this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

meh... thats not what happens when the 'bubble' bursts... it just means that the extremely wealthy will be able to purchase all the de-valued ai resources and keep chuggin along.

ie, at no point in the future will the resources required or expended for llm use drop.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 16 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Depends on what bursts the bubble. If it's the users realizing it isn't actually useful, and demand plummets, those datacenters will be a fire sale from companies collapsing, but operating the sites may not be anywhere near profitable anymore.

Every one of these companies knows that LLMs aren't actually capable of what they're marketing and are hoping they can keep riding the edge until they either can do what they claim, or they can abandon ship. They're banking on company executives being idiots and prioritizing the possible cost savings of firing staff (a very safe bet) and end users not realizing the grift because of a lack of accurate info (also a pretty safe bet nowadays).

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

i spose. as a data engineer of sorts, the llm use im exposed to is not going to be disrupted by some bubble. its providing real world efficiencies shifting cost centers from messy human salaries to 24/7 b2b services. whole call centers automated. analytical departments literally decimated. human beings are the costliest part of any business, and thats why so much effort is being put to replaces those human resources.

my success every year is based on how many positions i eliminated implementing automation processes.

for every obvious use of an llm, there are a hundred back-end, non-customer facing services being implemented. this is where people are actually currently losing their jobs, and those jobs arent coming back.

its hard to envision any bubble that is going to stop that apart from the american civil war 2.0.... and even then, id be skeptical.

[–] gid@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

my success every year is based on how many positions i eliminated implementing automation processes.

Jesus Christ that's depressing.

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

yep. just recently interviewed to get out of this horrifying shame spiral. goin back to something more.. visceral.

[–] gid@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 weeks ago

Keeping my fingers crossed for you🤞🏻

[–] bluemoon@piefed.social 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

seems to me like the impossibility of corporativism is breaching at it's seams and "AI" is a patching

from what you're writing

[–] originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

all i can see are human processes being replaced by more reliable automated ones, and the compute required or provided for those isnt going to just disappear because some us-euro-centric valuation bubble.

its a service domain available on every continent and its being successfully and financially beneficially implemented in thousands of ways most people just dont understand.

there is money being made, but the false valuation is masking the reality.

is it over valued in most sectors? fuck yeah. is use of llms/ai or the building of data centers around the globe going to stop anytime in the next few decades? fuck no.

so will there be a financial bubble burst where lots of ai players lose out big time? maybe. will that affect the use of ai/llms in absolutely any capacity? fuck no. it would keep chuggin along with new owners.

[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

The prices will eventually get jacked up once the market penetration is judged sufficient. Likely they'll charge as much money as they can, so it'll end up being just a hair under what a human would cost, maybe more of the switching cost is high.

I smell a trap.

[–] gid@piefed.blahaj.zone 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This is the intention. David Rosenthal recently wrote a blog piece about it. It goes quite deep into the economics but this is what I understand from the piece:

  • Pricing for AI services is modelled after "the drug-dealer's algorithm" (the first go is free)
  • Specifically for enterprise usage, the model assumes that enterprises will find that using the service gives enough value to cover the subsidised cost of the service through the lock-in period.
  • The assumed depreciation of hardware used in AI services is wrong, and the bubble will burst soon. Providers will have to raise prices significantly to remain solvent.
[–] rbos@lemmy.ca 4 points 3 weeks ago

Good piece.

[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 4 points 3 weeks ago

It would be great if all the power infrastructure being built for AI becomes useful for everyone after it tanks pushing us away from fossil fuels.

[–] Dippy@beehaw.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

The data centers will be repurposed and might calm down a bit, but remain in use. New builds will cease for a while