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AI

AI Not Hyped Enough, Says Microsoft Exec (indiatimes.com) 133

Puneet Chandok, Microsoft India and South Asia head, at an event this week: "People say AI is overhyped, but I think it's not hyped enough. The next generation who will use this in the next few years will have a much higher bar on what technology can do for them. So how you build it for that generation, how you build it for that future will be really interesting to see. AI is truly a general purpose technology, which can change everything that we do," he added.
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AI Not Hyped Enough, Says Microsoft Exec

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  • by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Monday February 19, 2024 @11:07PM (#64253248)

    First mover hype advantage!

    Super growth metrics!

    Exit strategies!

    More hype is its own success!

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      And when everyone starts to depend on AI creations over human creations then there would in a while be nobody that knows how the AI works or how anything works anymore. That would be the real problem in the future, not that the AIs will kill humanity as being redundant, we are doing a pretty good job ourselves dumbing down the general population.

      Just look at many web sites today. Pages with stock images and buzzwords but very little knowledge. E.g. I want to know how this fabulous application can be used, b

      • Our economy needs consumers! If everyone could do everything themselves, they wouldn't pay someone to do it instead. We need dumb people who consume, consume, consume.

        But better not ask where these dumb people should get the money from to consume. That's one uncomfortable question we don't ask here.

        • CNBC is your friend.....

          if you make money on churning portfolios for those that want to buy lottery tickets.

          OTOH, if you wanted to do a quick check on markets, it's not so bad. Acting on that info? This is up to the strategies of the reader. Those treating the markets like a gambler rather than an investor will get their fix of pseudo/amateur day trader bits and pieces.

          If you're listening to Cramer for whatever reasons, you're doing it wrong unless you consistently bet against him, which is still another ga

    • Need to pump pump pump.
      Inflate that bubble more !

  • by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Monday February 19, 2024 @11:07PM (#64253252)

    AI is going to make billions of people poor. Enough pissed off poor people will fight back. AI will use technology to neutralize these threats. The rich will have it made.

    Enjoy the show. While you can.

    • Sounds like the plot from one of several Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episodes...

    • All recent technology has made some people poor while benefiting others. AI is just threatening people who benefited in the past and thought they would always be among the winners. The real problem is best expressed by this factoid. The economy has grown since Joe Biden was elected but weekly wages have fallen when adjusted for inflation. That is actually true over a much longer period since the WWW was first came on the scene in the 1990's. The fact is we have an increasingly hugely inequitable distributio
      • by Jeremi ( 14640 )

        AI is really not much of a threat to people who make beds for a living or change bedpans.

        Use AI as a cognitive/control system for inexpensive robots, OTOH, and I think it will very much become a threat to those whose jobs depend on doing those tasks. But that's a slashdot article for 2030, not today.

        • I see AI as just fad and hype for the moment. What we have know is artificial stupidity.

          I think that customer support call center employees who are GOOD at their job; ie, second or third level support, possibly will keep their jobs. Because AI in its current state cannot be useful for actual tough issues. So it only replaces first level support designed to delay and hinder customers until they give up and stop calling. AI will do a superb job and delaying and hindering.

          If you manage to use AI to do your

      • All recent technology has made some people poor while benefiting others. .

        What if there is a trend making more people poorer and less people a lot richer? If AI is a success it will replace all jobs of the tertiary sector.

        • by stooo ( 2202012 )

          >> replace all jobs of the tertiary sector
          Nope. It can't.
          What it can do is give the illusion to replace people.
          This illusion quickly falls apart when it makes huge "beginner" mistakes

        • I think you'll find some industries will make it illegal to use AI directly in place of a human as a protection mechanism. I'm sure politicians, lawyers, some other "professional" jobs will do a lot of hand waving saying that ONLY a human can do our job and we are SO important therefore no AI. These same people will of course use AI to do most of their work but when in front of a camera or judge or board they'll be spouting their bullshit like they always have.

