> Any reason to believe Google's unit economics on AI are any different than the other players here?
Only when it comes to their TPUs, and sometimes that one thing may just be the difference to push them over the hump.
Per-token cost-wise, TPUs (& specialized processors in general) will beat GPUs every time. The efficiency difference between the 2 types is never to be ignored, & is likely why they can shotgun it everywhere.
> And Google is an advertising company. Mostly in search, and increasingly dependent on YouTube. Everything else is a net money loser, including Waymo, Gemini etc.
1) Each venture should be treated as a (relatively) isolated vertical slice
2) 9 out of 10 times, a venture just doesn't break even. That's just the nature of the business.
IMO, the ARC tests & the visual pattern IQ tests (e.g. Raven's) have little difference, especially if the Raven tests require the taker to draw out the answer.
> So, an ai generated psuedo-game engine with a majority of users under the age of 13? I'm sure that WILL make a lot of money. Those of us who didn't grow up playing Roblox will find this comparison impossibly stupid.
> ...with a majority of users under the age of 13? I'm sure that WILL make a lot of money.
> ... will find this comparison impossibly stupid.
I'm ignoring the insinuations here for obvious reasons.
1. Roblox is the newest (note: not necessarily the best) iteration of the genre that Secondlife & (to a limited extent) modded Minecraft servers occupy: An interactive 3D platform that permits user-generated content.
2. Generative models just accelerate their development up to the brick wall of complexity much faster.
> Some what related: im still amazed that no one has made a Roblox competitor
This comment is just the HN Dropbox phenomenon, *again*, only this time from the angle that thinks it's easy to build a "pseudo game-engine" from scratch.
Few competitors exist because of the moat they have built in making their platform easy to develop on, so much so that kids can use them with little issue.
> , as in, a vague social building game that tricks children into wasting money on ridiculous MTXs.
This part is entirely separate from the technical aspects of the platform. Roblox is a feces-covered silver bar, but the silver bar (their game platform) still exists.
> Maybe you are right, but I think that taking an already sorry state of affairs, and then removing the only imagination or STEM skills required by giving children access to GenAI.... is a really depressing thought.
This is a hyper-nihilistic opinion on children laid bare.
To think that the children (*with the dedication to make a game in the first place*) wouldn't try to learn about debugging the code that the models are spitting out, or that 100% of them would just stop writing their own code entirely, is a cynical viewpoint not worth any attention.
> The question is, try to spend $1bn on stuff. Go.
Easy: The largest ship in the world by area. (Goal - either 500m x 500m, or at least 0.25km^2 with the breadth >= 300m)
The current status quo for bulk carriers are the Valemax ships (360m x 65m), with each one costing around $100 million. (actual figure wildly varies, but sticks around that number)
Only when it comes to their TPUs, and sometimes that one thing may just be the difference to push them over the hump.
Per-token cost-wise, TPUs (& specialized processors in general) will beat GPUs every time. The efficiency difference between the 2 types is never to be ignored, & is likely why they can shotgun it everywhere.
> And Google is an advertising company. Mostly in search, and increasingly dependent on YouTube. Everything else is a net money loser, including Waymo, Gemini etc.
1) Each venture should be treated as a (relatively) isolated vertical slice
2) 9 out of 10 times, a venture just doesn't break even. That's just the nature of the business.