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The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI | Leaked audio from Accenture says a big source of AI token ‘chewing’ is people just converting PDFs to presentatio… (www.404media.co)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 152 points 2 months ago (59 children)

AI is about to join the list of "stupid technologies that people should really wait and see before investing on", which includes

  • 3D TVs - complete dud
  • Blockchain - useless for real world problems already solved by typical computing
  • Metaverse - still one of the best jokes around
  • Folding screen phones - overpriced junk
  • Fully autonomous self driving cars - "Just around the corner" for the past 10 years
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  • [–] 105 points 2 months ago (9 children)

    Don't forget NFTs... though I guess that can fall under blockchain.

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  • [–] 83 points 2 months ago* (19 children)

    Folding Phones Sales Continue To Increase since 2019, showing people seem to like them

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  • [–] 53 points 2 months ago (15 children)

    Two time buyer, can confirm. They're legitimately useful and durable enough for me.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    I don't think they are for me but I honestly would not include them in that list above. First of all, there is no investment bubble around them and secondly some people seem to like them and are ready to pay for them. They also do have legitimate benefits (but also downsides)

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Yeah I didn’t dislike the 3d monitors/tvs they just had too many caveats at the time and VR kind of ate its lunch.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    3D stuff has the fundamental issue that VR and 3D views are just incredibly straining on the human user. Folding phones have no such issue and their durability is also good enough to be competitive (yet clearly worse than regular smart phones). They are really not comparable to 3D monitors and VR.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I think the strain is really dependent on the person as it never really bothered me, it definitely is a problem for some people though. Either way I don’t think it belongs in the same category as blockchain bullshit

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago*

    It is straining for everyone but yes, some can handle the strain better than others. It just takes so much more mental energy to handle. Most can't handle it well though, which is why those technologies never manage to break out of their niche.

    I do agree however that it is quite different from NFT and other scams. It is a really fascinating technology with real use cases but just some foundational issues that prevent it from leaving their niche.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Two time buyer as in you liked it so much and bought another, or two time buyer as in the first is already inoperative and got another?

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    My fold4 lasted 3 years, and still works. I'll concede it was only able to unfold to about 85% open at the end when I decided to upgrade. I was happy to upgrade to the fold 7 which has a redesigned hinge and better dust protection. I acknowledged the risk of mechanical failure as a possibility compared to a slab phone and after using it for years I decided I was still very impressed with the flexibility of having a tablet in my pocket. The fact that my 7th generation is significantly thinner and has a 200MP camera compared to the 4th is what sealed the deal.

    It's not perfect for everyone, but I wouldn't go back to using a slab, there's too much functionality I'd be pissed giving up.

    Granted, I tend to upgrade my phone every 2 years or so anyway.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    If it lasts 5 years, maybe its durable enough.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    I like the one that folds like a GBA SP.
    Not that I'm gonna buy one based on that.
    But if I'm choosing between two identical models but one folds (and I guess it isn't that much more expensive), I'd go for the folding one.
    Except, of course, for the fact that the next phone I buy will be Commodore's Callback.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    This could also be explained by the entire rest of the market being different flavors of the exact same thing. A little over a decade ago, we actually had choices in what type of phone we wanted. Now, if you want anything other than an identical slab, foldables are your only choice.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago (12 children)

    Cold fusion. Green hydrogen. Hyper loop. Just off the top of my head.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Hyper Loop was an insane idea (in a bad way).

    Motherfucker wanted to invent subway, but for cars, making cities even more dependent of cars.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 months ago

    hyperloop was very low air pressure subway tubes for high speed trains. Works for research tesring tracks impractical to infeasible for real world applications. But it apparently what killed high speed rail in california (because wait this will be better)

    The cars in tubes thing was a seperate stupid idea.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 months ago

    I don't know that he really wanted to fully execute on Hyperloop so much as build hype (and Tesla stock price) around the idea while sabotaging funding for California's high speed rail project. But yes, end goal to keep people buying his cars.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Actually not entirely true.

