** BEFORE I GO TO MY OWN PERSONAL SALTMINE **
The news (well, it was news to me) this morning in re: the 235 billion dollar (thus far) 'adjustment' currently taking place in the SaaS marketplace is predicated largely on a threat -- the threat that AI poses to the seat-license information/software service access model. To understand this, all we need to know is that the current way that software companies monetize software at the enterprise level, where the market is worth many trillions in the aggregate; is in jeopardy. Almost all if not all of them.
That threat is very simple, a bit of extortion, really; it's the threat that you will stop using their service and instead consult some AI.
This statement of the problem is grossly, grossly oversimplified. But in one case that is driving the market adjustment, involving access to Weslaw's legal repository, there is an open-sourced set of prompts for a plugin to Anthropic's Claude AI that provides legal research with quality on par with a small team of paralegals all with access to Westlaw.
That's basically the mechanism, and it doesn't just apply to Westlaw, but to every similar service used by the legal system. It impacts the entire business of conducting law. It doesn't impact most of us directly; but the more money you have, the more business you do; the more you interact contractually with government; the more wealthy you (or your trustfund) are the more profoundly this will impact you.
This is AI biting the marketplace much as it was predicted to do; but at the top, rather than the bottom. It isn't replacing blue collar workers; it is eliminating an entire white collar service sector.
Now bear with me here; no, it has not replaced that sector just yet; but goddamn, the writing is on the peagreen wall in flaming pink letters. What's more, this adjustment isn't finished, and it's coming to a lot more sectors of business. This isn't hype; a 230 something billion dollar decapitalization, over a period of a few days? This is a crash of epic proportions. Money and jobs are essentially evaporating. It just hasn't worked its way into the fabric of society yet.
And we're not even discussing here, what happens if the sector dissapears, and then we discover that Cluade, even with all the plugins and a digest of Westlaw (or whatever), is actually a shitty lawyer. Full of AI legaleaz/slop. At what cost will this discovery unfold?
While I don't doubt that given some parallel advancements in say, energy production (fusion?) and chip tech (low/no power consumption/no cooling required?) and perhaps even software/LLM engineering (a realization that a pool full of neurons isn't the same thing as a brain?) that AI can fulfill it's, uh, promise (I'm not altogether certain it would be good for humanity if it does), I just dont think AI, as it sits, is as production-ready as the market thinks it is.
Stay loose and hang on to your hat.
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