This is peak bubble type shit.
Fuck AI
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
Probably no other world in the multiverse has warehouses for things which only exist in potentia, but the pork futures warehouse in Ankh-Morpork is a product of the Patrician’s rules about baseless metaphors, the literal-mindedness of citizens who assume that everything must exist somewhere, and the general thinness of the fabric of reality around Ankh, which is so thin that it’s as thin as a very thin thing. The net result is that trading in pork futures—in pork that doesn’t exist yet—led to the building of the warehouse to store it in until it does.
Terry Pratchett, Thud!
That's so freaking funny. Pratchett was just so good.
If I recall correctly that's the same warehouse that later supercools a golem, making him very smart for a bit.
Sargent Detritus the troll.. he ends up making a cooling system in his helmet in later books
Ah right that makes sense, thanks! Something was nagging at me earlier, about the Golems being hollow and following the paper in their head, so it didn't make perfect sense. I forgot the trolls were made of rock!
Pratchett was just so good.
Man left this plane of existence before the techbros enshittified it.
GNU Terry Pratchett
...using gigawatts of power that aren't available on the grid
The grid is always balancing supply and demand. Any mismatch builds up and would cause a black out if the power was really not available.
And megaliters of fresh water.

Immortan Joe sees an opportunity.
Futures and unrealized capital gains are more addictive than nicotine
I'm going to be that guy and point out that LLM's are not really "AI", that's just the corporate buzzword but "AI" is a loosely defined thing.
I think we should all get better at calling them LLM's publicly to take some of the magic woo-woo away.
The term "AI" today is almost like the term "computer" decades ago.
As in, "this new vehicle is more efficient than ever thanks to a new aerodynamic shape created not on the drawing board, but on the computer."
I think we should call it with the more appropriate acronym: Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences (SALAMI)
Then they can fight over who has the biggest SALAMI
Right, but in the same spirit, we're not just talking about LLMs. If we're being accurate, the common interface we're used to with ChatGPT or Gemini, they are a system of different models including LLMs and other models for images, or sound.
If we're talking AI in movies and music, besides LLMs for writing, we're mainly concerned with diffusion models
If we're talking AI for wearables... That's usually more on the sensor/classification side of ML, so it's not even generative.
"Big Data", "Neural Net", etc etc, they keep changing the buzzword for this crap for the past decade.
AI just resonates with the public because everyone has seen Terminator movies. Your dipshit CEO of Buttplugs Inc has no clue what an LLM, or neural net is. But he knows what AI is and he delusionally believes it's going make Buttplug inc. more profitable in the future.
It's effective marketing.
I agreed years ago, but it's too late now.
Remember folks, since the end of COVID another greedy cork sucker is crowned next billionaire every 30 hours.
The number of billionaires in the USA has nearly and will shortly eclipse double the number there were before 2020. How did they do that, you fucking know. By pretending they would die and their children would get AIDS if they didn't raise the price of every single product on the planet exorbitantly and without need to increase already skyrocketing year to year profitability. These greedy bastards not only did this, they want to kill all of us who they fleeced before we wake up to the facts.
TOO LATE
They never learn, can't self regulate and won't give a flying fuck until presented with a French solution
profits that won't happen
I have yet to see speculation as to how the bubble survivors make a profit. At this point I think AI is being pushed to keep propping up the US economy.
That's a great question Shalafi! The answer is government mandated pillow talks to your AI companions. Would you like me to provide todays' topics in advance?
You're not alone in thinking that. The US economy is growing but all of that is allocated to 5 companies, and in any case the owners of that equity aren't a majority median income earners. We've essentially decoupled the economic health of the common person, who would actually spend on the bubble survivors, from the overall "strength" of the US economy.
An interesting discussion on that thought about halfway through this - https://www.ft.com/content/bd6545dc-41b7-42db-af77-b2f32a1c9ae1
This actually explains a few things for me.
I never considered that RAM and GPUs could be traded as futures, but obviously they can...