    He was proposing transportation method similar to how the communication tubes are. Where vacuum would be used to transport capsules with people.

    He knew it was bunk, so initially just published that idea and let anyone do it. His actual goal was to kill California's high speed rail, which he did.

    Eventually he purchased Boring company and started building tunnel in Las Vegas and called that (as you called it, subway for cars) a hyper loop and pretend that it was the original idea.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Cold fusion is a scam, not a bad idea. There is no scientific basis for that. Is as bad as “infinite energy engine”.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (5 children)

    All of the things I mentioned are scams lol

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Green hydrogen is water electrolysis with solar power, not scam, it works, it is just a question of making it economically viable. Hyperloop is just stupid, but within the realm of possible. Cold fusion is the only scam here.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    The scam isn't always "fake tech" so much as "distracting from better alternatives for monetary reasons". Even if hyperloop worked perfectly, they're not going to build it, because not building high speed rail was always the point.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Metaverse - still one of the best jokes around

    This one I slightly disagree with. I got my headset on a black friday and it was super cheap, but VR documentaries are friggin' amazing and I hope museums will invest heavily in it in the coming years.

    Fully autonomous self driving cars - “Just around the corner” for the past 10 years

    Definitely. Makes me feel good for people who make their living driving trucks.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    The metaverse isn't VR in general, it was meant to be a virtual space in VR where users could be advertised to and buy/rent things and space like in a physical city.

    It failed because those were the intended starting points, and it didn't solve any problem other than a shitty attempt at a "I want to live in a ready player one world" and didn't have any compelling reasons to actually use it, let alone use it and pay ridiculous amounts to do interesting things there. They always just wanted to be the middlemen, offering space for others to pay for and do something interesting in. The most interesting thing they came up with is having a meeting with avatars instead of faces on a screen (and most people don't even want to turn on their video and just do a voice conversation instead).

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Plus Second Life already tried the same idea and failed, and did so without requiring several hundred dollars of specialized equipment per user like the Metaverse did.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    3D TVs - complete dud

    The real issue with 3D TVs had nothing to do with the tech, but 100% to do with lazy implementation on the media side. Everyone was always trying to make things pop out of the screen, which was the complete wrong approach. Nevermind the fact that companies got so lazy to the point of just filming in 2D and then "adding" 3D in post.

    No one wanted to put in the effort to do it right (aside from James Cameron). So no wonder no one liked it.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Fully autonomous self driving cars - "Just around the corner" for the past 10 years

    It exists, but they realized that why should they do that, when they can make money by creating taxis without drivers.

    There is no benefit for us, ordinary people.

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  • [+] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    I watch a lot of YouTube about everything nerdy and celebratory to every detail and facet about the global apocalypse. Yesterday for the first time in months, a novel idea got through to me.. dude was talking about the overblown reactionary movement to which I initially ate my own vomit.. yes, I consume this drug, but yes, I am cognisant it's really bad, so don't tell me it's all okay... Something along lines of "everyone thinks it's like the industrial revolution. It's not. It's like the Internet or mobile devices. We just forget how big a change those were now that they're normative, so it sounds psychotic to compare AI to such "small" shifts in society like the Internet or mobile".. and I felt a fuck ton better. Copium or not, it's nice to hear a grounded take (he backed it up), and neither a sycophant or chicken little diatribe that feel respectively like sociopaths with heads in the ground or click bait unsubstantiated drama.

    Not undermining what AI is doing to people, society, and the ecology. But now that I type that, thinking what to follow, anyone remember Mary Poppins? How normal it was for little kids covered in soot missing fingers at the dawn of the industrial revolution. We just need regulation which is the actual fundamental shift problem, as demand for political action is no longer democratized now that the Citizens have United.

    Am I a douche? Lying to myself?

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