          I could see AI moving forward faster then the s

          • It'll make MORE work for humans. Because AI is just so bad a tthe "I" part. So judges can no longer just trust somewhat that a real attorney filed a motion, and now have to read each and every line, and follow up on each and every cited case to be sure it really exists. Every programmer has to code review in extreme detail because you can't trust that AI has basic proficiency. AI will lie! AI will hallucinate! AI is just collecting a bunch of pre-existing data from training sets and recombining in way

      • All recent technology has made some people poor while benefiting others. AI is just threatening people who benefited in the past and thought they would always be among the winners. The real problem is best expressed by this factoid. The economy has grown since Joe Biden was elected but weekly wages have fallen when adjusted for inflation. That is actually true over a much longer period since the WWW was first came on the scene in the 1990's. The fact is we have an increasingly hugely inequitable distribution of the benefits of technology and the wealth it creates. That is likely to continue. AI is really not much of a threat to people who make beds for a living or change bedpans.

        Everyone knows technology tends to drive up income inequality globally. What I'm not so sure of is "AI is really not much of a threat to people who make beds for a living or change bedpans." why do you believe this would be the case? Automation in the hospitality industry is already seeing deployment of robotic teaming for housekeeping staff. The general theme of AI providing machines the ability to quickly learn to do more generalized tasks seems like it would be quite relevant to your statement.

    • Then there comes a point where AI breaks down. For example, a CME or Carrington event hits the earth. It doesn't even need to fry everything, just a country and its military defenses. As soon as that happens, a neighbor invades... boom war, and now all the AI assumptions now have to be regenerated from scratch due to a butterfly flapping wings.

      It will suck until then, but black swan events happen, such as the Black Plague, which caused nobility to have too few backs to break to allow them their luxuries,

      • What times would you say are better than today and in what ways? If you could time travel to any other time/place in the past but you can only go once with no return ticket, when/where would it be that's better than here/now?

        • I felt the 90s/00s were better then the 2020s. I guess it's all relative though. 2010 was a great year for me. Real estate was affordable. My job was very resilient to the overall market failures and I was doing great.

          Today, my job doesn't feel like it's keeping up. Real estate is well out of reach despite having a 20% down already and our politics looks downright scary as can be. Add to that we have the potential for wars to spread to wider conflicts and it's not a very rosy picture at the moment.

          But as a

          • Ok, fair enough. Most people come up with some fantasy year like the 1950s or some other century entirely where pretty much everything for pretty much everyone was worse than today.

            Kudos to you for picking a reasonable time period.

            Carry on!

            • I think mid to late 70's - early 80's maybe.

              The music was DEFINITELY better....

              People were nicer....everyone didn't have a fucking camera everywhere, kids could play with other kids outside in their neighborhoods, politics could be discussed without losing friends/relatives....

              The US was a MUCH more unified country in purpose and thought in general.

              And you could generally fuck anything that moved without having to wrap yourself in a tire....worst that happened, you got a shot for the "drippy drips".

              • All true. But there are some serious tradeoffs if you go that far back such as medical science, bell bottoms and gold chains+chest hair being a thing.

      • Carrington Event will do minimal damage to North America.

        We don't do telegraph anymore. We don't do electric the same way
        as the 1800's. We have learned from past mistakes. Spare us the fear mongering.

        • Maybe not for infrastructure but I seriously doubt your consumer electronics or even your average business electronics are EM shielded. If another Carrington Event (or worse) takes out everyone's cellphones and computers, not to mention probably our tractors and possibly even our data centers, life will suck for most of us.

          Hopefully that shit hits the other side of the planet instead of NA. Yes, I'm selfishly thinking regionally because my personal survival is much more important to me then distance people

          • Maybe not for infrastructure but I seriously doubt your consumer electronics or even your average business electronics are EM shielded. If another Carrington Event (or worse) takes out everyone's cellphones and computers, not to mention probably our tractors and possibly even our data centers, life will suck for most of us.

            Carrington would do nothing to cellphones and computers. It barely impacted the operation of the telegraph system which continued to operate even with the piss poor circuit protection of the time.

            Not even normal civilian vehicles tested against far more extreme conditions of atmospheric nuclear EMP weapons were damaged.

        • by KlomDark ( 6370 )
          It will just fry all the communications satellites and we'll be fucked.
          • It will just fry all the communications satellites and we'll be fucked.

            Percentage of worlds communications conducted by satellite is literally a rounding error.

    • AI is going to make billions of people poor. Enough pissed off poor people will fight back. AI will use technology to neutralize these threats. The rich will have it made.

      Enjoy the show. While you can.

