What is it useful for?

I think it's an apt analogy. The Internet (and the web) was definitely good tech that is still used. Artificial Intelligence (or maybe more broadly, data science or _statistics_) is good tech that will still be used.

But chatbots in all the things? That will definitely collapse. I am interested to see what cream rises to the top out of all this and if we'll see an actual bubble burst like we did then.

People adopted the Internet organically during the dotcom era for a simple reason: on-demand news and email. On a $10/mo dialup plan, that was a pretty affordable deal; you didn't have to write letters to people anymore.

I think genAI is different as most of the use cases aren't really all that valid for individuals, and it's yet to be seen if companies actually derive benefits from it beyond just growing their ability to spam you with on-demand video, podcast and image generation. I'm not saying Copilot and the like aren't helpful, just that there probably isn't room for more than one Copilot scale product.

Mostly however, I feel that the AI hype is being driven by VCs and companies themselves, and there isn't a network effect to catalyze its growth among consumers, like there was with email.

>However, according to him, he did not attend his graduation ceremony to receive his degrees, and therefore, he does not technically possess a BA or an MA.

Oh wow, he's probably lying about his education.

Your right, but what if I type prompts in order to make ChatGPT to show me the full book, or at least big chunks of it? You agree that right now it is possible this, and they didn’t manage how to stop it doing that, right?

>>> why can’t software engineering be a real engineering discipline like civil engineering

Programming pays better than civil engineering or mechanical engineering.

The software team pays better than the hardware team, and programming in support of hardware pays like hardware. When asked why, the answer is: "Software is more valuable because it's closer to revenue." And: "Software has no cost after it has been written once." No manger or engineer can explain what this phrase means, but it's taken as conventional wisdom.

I think the comparison with nuclear tech is missing one crucial aspect: ease of access. Nuclear tech has been misused, and a sufficiently funded and motivated malicious actor could get their hands on it in some way to cause harm, but it is, for the most part, out of reach.

AI, on the other hand, is already being used by every hustler looking to make a quick buck, by students who can't be bothered to write a paper, by teachers who can't be bothered to read and grade papers, by every company who can get it to avoid paying actual people do to certain jobs... Personally, my problem is not with AI tech in itself, it's with how easy it is to get your hands on it and make literally anything you fancy with it. This is what a lot of the "AI for everything" crowd can't seem to grasp.

This is more a statement about how bad technology hype has gotten of late. Having "tangible applications" is a very low bar. If we paused for every technology that has "tangible applications" we'd probably be entering the bronze age any moment now.