not face any of this "horrifying human experience". I do that same trip with my children since they were babies. It's no big deal. I would question the sanity of anyone who is concerned about that trip.

> horrifying human experience involved in the commute/walk/bike

Have you been to SF? 95% of my trips around SF are far better than the average soul sucking drive around the rest of the country. Most of it has lovely architecture, beautiful parks, and great spots to stop into. For sure, there can be more extremes in the other direction, but imo they aren't that common and don't much bring down how much better the average is. Plus they're concentrated in tenderloin / civic center and most people will avoid that area to reduce ever encountering crazy stuff.

A horrifying human experience is living in a war zone. It’s not having to move to a different bart car or endure a pan handler requesting money.

Have you/do you live in SF? I have had my fair share of horrifying experiences in SF that were a lot more serious than a panhandler. And I think others would agree.

I know several people who have been physically assaulted in San Francisco, including one guy who was shot. It’s far worse than you describe.

It's genuinely horrifying to realize that you both consider yourself a good person and yet recoil in disgust at people in great need. What is more painful than having your self-conception as an altruistic, moral person thoroughly undermined?

Empathy without boundaries is self destruction

Even this can still be horrifying to face, when seeing the scale of those whose suffering exists and is far beyond your means to do anything about, even before facing ones own analysis-paralysis upon seeing so many good causes and not knowing what to do about it.

Much easier to hide from this, one way or another. Some do it with platitudes about fish or hard work, others with demands that the super-rich pay more taxes, still more with karma and the mysterious workings of the divine.

That's all very human.

Underlying that is a presumption of control and ownership of things outside one’s control which is toxic though.

Suffering may exist. But when it is outside of one’s actual sphere of influence, and not caused by you - it is not really your business.

Turning it into an imperative is actually inverting the ownership involved, and trying to turn someone else’s pain into yours.

Which is the toxic part. As it disconnects the situation from who really does own it, and who really does have it within their sphere of influence.

> Underlying that is a presumption of control and ownership of things outside one’s control which is toxic though.

Sure, but it is (to varying degrees between each person and situation) hard not to make this error when you're face-to-face with it.

> it is not really your business.

On a personal level, perhaps not; but hence the left half of politics, all the way from "lets not cut taxes" to actual literal Communism.

Sure. It’s also self destructive and often destructive to the one being ‘helped’ when taken to extremes (like most things).

The history of aid to Africa causing economic disruption and further long term misery being a good example.

The article also mentions a few AI companies which now employ a few dozen people and have signed a handful of leases in SF?

So yeah, not much.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/article/openai-s-f-bi... Yep. nothing to see here.

Unfortunately this boom is way different than the previously innovation driven tech booms. There’s no competitive advantage in writing openai wrappers. Any wealthy city can be a hub for it.

What kind of innovation had competitive advantages in the previous booms? Did building Facebook or Twitter have any inherent technical or competitive moats, or could anyone else also build those at the time?

AI is being hoisted to a pedestal for lots of tasks, but can it save the commercial real-estate bubble?

Should it?

That inspired me to copy your comment as a prompt in ChatGPT:

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to impact various aspects of the commercial real estate industry, but it may not have the ability to save or prevent a commercial real estate bubble on its own. The state of the commercial real estate market is influenced by a complex interplay of economic, financial, and market forces, and the rise or fall of a bubble is typically tied to broader economic conditions.

Here are some ways in which AI can be relevant to the commercial real estate industry:

1. Data Analysis: AI can help analyze large volumes of real estate data, such as property values, rental rates, and market trends, to provide insights to investors, developers, and property managers. This data analysis can inform decision-making and help identify investment opportunities.

2. Predictive Analytics: AI algorithms can be used to make predictions about future trends in the real estate market, which can aid in making informed investment decisions and risk assessments.

3. Automation: AI can automate various aspects of property management and maintenance, potentially reducing operational costs and increasing efficiency for property owners.

4. Risk Assessment: AI can assist in assessing the creditworthiness of tenants and help in the underwriting process for commercial real estate loans.

5. Virtual Tours and Visualization: AI-driven technologies can enhance property marketing by creating virtual property tours and realistic visualizations of properties.