      Ironically enough the rich are far too greedy about AI right now to avoid an actual uprising. Dealing with the actual societal breakdown and chaos of a 30% unemployment rate is a hell of a lot harder than managing media selling the lie of 3%.

      AI can barely neutralize its way out of a grammar contest right now.

      • ... breakdown and chaos of a 30% unemployment rate ...

        I think chaos ensues because, government and fiscal policy is designed for 90-95% employment (and below 20% inflation/cost of capital). If one continues taxing labour and excluding the unemployed (healthcare, services rationing/discounts, welfare), it's obvious that sooner, rather than later, the government will lose revenue and people will tire of being punished. If wealth isn't allowed to accumulate, 30% unemployment is sustainable.

    • What's the rich's exit strategy for the economy?

      Because an economy that is supposed to work needs consumers. You need someone to sell your crap to. AI doesn't consume anything but electricity, and even that is paid for by its master.

      • Kings didn't need consumers, they needed peasants and servants. Coincidentally we're seeing the borders opened and millions of peasants and servants being welcomed.
        • Since our kings don't rule by divine right but rather by the right of the money... though one could argue that we worship it just like any other god... anyway, since money is the source of power for our current nobility, they need some way to keep multiplying it. And that only works if enough people have little that having much matters.

          If you have a mass of people who have nothing at all, having a million or a billion doesn't matter much. You have to have more by comparison, and that in turn only works if t

      • "You will own nothing and like it"

      • What's the rich's exit strategy for the economy?

        Take it all to Mars and wave on the way off-planet?

        Because an economy that is supposed to work needs consumers. You need someone to sell your crap to. AI doesn't consume anything but electricity, and even that is paid for by its master.

        The people pushing the AI hype are folks that believe because they dream it, it will happen. They don't even know what they're dreaming right now, other than that if they control the AI that runs everything, they can continue to consolidate wealth. Once all the wealth is sucked out of the rest of the economy, it won't much matter to them how many people starve or go without shelter. If an uprising starts, they'll have the government backed military to prote

        • While I most of what you wrote is probably more or less correct, currently our military is still made up of humans and those humans can decide not to back the state. Now when drones are doing all the fighting, then we're probably most certainly fucked. We're not quite there yet.

          • While I most of what you wrote is probably more or less correct, currently our military is still made up of humans and those humans can decide not to back the state. Now when drones are doing all the fighting, then we're probably most certainly fucked. We're not quite there yet.

            While we're not quite there for drones, do you realize the training military folks do? They won't attack their own parents, or siblings, I'm certain. But there's enough hatred bred into them that if they say a crowd attacking a place is filled with the right demographic, they'll still shoot. Hell, in some cases all it would take is telling them that it's the Democrats trying to stop the Republicans from some random thing. That's how much hatred is laced throughout our society right now.

            Though I do mostly ag

    • by Njovich ( 553857 )

      Don't worry, rich people will always need dance monkeys to remind themselves how rich they are. Not that different than what most people do at their current job really.

    • >> AI is going to make billions of people poor.
      Hmm. Nope.
      I'll use NI instead of those garbling pseudo-art generators, thank you very much.
      (NI = Natural Intelligence)

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      AI will make system as a whole much more efficient, and therefore able to generate more money. There's only so much that can be concentrated at the top, which is why every time this happened in the past... everyone got much richer. For example, today poorest people in Europe have better dentistry than nation leaders had half a century ago.

      And that's just two generations gap.

      Entirety of human progress is about slow stagnation followed by a massive technological breakthough in something that allows for recali

      • Where is my flying car?

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          It's called a helicopter, and its currently not yet affordable by the masses because of the energy problem.

          • Helicopters don't have wheels and even if they were car priced I still can't fly one without extensive training.

            I was promised George Jetson.

            • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              That's a hell of an intelligence failure. First thing one should learn about progress, is that we as humans are far too stupid to be able to model its long term destination.

              • It is, yes. Especially since that promise goes back decades with essentially zero progress.

                Yet here we are making even bigger promises about AI.

                • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                  We're making guesses, not promises. If someone told you that we'd replace creative writers before office cleaning ladies two years ago, no one would have believed you.

                  And yet, here we are in the world where on creative writer now does a job that needed a dosen in the past because of AI, and there are massive layoffs going on in that industry. We can see the trend. We don't know where it will lead. You can see this in everything from atomic power not powering cars but making it possible for submarines to sta

                  • There are massive layoffs which is a big mistake they'll pay for later.