This also reminds me of the trader at a trading company in London who had to take delivery of 28000 tonnes of coal due to forgetting to sell a future he owned.
He only found out as the receptionist asked him to come down and sign for it and he saw barges of coal coming down the river:
The frustration is valid, but it’s less ‘AI is dumb’ and more ‘markets chasing hype create weird shortages.
If we have to play this bubble game, can we at least force them to build some renewable energy sources with their unlimited funds so when the bubble pops, we have some extra renewable energy available to the grid?
Pretty sure Trump banned woke energy
Wind and sun are for SISSIES, even if it's CHEAPER! Nuclear plants are not antifa-woke, but my pal A.Jones says it makes everyone GAY. Drill baby, drill!
That haven't yet happened
People are going to eat this shit up for sure. At least the corporate companies will. They don't know better.
Imagine how cheap it will be once over supply inevitably occurs.
I am salivating over A100/H100 rigs getting dumped en masse. I’ll take one, thanks.
I hope they don’t just toss them in the garbage, like jerks. Last time this happened with crypto, I think Nvidia bought many back to throw away.
Did GPUs become cheap after the previous hype/bubble simmered down? No, they made even bigger bubble requiring even more resources. They will make it even bigger until it requires toilet paper to sustain, then people will riot.
Did GPUs become cheap after the previous hype/bubble simmered down? No
I my current GPU in my gaming PC I got on a big discount, around when folks couldn't really do bitcoin mining on consumer hardware anymore, so... yes?
In my time I've certainly seen RAM prices rise and fall depending on supply constraints, same with HDD and SSD. Fair point on GPU's, I just can't see this data center demand remaining as so much of it seems speculative.
One nitpick: of course the GPUs that don't have RAM yet wouldn't be installed in data centers, irrespective of the existence of those data centers.
The rest of it works: you can have holds on existing RAM/GPUs for buildings that aren't built yet.

So they can replace all workers. and won’t be able to make profit because they layed off all of the workers. Why do we need a government if they are investing all our resources in phasing us out? If you don’t work in our system you die so why are we allowing this again?
Because idiots think that if we let the super rich become ultra rich then they will somehow in turn become regular rich.
Like Ford stopping producing batteries for their own cars (byd says thanks) in order to convert the factory for datacenter-class batteries
It won’t affect energy prices, because the nuclear power plants they’re building to power their data centers are going to be up and running any minute now.
Just keep the golden investment teet flowing until it’s dry.
But how else can we break the 1000KG barrier for obese hang-gliding enthusiasts? Or grannies taunting gorillas?
Huh tough guy? Answer meeeee!!!!!
Listen, I'm with you, but the reason is hyper capitalist speculative greed. It could be anything we're talking about "ghee wiz price upon rice hath trippled during these trying times because some bloke in Nippon stamped some papers to offer part of next seasons crops and the king gobbled these up like tendies on a naked lady"
I mean, credit where credit's due. This is just their next gang rape horse and the fact that it's visibly dead for months isn't really relevant to them. The one that gags first will just get stuck with the bags after the seasonal bukkake festival
Is this a gross exaggeration, or is the entire SaaS-to-hardware supply chain under such deep speculation right now?
It's exaggerated, yes. It's not gross.
It's basically an arms race for a future AI war that probably won't happen.
Sort of like how armies were bankrupting themselves building battleships before WW1... which turned out to not be a sea war at all.
The fear 'losing out' on AI is making companies, and people, totally irrational. All the big players are paranoid that one of the other ones is going to 'get head' of AI market and become a monopoly, just like it was in the past with Google and search, or Apple and the iphone, etc. So crazy stupid expenditures and these massive data center plans now are considered a necessity.
But you are correct the AI demand... simple isn't there and probably won't materialize and the bubble will collapse.
This is all just gambling with a bunch of cheaters. They can't use crypto schemes as much because people FINALLY figured out they were pump and dump scams .... so AI investment it is.