Oh no, vibegodbros...https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-coo-andrew-macdonald-ai-token-spending-harder-justify-2026-5>Uber's operations chief, Andrew Macdonald, said it was becoming harder to justify AI costs within the company.>he realized higher token usage did not translate into a proportional increase in useful consumer features.>AI can seem free if you're "just a user sitting there coming up with interesting use cases" without paying for it. But ultimately, the company foots the bill.
the crack is forming
>>108907874that's opinion not news
>>108907874Tokens are so cheap, this is all a massive plan to keep AI providers at a low price.
2 more weeks luddite sisters!!!
>>108907874>Uber are tokenmaxxingWhy? They have no fucking reason to use AI bullshit, their app has been feature complete for years.
>>108907874My work (biotech) sent out a warning a couple weeks ago asking us to only use "Pro" ChatGPT for limited queries and lesser modes for all others
>>108908008Ride sharing is literally a solved problem. Just make sure to do updates on vulnerabilities or shit like that.
>>108907874How many developers does Uber need?
>When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
>>108907874why THE FUCK uber even needs coders?they have the app. everything just works already.
>>108908130Less than 100. Anything else is bloat.
>>108909105They probably want to implement those gimmicks where desperate drivers are assigned way more work for way lower pay, which is totally okay, it's basic economics 101, supply and demand.>high supply of work, low pay!
>>108909143unironically this. job being shit is just the market saying you should do something else. you're not entitled to an uber career.
>>108909143>>108909380that's been deboonked, goy
>>108907874I'm actually liking Minimax, has anyone else tried it?
>>108908091kektop signal if I've ever seen one
>>108907874>The UbercoonTop kek
>With vibecoding we can shit out a lot more mediocre code than the average mediocre programmer can
Let us make porn and watch the money flood in.
>>108908008But the managers need to feel useful to so they push new features that, even if implemented correctly, only worsen the user experience.
>>108909733>achskchully it's called ride-desire and not desperation score, debunked!
>>108909775No no no that could offend Karen Cleetbob in Oblast, Utah. We must never allow an AI to make porn or be seductive or comforting to m*n.
>tokenmaxxingfuck off with the zoomerslop, you're fucking 32 years old.
>>108909869*36, I also routinely use amogus memes
>>108909878so you're autismaxxing. how ironic
>>108909105>>108909143I saw some people suggest they want to add anything to their app to show new development and now that they're using AI.
>>108907908It's happening sooner than I expected.
>>108909889Where do you think you are?
>>108907914It's "thought leader" type of "news", reflecting the memes the bandwagoner CEOs will be following next. There were a bunch of opinion articles like this when Elon fired twatter. Next thing you know every tech company is planning layoffs.
>>108909869i'm 39 but u wouldn't know it cuz i've been zoomermaxxing so hard
>>108908100well they added deliveryand grocery shoppingand courier serviceand probably something else since the last time I checked
>>108909878>*36,36 you said?
>>108910482You're millennialmaxxing with the trooncase, man. Zoomers were born with autocorrect.
>>108907874>It's getting harder to justify the money spent on gasolinemaxxing...
>>108907874what do they spend ai tokens on anyway? isnt uber something where people rent each other for a ride?
>>108910491Delivery and grocery shopping are more or less the same thing and they've been doing that for so long now its old news. They do have the ability to book plane/train tickets through Uber now which is retarded bloat. But none of those needs AI token maxxing levels of investment, its done.Hell the core concept of Uber in 2026 isn't that hard to replicate if you have access to a google maps API, its more about regulation and security which AI can't help with anyway.
>>108911116He's right you know.Even more right today.
>>108907874seeing similar stuff at my wage cagecollegues getting their opus 4.7 disabled because they spent too many tokensnow they need to make do with shittier models
>>108907918What happens then, ranjeet? AGI?
>>108911207>Delivery and grocery shopping are more or less the same thingdelivery is picking up a sealed bag of tacos from under a heat lamp and throwing it on a porchshopping is the guy going into the store and finding all your shit and putting it in a cart, bugging you about substitutions, then paying with a corporate card and throwing it on a porch
>>108907874any day now
>>108910423i thought this was clot shotters anonymous?