                    There was a time when management thought they could outsource everything to India, too. That didn't go so well.

                    AI is a tool. In some cases a great tool. But it isn't magic.

    • AI is going to make billions of people poor. Enough pissed off poor people will fight back. AI will use technology to neutralize these threats. The rich will have it made.

      Enjoy the show. While you can.

      One wonders if Frank Herbert was prophetic in his notion of humanity adopting a Butlerian Jihad ("Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man's mind").

  • AI isn't going to become god, AI is god and you are not, therefore kill yourself in the hopes that simulation theory is real and your pathetic existence was worth anything at all you trash human scum!

    How'd I do?
  • by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @12:13AM (#64253348)

    I can tell where we are on the bubble when we hear that. When people say, "we can't get enough hype", that means the entry of people in the bottom of a "pyramid" is slowing down, so some pump action is needed. Saw this with ICOs in the early 2010s, saw this with blockchain, saw this with NFTs, and so on.

    Does this mean the technology is bad? Nope. If someone (who isn't making it for premining and rug pulls) makes a BTC 2.0 that has anonymous/private transactions, ability to prune, so all 500 gigs of a blockchain doesn't have to be pruned, a low per-transaction cost so it can be used for buying penny tokens even if used at a scale of tens of billions of people, mining done in environmentally responsible ways (proof of storage, proof of RAM, proof of protein-folding), this would be a useful thing.

    I have a feeling that the hype train is getting into overdrive because the interest in AI is peaking. Not that it will go away -- many businesses want it solely so they can kick out workers, but it is becoming a solution looking for a problem.

    • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

      "saw this with NFTs"

      I'd love to know how those assclowns who paid stupid money for a meaningless NFT for some crap "art" which they still didn't even own are justifying their now virtually worthless assets to themselves and family these days.

      • "I got in early so I wouldn't miss out! Current prices are a buying opportunity! Long term due to uniqueness and the laws of supply and demand it can only go up! So I put the rest of my money into more NFT!"

      • I saw a lot of people buying NFTs because they felt that they feel like they missed the Bitcoin train to the moon, and NFTs were another Apollo mission there. When I heard of NFTs, it were people going for the full-tilt pump action, telling everyone that the procedurally generated pictures purchased will be more valuable than what hangs in the Louvre. As soon as I heard about the same "HFSP" BS, I knew it was something to be avoided, just like the tons of ICOs that popped up before that, with all the prem

    • by Zarhan ( 415465 )

      Looking at AI-focused ETF, e.g. Wisdomtree's AI - https://www.wisdomtree.eu/en-g... [wisdomtree.eu] - you can see that after the covid slump in 2020, it has, well, gained around 2/3 (15 => 25). Granted, that ETF mostly includes chipmakers (AMD, Nvidia, Broadcom, Mediatek, etc..) as largest stakes.

      Anyway, that's pretty much the same ballpark that S&P 500 has done in same timeframe (from ~3000 pts to ~5000 pts).

      Apart from Nvidia that has made a killing, there really doesn't seem to be much of a difference to other ind

  • Yes. AI needs more hype. I am not hearing how AI can replace urinals yet. Or maybe they can design new forks and spoons that use AI. I don't think I have heard about doorknobs being used with AI, either. We definitely need to find more use cases for it, because it isn't yet a 100% must-use-right-now replacement for everything down to fucking breathing.
  • by Himmy32 ( 650060 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @12:25AM (#64253366)

    I think it's not hyped enough

    Says hype man selling the technology that his company invested very heavily in... ok.

    Microsoft really communicates that belief in the tech through how much they are spending.

    • by Misagon ( 1135 )

      This hits the nail on the head.

      Microsoft made this shitty investment, and now they have to market it to people to make it seem worthwhile.

      However, in reality nobody will buy a copy of Windows because it has AI.
      Nobody will buy a new laptop because it has Windows 12 and a "copilot" key on the keyboard.
      Nobody uses Windows because they like it, because Microsoft has seen to it that they don't by making the user experience as shitty as possible.
      People use Windows because for the applications they are using, it i

  • by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @12:40AM (#64253386)

    Steve can always give some advice on a presentation that will last for the next 3 generations to come.

