• @[email protected]
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    010 days ago

    In this thread: people doing the exact opposite of what they do seemingly everywhere else and ignoring the title to respond to the post.

    Figuring out what the next big thing will be is obviously hard or investing would be so easy as to be cheap.

    I feel like a lot of what has been exploding has been ideas someone had a long time ago that are just becoming easier and given more PR. 3D printing was invented in the '80s but had to wait for computation and cost reduction. The idea that would become neural network for AI is from the '50s, and was toyed with repeatedly over the years but ultimately the big breakthrough was just that computing became cheap enough to run massive server farms. AR stems back to the 60s and gets trotted out slightly better each generation or so, but it was just tech getting smaller that made it more viable. What other theoretical ideas from the last century could now be done for a much lower price?

  • Rose
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    011 days ago

    Quantum computing, probably.

    Problem is, it has the potential to be actual reality. Tech bros need their products to be 99% blue-sky hype to get their financing, and they can’t risk some nerd going “well actually what you’re suggesting can’t be done any more efficiently on a quantum computer than you can do now”.

    • @[email protected]
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      011 days ago

      Plus. You can’t just drop quantum computing in your data center. It takes extreme cold, hug amounts of cash and the support team to maintain.

  • @[email protected]
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    011 days ago

    You’re assuming there will be a next time. When the AI bubble bursts, and it will, the whole economy will go down with it. AI companies are massively in debt and have a product that ranges from utter shit to kinda okay, and absolutely no sane way to monetize it. Everyone outside of tech, you know, the customers, fucking hate AI. It has stolen their work, jeopardized their livelihoods, wasted their resources and made the most insufferable asshats in history very wealthy.

  • Bunnylux
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    011 days ago

    I don’t think it’s going to be like that :(

    • kubica
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      011 days ago

      I think we are lucky that the NFT passed, I wasn’t betting on it.

  • oce 🐆
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    11 days ago

    VR and AR will get a second run once the UX is improved and power to run it becomes small and cheap enough. Quantum computing is around the corner.

    • zout
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      011 days ago

      Quantum computing has been around the corner for years already. Some time after the crypto boom of 2017/18 you could read articles about how crypto was going to be dead by 2025 because of quantum computers hacking the block chain with ease. Still waiting for that one.

      • oce 🐆
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        011 days ago

        I think that happened to many technologies that became mainstream. Also, op is about what the tech bros will jump on, so it doesn’t have to be widely useful, for example blockchain is still pretty niche.

  • brvslvrnst
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    011 days ago

    Hey, A1 is great so long as you have it on the right dish. I dunno that I’d call it a “hype train” either, because it’s been around for years!

    /s

  • Count Regal Inkwell
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    11 days ago

    I do feel that, unlike Crypto, AI (or, to drop the buzzwords, LLMs and other machine-learning based language processors and parsers) will end up having a place in the world.

    As it is NOW, the AI hype train is definitely an investment bubble and it will definitely explode in a glorious fashion eventually. Taking a lot of people down with it.

    But unlike Crypto, AI does – It like does things, you know? Even if I personally feel like it’s mostly only good for a toy, all my attempts to use it for anything society would deem “valuable” were frustrated, but at least I can RP with it when my friends aren’t available. It is a thing that exists and can be used.

    Crypto was funny because it was literally useless. Just an incredibly wasteful techno-fetishistic speculative vehicle with precisely zero shame about being that.

    As for what’s next, I think Quantum Computing might be it. That is, assuming the Tech Industry even survives the bubble’s burst in its current form. Because everyone in the industry is putting all their eggs including theoretical eggs that haven’t even been laid, and in fact there’s not even a chicken in this AI hype train. And even with AI becoming part of people’s lives, as I predict it indeed will, when the bubble does burst it might end up hitting the reset button on who is truly in charge of things.

  • @[email protected]
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    011 days ago

    NFT was the worst “tech” crap I have ever even heard about, like pure 100% total full scam. Kind of impressed that anyone could be so stupid they’d fall for it.

    • @[email protected]
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      011 days ago

      The technology is not a scam. The tech was used to make scam products.

      NFTs can be useful as tickets, vouchers, certificates of authenticity, proof of ownership of something that is actually real (not a jpeg), etc.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 days ago

        But where specifically does it help to not have approved central servers?

        Wouldn’t entertainment venues rather retain full control? How would we get out from under Ticketmaster’s monopoly? If the government can just seize property, then why would we ask anyone else who owns a plot of land?