>>108907874Someone mentioned about this the other day.There was the promise of like a 10x capacity increase year over year, with a 10x decrease in token cost, but the token cost hasn't really gone down.Obviously the AI companies want you to burn through tokens, and they're often making their own employees use AI a lot, but they don't have to pay anything.But while they're sitting there showing their tens or hundreds of billions of tokens used, other tech companies have to pay for those tokens, and what you're often creating with those tokens isn't worth the cost of them to the company.So efficient token usage is going to become a thing soon, and that could be bad for AI companies because if people start cutting back token usage to use them more efficiently, then the capacity requirements and projects shrink, at least in the short term.
>>108912261>operating profitHave they ever made a gross profit?
>>108910441it's the chief operating officer of a company telling people his company isn't seeing worthwhile return on its ai expenditure. not some youtube talking head, the guy responsible for day to day making the company work and make money. so the question is, is he lying or telling the truth. that's it.
>>108908008But AI is the thing. You gotta do the thing or you'll be left behind. That's what smart and independent thinkers in charge do.
>>108913501>but they don't have to pay anything.ahh, here's the trick. they have to pay because their tokens eat electricity like everyone else's, and use compute time they could be selling to other people, in data centers they still have to pay for, and no one has made any money yet. it's a glorious fucking mess and it just keeps getting better.
>>108907874Local open weight models are the future. I want to get in on them but I don't know where to start.
>>108914191>I don't know where to start.spend a lot of money on hardwarego to the generals on /g/ and get into autism fightsgoonthat's it.
>>108907874we recommend our competitors to tokenmaxx, so they die down the road by the unsustainable debtmaxxing.
>>108914185The AI companies essentially have to pay the running costs, but they don't pay market value for the tokens.So individual devs can burn $13million in tokens in a month, but the cost to that dev is nothing and the cost to the company is essentially nothing.But any other company/user would have to pay that $13million.
>>108914191They have their benefits. But since OP was about costs you're not gonna come even close to being more cost efficient on local. Not unless you're gonna run heavily batched inference all the time to recoup the very expensive hardware.
>>108911116you know chaps, it is said that only ladies drive electric automobiles.
>>108916398>the cost to the company is essentially nothing.as said previously anon, any compute time they use is compute time they don't sell. so they do in fact pay market price. this is how business works, and it's certainly how accountants tally this shit up. here is a simpler example that might make it clearer. say i am a famous watchmaker. my name is something like roger smith. if i were to make myself a watch, i could make the greatest watch i could ever potentially own. and it would take a long time, because making watches by hand takes a while. that's time spent on a watch that i don't sell, so i don't make any money from that watch, but i have to pay for all the raw materials. but i could have spent that time making a watch for a paying client, so i have in fact lost all those potential earnings. so my watch is actually very expensive. and that's why famous watchmaker roger smith wears a rolex explorer and not a roger smith. so it goes.
>>108911116It's pretty straightforward to calculate what amount of goods a car can transport at what cost vs. other modes of transport.The CEO is wondering what actual value the AI spend is generating for his company. Maybe Grok can explain it to your mushbrain.
>>108916479>any compute time they use is compute time they don't sell. so they do in fact pay market price.Only if they are at capacity for compute time.If they aren't at capacity then those tokens aren't being taken from what could be sold. It's just available compute time.
uber = extremely brown coded
>>108907874The fundamental reality is that the end consumer down the pipeline isnt spending more money. Investment grew significantly but consumer demand didnt. Nothing fills the void on one side of the equation
>>108909105You don't want to play the "did they move it or remove it" game that every other feature complete software plays every couple years for no reason?
>>108911116God I bet that car was dirt cheap to make and completely and easily repairable
>>108907874Why pay programmers?Why pay workers?Why pay for AI technology?Do you understand that your new bosses are very simple. They want money and they believe there is a limited market share. They want you out.
>>108916546It is very repairable. Though the engine block of a modern car can last 300k miles without needing to be opened. You'll have rebored the cylinders dozens of times on that by then at minimum. Replaced all the internals a couple of times, if not the whole block.
>>108909733>The claim about Uber app behavior, the same Uber who ran GREYBALL and GODVIEW, was debunked by Uber executives and journalists guided by Uber executives
>>108916586also its cheaper just to buy a good condition used engine or a complete new engine