While AI can provide valuable tools and insights, it cannot single-handedly save a commercial real estate bubble. The rise or fall of a real estate bubble typically involves a combination of factors such as interest rates, economic conditions, supply and demand dynamics, and investor sentiment.

To address issues related to a potential real estate bubble, it often requires a combination of government policy, prudent lending practices, and regulatory oversight. AI can be a part of the solution, but it is just one component of a complex ecosystem in the real estate industry.

Oh wow, another useless ChatGPT text prompt answer... Good job... ?

Completely agree, I hate it when people post college-sophomore-quality walls of AI text as if it’s adding to the conversation or is even the least bit insightful.

None of the output touches on AI being a catalyst for people returning to the office like the article is clearly trying to do

Is there value in moving there for an individual who’s an employed swe, but trying to break into AI? I’d love to work for some of these startups but it seems difficult to get past the resume screen these days, and I don’t think I have that weak of a resume. If moving there would make a big impact I’d consider it, but I’m not sure where exactly in SF, and how to connect to the community while maintaining my current job remotely

> Is there value in moving there for an individual who’s an employed swe, but trying to break into AI?

Yes. If you’ve never experienced the value of an industrial cluster, it’s exhilarating. You still have to hustle. But the payoff on a single day well executed is exponential; meetings beget introductions and actions are decided on handshakes.

So if I move there I should maximize meetups? How does one filter meetups? I only ask because I do see a large quantity of meetups, but having never been there before I’m not sure what to expect, and I’m considering a short term (30-60 days) trip to determine if moving there is a good idea for my career or if I should just stick to remote work in the midwest

> should maximize meetups? How does one filter meetups?

Yes. And don't. Also, aggressively reach out to arrange bilateral meetings and ask friends for introductions. When you're at a bar, engage with those around you. (Genuinely, I might add. There are a lot of smart, interesting people in San Francisco. Also douchebags. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

I'm moving from NYC to CA next week for exactly this.

Nice! SF is still the best place for tech startups.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that we're actually excited about something in tech again. Like for real, not in the "oh thats interesting now how can we make money" kind of way. It's been a long time, well over a decade since that's happened. The energy of SF in the late 2000s with the mobile boom was electric. Would be wonderful to experience that again.

You didn't feel it two years ago when crypto and Web3 were going to fundamentally change everything?

/s (sorta..)

> You didn't feel it two years ago when crypto and Web3 were going to fundamentally change everything?

That was the charlatan crap that took over in the last 10 years. Once upon a time, people actually cared about tech for it's own sake, and spent time geeking out and having meetups for the fun of it. Not everything was a "networking opportunity" to grift into a 6 figure PM role. I'd say 2014ish was about the time those things started becoming >50% nontechnicals and recruiters, which was about the same time that every last drop of real culture in that city made an exodus to the east bay.

Unfortunately, the same Crypto grifters have fully transitioned into AI thought leaders. We're going to have the same get-rich-quick schemes except this time it'll be VC money going to an extremely novel idea built on top of an OpenAI API instead of virtual real estate or hideous JPEGs of apes.

Walking by crypto meetups attended by people that mostly looked like buttoned up bankers sure was… something.

Let’s not try to write off all the ridiculous crypto bullshit as “buttoned up bankers.”

There was (and is) plenty of bona fide Silicon Valley nerds in on the cult/con.

That’s not what I said or meant. At the end of it all the meetups went from nerd to mostly clueless “investors” and apparently we were all suppose to believe the tech utopia narrative that late into the game.

>to grift into a 6 figure PM role

"six figures" in SF is practically poverty, and thanks to inflation it's hardly even "making it" in flyover country nowadays. wow, some grift, lol.

in a world where an average cashier makes $40k/yr, $100k isn't going to be the milestone it once was

An average full-time cashier in Columbus, Ohio (a substantial city) earns ~$27k/year and close to zero benefits, according to Indeed.

The economy being harder on people making $100k doesn’t somehow mean everyone else is earning way more — their COL is rising way faster than wages too.

And this is why Seattle > SF for working on actual tech.