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          Wouldn’t entertainment venues rather retain full control?

          Pretty sure ticketmaster has all the control.

          How would we get out from under Ticketmaster’s monopoly?

          Using a decentralized and open network (aka NFTs).

          If the government can just seize property, then why would we ask anyone else who owns a plot of land?

          It’s not about using NFTs to seize land. It’s more that governments are terrible at keeping records. Moving proof of ownership to an open and decentralized network could be an improvement.

          FWIW I think capitalism with destroy the planet with or without NFTs. But it’s fairly obtuse to deny that NFTs could disintermediate a variety of centralized cartels.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 days ago

        NFT’s are a scam. Blockchain less so but still has no use.

        NFTs were nothing but an URL saved in a decentralized database, linking to a centralized server.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          That implementation of NFTs was a total scam, yes. There are some cool potential applications for NFTs … but mostly it was a solution looking for a problem. Even situations where it could be useful - like tracking ownership of things like concert tickets - weren’t going to fly, because the companies don’t want to relinquish control of the second-hand marketplace. They don’t get their cut that way.

    • @[email protected]
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      011 days ago

      The whole NFT/crypto currency thing is so incredibly frustrating. Like, being able to verify that a given file is unique could be very useful. Instead, we simply used the technology for scamming people.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 days ago

        I don’t think NFTs can do that either. Collections are copied to another contract address all the time. There isn’t a way to verify if there isn’t another copy of an NFT on the blockchain.

        • ZeroOne
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          011 days ago

          NFTs if anything are basically CryptoCurrency-based DRMs & we should always oppose DRMs

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          Copying the info on another contract doesn’t mean it’s fungible, to verify ownership you would need the NFT and to check that it’s associated to the right contract.

          Let’s say digital game ownership was confirmed via NFT, the launcher wouldn’t recognize the “same” NFT if it wasn’t linked to the right contract.

          • @[email protected]
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            011 days ago

            But you would need a centralized authority to say which one is the “right contract”. If a centralized authority is necessary in this case, then there is less benefit of using NFTs. It’s no longer a decentralized.

            • @[email protected]
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              011 days ago

              Yes and no, with the whole blockchain being public it’s pretty easy to figure out which contract is the original one.

              • @[email protected]
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                011 days ago

                Lets say you don’t have a central authority declaring one is official. How would you search the entire blockchain to verify you have the original NFT?

                • @[email protected]
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                  10 days ago

                  The NFT is useful with a central authority though, it’s used to confirm the ownership of digital goods ex: if it’s associated to digital games then the distributor knows which contract is the original since they created it in the first place…

                  Sure for bored apes pictures you copy the code and you go on a random websites and it can tell you the result of the mix of features based on the code, but on the original website it wouldn’t work.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          There isn’t a way to verify if there isn’t another copy of an NFT on the blockchain.

          Incorrect. An NFT is tied to a particular token number at a particular address.

          The URI the NFT points to may not be unique but NFT is unique.

          • @[email protected]
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            011 days ago

            The NFT is only unique within the contract address. The whole contract can be trivially copied to another contract address and the whole collection can be cloned. It’s why opensea has checkmarks for “verified” collections. There are a unofficial BoredApe collections which are copies of the original one.

            • @[email protected]
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              011 days ago

              Yes, the URI can point to the same monkey jpg. But a different contract address means it is a different NFT.

              • @[email protected]
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                011 days ago

                Completely agree, but the guy I responding to thinks the monkey jpeg is unique across the whole blockchain, when that isn’t true. The monkey jpeg can be copied. There’s no uniqueness enforced in a blockchain.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          I didn’t know this and it’s absolutely hilarious. Literally totally undermines the use of Blockchain to begin with.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          because there are some buisness that accept some crypto, mostly grey or black market ones, but respectable companies none the less.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          Because the pyramid scheme is still going strong with them, exactly because new victims are continually falling for them. NFTs lost their hype so quickly that the flow of new victims basically completely stopped, and so the bottom went out of them much faster.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          A large majority of “real” money is digital, like 80% non-m1 m2. The only real difference between crypto and USD is that the crypto is a public multiple ledger system that allows you to be your own bank.

          • @[email protected]
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            010 days ago

            What do you mean with being your own bank? Can you receive deposits from customers? Are you allowed to lend a portion of the deposists onwards for business loans/mortgages? If not, you are not your “own bank”.

