this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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While I agree in general, Generative AIs have already changed much more about my everyday experience than Blockchain has in all these years.
The difference is that Generative AIs can be applied much more broadly for end users. You can run a small LLM, image generator, voice synthesizer etc at home. I don’t think any run-of-the-mill person actively uses Blockchain or Big Data for anything, really
The media vastly overhype LLMs etc, just like the do any new technology. Venture capitalists jump on the hype train, blowing it out of proportion. However, below all of that is what I consider genuinely transformative technology, with a long-term impact orders of magnitude above Blockchain.
My bank uses Blockchain to validate transactions. Yours probably does too. It also has applications in supply chain management, public and private record keeping of various kinds (such as patient records, real estate ownership records and basically any historical record where each entry is immutable and continues to matter even after several newer entries have been made), digital voting systems , energy trading/grid management and other DeFi applications other than cryptocurrencies, and more. I don't know for sure, but I'm pretty confident that its impact on the world economy has been and will continue to be much larger than generative AI's, at least of current-gen generative AI.
The real difference is in visibility. Blockchain is a background technology, running things silently, while LLMs are directly interacted with by the general public.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that those technologies weren’t important. Blockchain, the whole crypto-sphere, impacts many many lives.
Similarly, Big Data, and its corollaries of maximized data collection and automated surveillance and profiling, impact pretty much everyone today.
I should have been more clear about the two things I think are different this time:
Generative AI is personal. I, normal internet user, can install them and use them myself. They expand my personal options. LLMs are great at transforming text, for example to explain it, break it down, or change speech registers. If you already know something, they can speed up your work massively in some parts. Image generators are more narrow in their application, but no less powerful.
The impact of Generative AI is felt immediately. How many years did it take for Blockchain to take off? It’s been less than a year since OpenAI released usable models to the public. Image generators only got good this year. Neither has as much impact on the world at large as some of the other buzz-word tech, but the impact is growing massively. ChatGPT is not only another tech fad, it had the quickest growing userbase in all of history, afaik.
The media are overhyping what generative AI can do. It is, for large part of the tech bro sphere, a buzz word without a lot of meaning. However, as a privacy enthusiast who followed the big surveillance leaks enabled by big data, and as a tech-interested person followed the news for a decade or so now, I have never seen something like this before. Once you look past the buzz around the word, I still consider it the tech advancement with the (probably) biggest direct impact I have witnessed yet.
*Citation needed
Without a doubt blockchain has has an impact on the global economy, with an outsized improvement for narco cartels, North Korea, and other super above board transactions.
I'm sorry, I wrote my reply under the assumption that you were having this conversation in good faith. Now that I see that it isn't the case, I'll excuse myself. Have a great week.