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Post by Elias M氓rtenson

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Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr

This analyst's report from Apollo about AI uses the term "S&P 493" to refer to the "S&P 500 minus the Mag 7" - because if you take out the AI companies, the S&P 500 is tanking. apollo.com/wealth/insights-new

No Signs of AI Payoff Outside the Tech Sector | The Daily Spark Despite massive investments and widespread hype around artificial intelligence, the technology has delivered zero financial payoff to corporate America outside of tech. Subscribe for daily updates.

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Veronica Olsen 馃崅 @veronica@mastodon.online

@pluralistic At the tech conference I was at last week, which was of course 2/3 AI, it was often taken as self-evident that AI had given us huge gains. I should look up some of those people and send them this ...

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Veronica Olsen 馃崅 @veronica@mastodon.online

@pluralistic One talk, that was quite interesting, was from a company with 180 developers that did a slow and careful rollout of AI, mainly due to high demand. They did a self-assessment, and developers claimed increased productivity. They said it was too early to say if it was actually true though, and promised to come back with results (presumably another year) if they had any.

It's the same where I work. Developers *feel* more productive, but I have yet to see any numbers backing it up.

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Elias M氓rtenson @loke@functional.cafe

@veronica @pluralistic I think they are more productive, given a definition of 'productive' that measures output.

You can definitely produce much more... 'stuff'. Some of it might even be useful. A lot of it turns out to waste other people's time. But as long as you have a definition of productivity that only measures output and not bottom line results, it's a useless metric.

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Veronica Olsen 馃崅 @veronica@mastodon.online

@loke Indeed. If your metric is output, then sure. It's the age old "quality or quantity" conundrum. If it's not useful output, or you need to frequently replace it with new generated code, is it then productive in a meaningful sense? Or, in my opinion, worse: Is it just increased complexity and fragility for no or minimal gain?

@pluralistic

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