Jeffrey Funk
Why LLMs Are Not Boosting Productivity
If LLMs were as reliably useful as economist Tyler Cowen alleges, businesses would be using them to generate profits faster than LLMs generate text. They aren’t.
Does Everyone Think We Should Exaggerate Scientific Advances?
Many “breakthroughs” reported breathlessly in media are nowhere close to resulting in usable products or services
Unequal Profits: Why AI Needs Successful Applications
Readers may be surprised to learn that these widely touted AI advances are not making their developers much money
Do High AI Startup Valuations Mean Great Success, or Desperation?
The answer is important but is not as clear as we might think. First, let's look at the backgroundConsider a recent news report: “Anthropic is in advanced talks to raise $2 billion in a deal that would value it at $60 billion, more than triple its valuation from a year ago” says the Wall Street Journal. Anthropic’s last venture capital (VC) funding round, less than two months ago, raised $2 billion, bringing its total funding to $9.6 billion. OpenAI had raised $6.6 billion, last October just a year after it raised $10 billion from Microsoft the previous year and just months after it also raised funds on the debt and secondary markets. So that $6.6 billion round was the largest VC funding round ever, a little larger than the $6 billion that Elon Musk’s generative AI startup, xAI, raised in 2023. Read More ›
The Promise of Artificial General Intelligence is Evaporating
Revenue from corporate adoption of AI continues to disappoint and, so far, pales in comparison to the revenue that sustained the dot-com bubble — until it didn’t
AI Adoption is Slowing Amidst the “Biggest Gamble in Business History”
Workers and companies aren't buying the AI hype
AI Pessimists vs True Believers: A Deepening Divide
There is a growing divide about AI even among AI experts but many of them like polarizing content, just as the consumers of political information do
No, the AI Bubble is Nothing Like the Dotcom Bubble
Don't listen to the tech bros on this oneMichael Dell, founder of Dell Computers, said recently on LinkedIn: “The skepticism around AI’s ROI today feels a lot like the doubts people had about the internet in its early days. Back then, no one could fully grasp how much the web would transform our lives, and now AI is on the same path. Yes, it might be tough to measure immediate returns, but if history teaches us anything, it’s that game-changing technologies take time to show their true impact. By embracing AI, we’re not just adopting a tool — we’re investing in a future where human potential gets a major boost, and new opportunities are unlocked. Just like the internet became the foundation of our digital world, AI has Read More ›
A Sloppy “AI Scientist” Could Make the Science Crisis Much Worse
A research team claims to have developed the AI Scientist that “generates novel research ideas, writes code, executes experiments ...” Really?
AI Increased the Market Cap of the Magnificent Seven by $10 Trillion. Will it last?
AI is here to stay, just not in these insanely high share prices
Are We Close to Peak AI Hype?
Outrageous statements are proliferating.
Musk and LeCun Have a Superficial Debate About Science
What would have been a better debate?Elon Musk tweeted the following: “Join xAI if you believe in our mission of understanding the universe, which requires maximally rigorous pursuit of the truth, without regard to popularity or political correctness.” Yann LeCun, chief scientist at tech giant Meta, could not resist responding. Musk claims to “want a maximally rigorous pursuit of the truth but spews crazy-ass conspiracy theories on his own social platform.” It escalated quickly, with Musk questioning what science LeCun had done in the past five years, and LeCun replying: “Over 80 technical papers published since January 2022. What about you?” LeCun then said: “If you do research and don’t publish, it’s not science”. So the most successful engineer over the last ten years criticizes academic Read More ›
Hype Distracts AI Engineers from Real Work
Who is going to solve AI's actual problems?
Universities Should Prioritize Critical Thinking Over Large Language Models
It is doubtful that LLMs can generate novel ways to boost productivity
AI’s Illusion of Rapid Progress
It always seems to be on the verge of perfection
Sundar Pichai Says AI Will Be as Big as Fire
The AI bubble is going to pop.Ask someone how big AI will be, and the answer is likely huge. But how big is huge? Why does this matter? Because big forecasts encourage big investments, trials, and purchases. After big consulting companies predicted eight years ago that AI would have economic gains of about $15 trillion by 2030, many countries and companies felt the need to pay for their own reports from those same consultants. Of course, those consultants said that those countries could experience rapid productivity gains and those companies could experience rising profits if they implemented AI in the right way, which was of course under the guidance of the consulting companies! Eight years later and few of their predictions have come true. But their Read More ›
Sora: Life Is Not a Multiple-Choice Test
With Sora, as with other generative AI developments, some are quick to proclaim that artificial general intelligence has arrived. Not so fast.
Why Do Universities Ignore Good Ideas?
Funding agencies see if the researcher is tenured or has already received funding. It's a vicious cycle.