I think 99% of people who were into that just wanted to get rich quick when the crypto prices went apeshit. Recent AI feels like crazy sci-fi stuff on its own merit, whether it makes money or not.

That's it, total scifi stuff. Every day when I get output from these models, at least once I tell myself "man, this is so futuristic, how do we even have this", and that's after 3 years of working with gen AI. Even if it never makes another dime, I still have some local models to play with, and that makes me happy.

Yeah but this time the tech is based on stealing people's intellectual property. Hopefully this theft ends soon.

>Yeah but this time the tech is based on stealing people's intellectual property. Hopefully this theft ends soon.

It isn't necessarily or fundamentally, though. Public data was just the most accessible training corpus for the POC phase of adoption. Getty just released their first licensed model, and I suspect things like that will pick up steam as the tech has rapidly commoditized.

That being said we will probably end up with a supreme court ruling on this in the next five years, and I strongly believe it will come down on the side of fair use.

Technically it is only taking gradients from the training text, not the text itself. And those gradients are all added up so the contribution of any one of them is diluted to almost nothing.

You cannot expect to be paid the same amount of money by the same size audience when the supply increases dramatically. Recording industry got this lesson 20 years back.

On the contrary, I think of AI as a form of shrinkflation. Consumers will probably pay roughly the same for inferior content. AI companies will capture the excess profits.

What if what you can build based on humanity's collective "intellectual property" is worth the discomfort of not "owning" the work you release into the world?

Suppose you could use the argument for robbing everyone of their possessions. I believe communists did that. Imagine if the state built based on humanity’s collective property. Didnt go well did it?

Not a great argument.

Having energy and money go to something that is not crypto is so refreshing. I’m having conversations about how to use technology to make things cheaper and easier again!

For the most up to date list of all AI events happening in the city, checkout https://cerebralvalley.ai/events

Happy to see SF revitalized by the work on these cool new challenges. Solving the hard problem of replacing all office workers with AI really requires in-person collaboration.

AI applications are much more than office work automation.

I am always spooked by these types of headlines concerning AI. On one hand, LLM and AI is supposed to replace many Dev jobs and be productivity multiplier. On the other hand, I still don’t see any widespread adoption of LLMs in tooling and overall dev infrastructure at my work. As someone working at a mid size tech company, is there anything I can do? Are these meetups helpful to learn what tools and technologies are out there to adopt?

I don’t think you’re missing out on much at this point.

It's 1999 all over again.

Escuse me, I have some tulip bulbs/crypto for sale.

This is seriously the laziest type of analysis there is. It’s like a freshman who memorizes the formulas for a test and attempts to pattern match existing concepts rather than understanding fundamentals. In this case you’re pattern matching the most unimportant features of the existing trend. If you don’t understand the difference between AI and crypto I don’t know what to tell you

Oh you wanted analysis, that's too doors down, right next to entitlement.

Changing the world doesn't necessarily require revenue to accrue to any specific named individual or group: "computer" used to be a job, now a single Raspberry Pi zero would beat all humans combined in this role, even if we all operated at the standard of the current world record holder. It costs $5 new when launched, rather than being valued at the entire global GDP each.

Likewise, even though the dot-com bubble did have a lot of bankruptcies, the fundamental idea was right: the internet did, only a few years later, radically change how connected we all were, and now almost every business has at least some internet presence even if it's a roadside shack outside Nairobi[0] with a gmail account next to their phone number.

AI? It may likewise be too soon for this level of exuberance, leading to a market crash; and it may likewise lead to such a degree of post-scarcity in the specific job roles it can automate that those roles are subsumed entirely within 30 years by the name of the hardware or software that do those roles, with the wealth flowing to everyone else except those who worked them, and the stock market valuations of the supporting businesses remaining small compared to the overall economy.

No way to tell.

But I'm sure it's not tulips.

[0] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Curio+Shop/@-1.0622165,36....

May I interest you in some AI sauce for those?

Don't mind if I do :-)

There is absolutely no way for me to do anything in SF, not even a short trip based on what my friends told me who went there for business or personal reason in recent years, shit happened to them and they felt helpless. When I do consulting I specifically avoid CA the whole state as well. I used to live both at SF and LA for a few months each, it was better back then.

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