Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / Is the AI Hype Actually Real? We Break It Down
Transcript
- Thomas: Do you think that the AI hype right now is mostly real, mostly noise? Or you know, or or where does where does everybody disagree, you know, on that? Like what are you I guess like all of us, like what are our thoughts on AI? Like what do you think is gonna happen, you know? Just especially like in the field that you're in. Like I don't know. It's Malcolm: Mm. Thomas: a big part. So what what your thoughts? Jayson: Right, right, right. No, so AI hype is I mean it's real. I feel like it's super impactful. Like you can literally do anything with AI. especially being in tech and me working very computationally all the time. It's revolutionized everything I've done from doing my research to managing and like being able to make sure I stay organized. It it literally controls my life, like I'm not saying I put ever all my info in the AI, but like, you know, like there's a good amount in there. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? Malcolm: Yeah, nah just ab just about. Yeah. Thomas: Right. Jayson: So trying to protect myself by not telling everybody what I put out there on AI, but like it it helps me Thomas: Yeah. Jayson: it knows it pretty much knows me. So it can help me do everything I need to do. So all I'm gonna say about that. Thomas: You using a local model or like a y you know, open AI cloud, like one of the cloud models? Jayson: Yeah, so I'll be using I'll be using Cursor, which was pretty much just every model in one. But I really use Notion a lot to control everything. Like I could talk about that platform forever, so Malcolm: Yeah. Jayson: it's just a way to organize everything, but it's connected to AI, so yeah, it's how I just remembered to do things, organize myself through undergrad completely with like classes, assignments, everything. So yeah, it's been really helpful in that way. Malcolm: Yeah. Jayson: And then yeah, I'm just realizing like through my my brother actually just utilizing AI all the time. He does cybersecurity. It's really cool to see the type of work he does. you just do everything just from a desk. And so I just think you there's it's it's insane, you gotta get on and if you're not Malcolm: Yeah, bro. Like you you you gotta Yeah, no, I mean honestly I agree. I think it's I think it's definitely like I mean it's real. I mean you can't I mean I feel like the even if you like aren't all the way super like kind of like up to date with every single iteration of AI development, like I'm sure you've seen like how the the stock market has reacted over the last, you know, two, three years or so, right? Like if you if you follow like essentially like the the economy is pretty much being held up like on the bet of artificial intelligence, so it's like Whether you believe it or not, everything is kind of like like like tearing on on this being helpful. And I think I think AI hype is real. I think it's just like people just sometimes have a hard time kind of like delineating like what the phases of AI are. I think like the first couple of years was kind of like everyone was trying to like just get the most, you know, you know, compute power like with building all these data centers Jayson: Mm-hmm. Malcolm: and and and getting all these GPUs and CPUs to power their infrastructure. And I think now we're kind of like in the point where it's like, all like even when you see like these earning reports for different companies like like Meta who just tanked after they had theirs, like now people are looking for like, okay, what's the actual return on investment for all these billions of dollars you're spending on these data centers? Like like what are you actually getting back? Like how are how is your company becoming more productive? How are you guys optimizing workflows? Like now people are actually looking for like the okay, like we know what AI is, but what can it actually do, you know, besides like summarize notes and transcribe and so now people are looking like the real, I think, applications of it. and I think that's kind of like where why we've kind of seen like this big kind of platform shift to like agency AI and and and you know, MCPs and understanding like like how do you like how AI can work on behalf of us. So yeah, I mean I I definitely think it's real. I think kind of like it also feeds into the question. I think it's also like a another application of the question, just like how does that affect like the job market and how does that affect like, you know, people who are studying like stuff like computer science? And so it's like now people are like having these discussions about like what's what jobs and professions aren't Able be replaced by AI. and it's like that's a conversation I think we're gonna just keep having like as the job market continues to get like hopefully not worse and worse, but more than likely will. but I think a lot of it comes down to just the way that these big corporations are kind of like justifying these huge layoffs and cuts. Like like people are like cutting off thousands of people's jobs for the sake of AI. and it's just like that that's what's gonna make everybody think that it's but I feel like people are a lot of companies do use it as a cop out too. Like they don't actually like they just want to use it as a reason to like fire more people and and increase gross margin and profits and just be Jayson: Mm. Malcolm: greedy. So yeah, I feel like it's it's a it's a ton like ways you can go down. I think I mean like in summary though, I definitely do think the AI hype is real. It's just like a I think like if you don't like I think it is, you are definitely more like likely to get replaced if you don't at least attempt to understand. Like I'm not saying you don't have to be an AI guru, Jayson: yeah, yeah, for sure. Malcolm: like you I'm not saying you have had to work at Google DeepMind. For fifteen years, but I'm saying like you should at least know how to like use these tools and have a basic understanding of it to keep up with times for real. Jayson: Yeah.