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Comment by atleastoptimal | Hacker News Reader

AI companies are already automating huge swaths of document analysis, customer service. Doctors are straight up using ChatGPT to diagnose patients. I know it’s fun to imagine AI is some big scam like crypto, but you’d have to be ignoring a lot of genuine non hype economic movement at this point to assume GAI isn’t making any money.

Why does the forum of an incubator that now has a portfolio that is like 80% AI so routinely bearish on AI? Is it a fear of irrelevance?

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> AI companies are already automating huge swaths of document analysis, customer service. Doctors are straight up using ChatGPT to diagnose patients

I don't think there is serious argument that LLMs won't generate tremendous value. The question is who will capture it. PCs generated massive value. But other than a handful of manufacturers and designers (namely, Apple, HP, Lenovo, Dell and ASUS), most PC builders went bankrupt. And out of the value generated by PCs in the world, the vast majority was captured by other businesses and consumers.

Doctors were using Google to diagnose patients before. The thing is, it's still the doctor delivering the diagnosis, the doctor writing the prescription, and the doctor billing insurance. Unless and until patients or hospitals are willing and legally able to use ChatGPT as a replacement for a doctor (unwise), ChatGPT is not about to eat any doctor's lunch.

Not OP, but I think this makes the point, not argues against it. Something has come along that can supplant Google for a wide range of things. And it comes without ads (for now). It’s an opportunity to try a different business model, and if they succeed at that then it’s off to the races indeed.

Doctors weren't paying for Google either. If ChatGPT or other LLM AIs play that same role, the OP remains correct.

It makes one point: that LLMs are useful.

The other point is still suspect: that LLMs will ever scale to AGI.

Which specifically means reliability and explainability for higher-order thinking.

The writing is on the wall that LLMs are going to automate failure-tolerant work.

But the rub there is that failure-tolerant work is also tolerant of less than state of the art, cost-optimized LLMs.

Which leaves OpenAI where? AGI or bust.

And I wouldn't take that bet, when MS, Google, and Apple are alternative options.

When the wright brothers made their plane they didn't expect today that there are thousands of planes flying at a time.

When the Internet was developed they didn't imagine the world wide Web.

When cars started to get popular people still thought there would be those who are going to stick with horses.

I think you're right on the AI we're just on the cusp of it and it'll be a hundred times bigger than we can imagine.

Back when oil was discovered and started to be used it was about equal to 500 laborers now automated. One AI computer with some video cards are now worth x number of knowledge workers. That never stop working as long as the electricity keeps flowing.

They did actually imagine the World Wide Web at the time of developing the first computer networks. This is one of the most obvious outcomes of a system of networked devices.

Even five years into this "AI revolution," the boosters haven't been able to paint a coherent picture of what AI could reasonably deliver – and they've delivered even less.

Lol they are not using ChatGPT for the full diagnosis. They're used in steps of double checking knowledge like drug interactions and such. If you're gonna speak on something like this in a vague manner I'd suggest you google this stuff first. I can tell you for certain that that part in particular is a highly inaccurate statement.

> Doctors are straight up using ChatGPT to diagnose patients

This makes me want to invest in malpractice lawyers, not OpenAI

The lawyers will be obsolete far faster than the doctors

> Doctors are straight up using ChatGPT to diagnose patients.

Oh we know: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11006786/

The article you posted describes a patient using ChatGPT to get a second opinion from what their doctor told them, not the doctor themself using ChatGPT.

The article could just as easily be about “Delayed diagnosis of a transient ischemic attack caused by talking to some rando on Reddit” and it would be just as (non) newsworthy.

People aren't saying that AI as a tool is going to go bust. Instead, people are saying that this practice of spending 100s of millions, or even billions of dollars on training massive models is going bust.

AI isn't going to be the world changing, AGI, that was sold to the public. Instead, it will simply be another B2B SaaS product. Useful, for sure. Even profitable for startups.

But "take over the world" good? Unlikely.

Yes. The answer is yes.

The world is changing and that is scary.

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