            I think you mean that you can use it as a deposit for money, similar to, say, an old sock.

            • @[email protected]
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              010 days ago

              Banks have multiple ledgers to keep track of who owns what and where it all came from. They also use ancient fortran/cobol written IBM owned software to manage all bank to bank transactions, which is the barrier for entry.

              Blockchain is literally a multiple ledger system. That is all it is. The protocol to send and recieve funds is open for all.

              Locally stored BTC is when you’re the bank. For all the good and bad that comes with it.

              • @[email protected]
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                010 days ago

                That sounds super cool and stuff, but it has nothing to do with the essence of banking. Banks are businesses that take deposits for safekeeping and that provide credit. Banks in fact outdate Fortran by a 1000 years or so.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          It’s crazy that people see crypto as a scam but can’t see the same concept in fiat currencies.

                • @[email protected]
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                  010 days ago

                  “Real currency” also gets created or destroyed by a government at whims. Anybody clutching their USD rn isn’t going to benefit in the long run.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          I’m not defending other cryptocoins or anything, they might be a ponzy scheme or some other form. But in the end they at least only pretended to be that, a valuta. Which they are, even though they aren’t really used much like that. NFT’s on the otherhand promised things that were always just pure technical bullshit. And you had to be a complete idiot not to see it. So call it a double scam.

      • I Cast Fist
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        011 days ago

        But it’s totally legit brah, it’s just like trading cards but on a computer bro, you can make jay pegs totally unique bro, nobody else in the world can have the same image as you brah, it proves you’re the only owner of it bro, trust me bro it’s super secure and technological bruh

      • @[email protected]
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        011 days ago

        I think a big part of the problem with NFT is that they are so abstract people don’t understand what they can and cannot do. Effectively, with NFT, you have people that hold a copy of a Spiderman comic in hand and believe they own all forms of spiderman.

        Essentially, when you boil it down, you can turn this into “it’s provable that individual X has possession of NFT identifier x,y,z”. It’s kind of like how you can have the deed to a piece of property in your desk, but that doesn’t prevent 15 people from squatting on it.

        It’s so abstract you can use it to fleece people. Even after 2 years of hype, people STILL do not understand them properly.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          Essentially, when you boil it down, you can turn this into “it’s provable that individual X has possession of NFT identifier x,y,z”. It’s kind of like how you can have the deed to a piece of property in your desk, but that doesn’t prevent 15 people from squatting on it.

          It isn’t even that. It’s is identifying which drawer in your desk the deed is placed, but there is no guarantee that the drawer contains the deed.

          • @[email protected]
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            011 days ago

            Now imagine trying to explain all this to the unwashed masses… it’s no wonder the explanation they got was “buy this, it’s going to the mooooon!!!”

    • @[email protected]
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      011 days ago

      NFTs could have been great, if they had been used FOR the consumer, and not to scam them.

      Best thing I can think of is to verify licenses for digital products/games. Buy a game, verify you own it like you would with a CD using an NFT, and then you can sell it again when you’re done.

      Do this with serious stuff like AAA Games or Professional Software (think like borrowing a copy of Photoshop from an online library for a few days while you work on a project!) instead of monkey pictures and you could have the best of both worlds for buying physical vs buying online.

      However, that might make corporations less money and completely upend modern licencing models, so no one was willing to do it.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 days ago

        I think there’s a technical hurdle here. There’s no reliable way to enforce unique access to an NFT. Anyone with access to the wallet’s private key (or seed phrase) can use the NFT, meaning two or more people could easily share a game or software license just by sharing credentials. That kind of undermines the licensing control in a system like this.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          two or more people could easily share a game or software license just by sharing credentials

          So like disks? Before everything started checking hwids. Just like the comment said, it would make corporations less money so they wouldn’t do it.

          • @[email protected]
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            011 days ago

            Well, that’s the point. In order for that system to work as described, you would need some kind of centralized authority to validate and enforce it. Once you’ve introduced that piece, there’s no point using NFTs anymore - you can just use any kind of simpler and more efficient key/authentication mechanism.

            So even if the corporations wanted to use such a system (which, to your point, they do not), it still wouldn’t make sense to use NFTs for it.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 days ago

        There is nothing you mentioned which couldn’t already be done, and is in fact already being done, faster and more reliably by existing technology.