  • People keep getting confused between AGI and our current series of ever better idiot savants.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You are willing to give AI the "idiot savant" status? I think that is way overstating the case. I recently tries ChatGPT in one of my exams. It got most things right that can easily be looked up and everything that needed the tiniest bit of thinking wrong. As expected, really.

      • AI will easily beat your ass at chess, checkers, go...

        • None of which require thinking or creativity.

          • So what, they're still better at it than you. Also almost nothing really requires thinking and creativity, eg driving or factory work. Almost everything can be done by idiot AI, with no need for AGI.

            • So what? The topic was critical thinking and you brought up things that can be solved with a complex sort and search algorithm across a large but finite search space.

              That's so what.

              I think, therefore I am.

              • I still think that people keep getting confused between AGI and our current series of ever better idiot savants.

                • by gweihir ( 88907 )

                  You seem to not understand the definition of "idiot savant". A savant can have somewhat specialized general intelligence. Not all do.

        • by gweihir ( 88907 )

          So what? Those can essentially be brute-forced these days. Yes, I get that you probably do not understand what that means.

          • Rude and stupid, bad combo. Checkers can be brute forced, the other two cannot any time soon. Plus you don't know what an idiot savant is, for example some of them are able to calculate calendar dates.

            • by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Wrong on all counts, except that these days, I am gladly rude to everybody that insists on being an idiot. You qualify.

  • by The Cat ( 19816 )

    The next generation is too busy looking for work. Probably because they got laid off by a company like Microsoft.

    Just ask the 1900 people you just canned from Blizzard. You know, the ones you promised not to fire in court?

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @02:32AM (#64253502)

    Why does anybody listen to this clown?

  • AI is not really going to affect people that do some sort of skilled work. Wether it is programming or plumbing, AI is not really a threat at the moment.

    However, Mr Puneet Chandok should be worried and not hyped about it. Management is not skilled work. It is basically just analyzing data and taking decisions. The exact thing AI is great at. Similarly for cold calling or sales, the basic tasks of getting leads can be automated with ease.
    • by Misagon ( 1135 )

      Unfortunately the world is not managed by logic but by greed and fear.

      Too many people are going to be, .. (I'm sorry) are being laid off right now not because an AI can do it better, but because ignorant managers have been fooled to believe that AI could do it better or just that the remaining workers could do better work with the help of AI.

    • Management of stuff is not skilled work. It is what you describe.

      Management of people is skilled work. It is non-trivial. You cannot simply follow a small set of rules and succeed.

      Management of a corporation is skilled work. But it is spread out across many employees and the notional managers (CEOs, whatever) only do a small portion of the job. They depend on many others for the intelligence needed to do it.

      • Ehhh.. maybe, but the cost savings are so much higher. Might as well try AI and pay the employees more, then see how it goes
    • AI cannot BS and pretend to be useful. There will always be a place for managers.
  • "Please generate me a replica of all episodes of gundam seed, except well drawn"

  • by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Tuesday February 20, 2024 @04:22AM (#64253634)

    "People say AI is overhyped, but I think it's not hyped enough.

    Oh really? Sorry to go all 'Cynical Old Fart' on you whipper-snappers here, but did Mr. Chandok say that just after coming out of a meeting with a bunch of international venture capitalists where they were planning the next tech bubble? Because this AI hype is starting to give off distinct Dot-com bubble vibes. While my experience with previous tech bubbles tells me that AI is probably an awesome technology that will do a lot for us in the long term, my experience with previous tech bubbles also tells me that AI won't do what the hype says either. Most of the changes AI brings about will not be as awesome as predicted by hype, some will fail to materialise entirely, some of the changes will be entirely different from what the hype said they would be and a handful will be transformational in some way but most of all, a lot of people will once again lose lots of money, their jobs and have their lives upended when the bubble bursts because they dank the Kool-Aid being handed out by guys like this.

  • First we created tools to enhance our strength and agility. Then we created tools which could work on their own, automating tedious and hard physical tasks. With the computer we did the same with logical problems. At this point we are ready to automate the last bit of ourselves, creativity, making humankind obsolete. Everything comes to and end, even us.
  • I haven't seen this much bullshit about a buzzword since the turn of the century. This guy probably has a solid gold shrine to the term "Information Superhighway."
  • "Nobody is paying $30/mo from Copilot"
  • I mean, that's his job.

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