1214
95% of Companies See ‘Zero Return’ on $30 Billion Generative AI Spend, MIT Report Finds
(thedailyadda.com)
STOP CALCULATING KEEP SHOVELING
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2025
1214 points (99.4% liked)
Technology
74331 readers
3006 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Wonder if the 5% that actually made money included companies that sell enterprise AI services, like AWS, Microsoft, and Google?
Nvidia?
Every technology invented is a dual edge sword. Other edge propulses deluge of misinformation, llm hallucinations, brain washing of the masses, and exploit exploit for profit. The better side advances progress in science, well being, availbility of useful knowledge. Like the nuclerbomb, LLM "ai" is currenty in its infancy and is used as a weapon, there is a literal race to who makes the "biggest best" fkn "AI" to dominate the world. Eventually, the over optimistic buble bursts and reality of the flaws and risks will kick in. (Hopefully...)
But surely the next 30 billion they are going to burn will get it right!
Oh, that reminds me that we've always lived in false bubbles, and when they burst, crises and other things started, and eventually the biggest bubble that we call civilization and progress will burst, maybe in 2040-2050+.
I think there are real productivity gains to be had but the vast majority are probably leaning into the idea of replacing people too much. It helps me do my job but I'm still the decision maker and I need to review the outputs. I'm still accountable for what AI gives me so I'm not willing to blindly pass that stuff forward.
Yeah. The dunning kruger effect is a real problem here.
I saw a meme saying something like, gen AI is a real expert in everything but completely clueless about my area of specialisation.
As in... it generates plausible answers that seem great but they're just terrible answers.
I'm a consultant I'm in a legal adjacent field. 20 years deep. I've been using a model from hugging face over the last few months.
It can save me time by generating a lot of boiler plate with references et cetera. However it very regularly overlooks critically important components. If I didnt know about these things then I wouldn't know it was missing from the answer.
So really, it cant help you be more knowledgeable, it can only support you at your existing level.
Additionally, for complex / very specific questions, it's just a confidently incorrect failure. It sucks that it cant tell you how confident it is with a given answer.
We're now at the "if you don't, your competitor will". So you really have no choice. There are people that don't use Google anymore and just use chatgpt for all questions.
It's not about return it's about addiction. Companies that invest in AI have money.
I have no proof, but I feel like the AI push and Turnip getting re-elected and his regression of the EPA rules sounds like this whole AI thing was an excuse to burn more fossil fuels.
If I was invested in AI, and considering AI's thirst for electricity, I would absolutely make a similar investment in energy. That way, as the AI server farms suck up the electricity I would get at least some of that money back from the energy market.
Does anybody have the original study? I tried to find it but the link is dead ( looks like NANDA pulled it )
Return? /s
Emerging technology always loses money in the first few years. Sometimes for a decade or so. This isn’t new.
load more comments
(10 replies)