> VC has been investing in AI as-if it were a winner takes all market, but it has been obvious that isn’t the case.
I really don't see how this was supposed to go, and I've never heard an explanation.
I don't see any kind of coherent vision from any of these types.
Most normal folks (i.e not SV/HN types that seem to desire to replace their marketable programming skills with LLM output) really don't "want" LLMs in any real sense.
Sure, people use them like a search engine, kids cheat on homework with them etc, but there's not this overwhelming universal desire for them like there was for, say iPhones.
I never once have heard any sort of proposed roadmap for how LLMs were supposed to work as a product.
They were just going to get, uh "really good" and take everyone's office job or something?*
Normal F500 organizations that are obviously a target for LLM use (via hyperscaler sales) are still yet to see a clear path to "revolutionizing" their workforce or whatever via LLMs-it's just not there. Costs are too high, there's no obvious use case, "hallucinations" are a real impediment etc.
I'll add many of the public usecases for this (i.e those a hyperscaler would blog about as a sales promo) are seriously weak ("we reduced onboarding time by 20% with $MODEL")
I would really like to hear a proposal for how this is all supposed to come together. Does anyone have a concrete plan for the future for all this stuff?
*I'll note, this is NOT the way to sell a product to the masses, either.
Addendum: I'm not an "LLM hater" by any means. I pay for GH Copilot, and have been running local LLMs since it's been a thing (granted with limited hardware, and limited quality)--I intend to wait a bit and buy better hardware with one motivating factor being running local LLMs in a year or so when the open-source offerings stabilize"