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A comment on I got fooled by AI-for-science hype–here's what it taught me. Parent comment

Re:I got fooled by AI-for-science hype–here's what it taught me by aleph_minus_one on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @09:35AM (#44041477)
I basically agree, but want to point out two major differences to other "hype-y" topics that existed in the past that in my opinion make the whole AI discussions on HN a little bit more controversial than other older hype discussions:

1. The whole investment volume (and thus hope and expectations) into AI is much larger than into other hype topics.

2. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, was president of YCombinator, the company begind Hacker News, from 2014 to 2019.

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Re:I got fooled by AI-for-science hype–here's what it taught me by sanderjd on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @11:56AM (#44043036)
On (1): Investment volume relative to what? To me, it looks like a very similar pattern of investors crowding into the currently hot thing, trying to get a piece of the winners of the power law.

On (2): I'm honestly not sure I think this is making a big difference at all. Not much of the commentary here is driven by YC stuff, because most of the audience here has no direct entwinement with YC.

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Re:I got fooled by AI-for-science hype–here's what it taught me by og_kalu on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @03:18PM (#44044903)
>On (1): Investment volume relative to what? To me, it looks like a very similar pattern of investors crowding into the currently hot thing, trying to get a piece of the winners of the power law.

The profile of investors (nearly all the biggest tech companies amongst others) as well as how much they're willing to and have put down (billions) is larger than most.

Open AI alone just started work on a $100B+ datacenter (Stargate)

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Re:I got fooled by AI-for-science hype–here's what it taught me by sanderjd on Tuesday May 20, 2025 @04:24PM (#44045548)
Yeah maybe I buy it. But it reminds me of the investment in building out the infrastructure of the internet. That predates HN, but it's the kind of thing we would have debated here if we could have :)
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