        Also that was not even what NFTs was about, because you didn’t even buy the digital artwork and NFTs would never be able to include it. So it would be supremely useless for the thing you are talking about.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 days ago

        If said Photoshop had a nft licensing service, it could’ve stayed online for longer. Legit old versions of Adobe software that had one-time purchase licenses can’t be activated anymore due to servers being brought down. And that’s how they want it while pushing subscriptions for 10+ years.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          The exact same thing would have happened with an NFT licensing service. They would still link to obsolete servers. The problem is not a problem which NFT would solve, the problem is the problem of obsolete servers, which are very easy for adobe to fix without any useless NFT technology, if they really wanted to (but of course they don’t)

          • @[email protected]
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            011 days ago

            Trying to find any application for NFT, I came to the conclusion that it would work IF you and me could be the servers there, having a copy of blockchain and verifying validity of keys until we get bored and quit that. It would target one particular issue - cantralized validation on Adobe side. It’d be inefficient and all, but it may deny them some power over usage of their legitly purchased product.

            • Cethin
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              011 days ago

              Sure, but what do they get for using that system and giving up control? If they don’t agree to use it then it’s an illegal copy and you might as well pirate it.

      • Cethin
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        011 days ago

        The issue is this doesn’t solve a problem that isn’t already solved. One of the big arguments I always heard was an example using skins from games that can be transfered to other games. We can already do that! Just look at the Steam marketplace for an example. You just need the server infrastructure to do it. Sure, NFTs could make it so the company doesn’t control the market, but what benefit do they get for using NFTs and distributing the software then?

        99.9% of the use cases were solutions looking for a problem. I could see a use for something like deeds or other documents, but that’s about it.

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          Yeah, Sort of.

          Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a huge fan of NFTs and do think there’s easier ways, but I would agree that taking market control away from the companies owning it would kind of be the point (but I do think you can probably still do this concept without any NFTs).

          Sure, steam could allow game trading right now with no need for NFTs whatsoever, but the point would be that I can trade a game I bought through Xbox, to someone on Steam, and then go buy something on the Epic store with the money.

          And all of it without some crazy fee from the involved platforms.

          But that also would probably still require government intervention to force companies to accept this. Because, again, none of the companies would actually want this. NTF or not that doesn’t change.

          • Cethin
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            011 days ago

            Yeah, it only works if they agree to honor it, which they have no obligation to do. If the government wants to step in and force them to, there’s still no need for NFTs. There could just be a central authority that the government controls that handles it. Why would NFTs need to be involved? NFTs are only as useful as the weakest point in the chain. As soon as whatever authority (the government, Steam, whatever) stops working or stops honoring it then it’s useless.

  • @[email protected]
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    011 days ago

    LoL. Yeah, I’m sure this electricity hype train will die any day now, too. Are people still using wheels?

  • stebo
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    011 days ago

    The difference is that AI is actually quite useful in some areas like medical research. Language models like Chatgpt are also useful when used right. It’s the stable diffusion stuff (image generation) that is crap and the fact that companies keep shoving AI features that no one asked for down our throat.

    • @[email protected]
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      011 days ago

      I see potential for stable diffusion in a few niche areas. For instance ttrpg, getting imagery on the go for the session seems nice.

      And of course there is… This other thing…

      • stebo
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        11 days ago

        I disagree. The fun part about ttrpgs is that there is no imagery and you have to use your imagination and everyone has their own interpretation.

        Regarding the other thing, there’s enough real images of that on the internet already, why do we need artificial ones? There are more unethical applications in that field than ethical ones.

      • @[email protected]
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        011 days ago

        I see you saying the same thing in other comments and frankly I don’t think people care. It’s a term used to encompass LLMs and at this point I think everybody here knows what the person is referring to.

        That said, as a pedant myself, crack on if you like. I just wanted to express my thoughts as I’m not pedantic over this 😂

        • @[email protected]
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          011 days ago

          As a fellow pedant, I have to point out that even a simple tic-tac-toe algorithm is “AI”.

          The term AI was coined at the Dartmouth College Summer Workshop in 1956. Early AI focused on developing expert systems and things like heuristics.

          Most people conflate AI, the technical term for computerized decision making in general with the SciFi concept of super intelligent computers, and there has been a revolution since about 2010, in that computationally intensive neutral networks that were theoretical became more conceivable and practical. But LLMs are just a single family of AI techniques.

          This, even bad 90’s game computer AI is just as valid to call AI as the latest OpenAI model. It’s just more primitive. Orders of magnitude more primitive, and no neural networks or LLM.