this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2026
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Sam Altman:

A lot of people want local inference, and somehow they assume that the problem is solved now because we have open-source models, we're going to be able to run them on our computers, and so we're not going to need all the stuff in the data center.

But from a global allocation perspective, actually it's quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used five percent of the time.

Like you want maximum utilisation in the cloud if you're trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment,

And somehow many people's intuition is the opposite of that

TL;DR Guy selling product: "Here's why owning your own product instead of renting it from me is a terrible idea"

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[–] Julrob@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

I fully agree to Sam Altman. Thats why I use chinese models in european data centers 🇪🇺

[–] melfie@lemmy.zip 230 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

McDonald’s can probably make hamburgers more efficiently than everyone can at home, but I’m not eating that shit any more than I’m giving Sam Altman my money or data.

[–] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 52 points 2 weeks ago

Oh damn! Now there’s an analogy!

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[–] aramis87@fedia.io 168 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Funny how there weren't any systemic supply issues until someone decided to buy up all the RAM ...

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 43 points 2 weeks ago

I was going to say that with swearing and all caps, thank you for keeping it classy.

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[–] inari@kbin.earth 106 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Personal computers are a ridiculous idea, you should use our scalable mainframes instead --IBM in the 80s, probably

[–] Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 15 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

There's certainly nothing enjoyable to do on an AS400

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[–] thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 87 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (4 children)

A lot of people want to be billionaires, and somehow they assume the problem is solved because we have unfettered predatory late stage capitalism and oligarchy in America, we're going to be able to amass as much money as we want in our bank accounts, and so we're all going to be rich without oversight, accountability or government interference.

But from a global allocation perspective, actually it's quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world's wealth sitting in a few private bank accounts and being used .05% of the time.

Like you want maximum circulation of currency if you're trying to reduce inequality in this artificial scarcity environment,

And somehow, Americans' intuitions are the opposite of that.

FTFY Sam.

[–] CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is genuinely a fantastic response that is also absolutely correct in its premise

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[–] randomaside@lemmy.dbzer0.com 71 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

Ram is so cheap to make that until the AI demand companies basically had to create new levels of density/speed and sell for less just to keep the business afloat. This is like when cellphone companies tried to claim megabytes were a precious finite resource. We live in a post scarcity society and these billion assholes are like “well that just won’t do”.

It reminds me of that kid we all know who just learned economics from school house rock and then goes “now if I can simply find every evee Pokémon card in the world and burn them all except for the one I have, I’ll be rich!”

It’s just so frustrating to see this sheer stupid amount of greed all of the time. Thanks for coming to my TEDex talk.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 29 points 2 weeks ago

Even if it was a scarce resource that's important to use efficiently, p2p inference sharing/markets are a thing, local hardware ownership doesn't have to mean it all sits idle.

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[–] BooBees@fedinsfw.app 61 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Some of you will have to sacrifice for the greater good, but it won’t be him.

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[–] 4am@lemmy.zip 56 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

And there it is.

“We made components scarce, so you have no choice but to use our cloud services where we control everything and you rent the privilege from us.”

Literally called it. Fuck these assholes with everything rusty.

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[–] lightnsfw@reddthat.com 44 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Sam Altman is a terrible utilization of scarce resources.

I want to use ram for things unrelated to AI you fucking prick.

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[–] jaykrown@lemmy.world 37 points 2 weeks ago

That's insanely ironic coming from him. Meanwhile the crazy amount of waste that these companies are producing buying all the GPUs to create artificial scarcity. They are terrified of people being able to run their own local LLMs because it completely destroyed their entire business model, they will never be profitable.

[–] mHtt@lemmy.ca 34 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

new title:

"Man whose company lost $20b in previous year explains how to allocate resources."

[–] ExtraJudgement@lemmy.world 33 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

A lot of people want local inference, and somehow they assume that the problem is solved now because we have open-source models, we’re going to be able to run them on our computers, and so we’re not going to need all the stuff in the data center.

We don't need them even without local inference. There was already more than enough total global compute for the most valuable use cases of LLMs (research, development, admin). The datacenter build-up is almost entirely fueled by utterly unrealistic expectations of future capabilities. Before and now the case for local inference is a matter of access, not capacity.

But from a global allocation perspective, actually it’s quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used five percent of the time.

Utilitarianism like this is a disease. By the same logic, it's inefficient that we allow other species of animals to exist and consume usable energy. Hell, why stop at other species? It's inefficient to allow humans to exist - let's kill all humans!

Now, I know that's not what he said, the point was to show that when someone uses utilitarianism as a serious argument, they are no longer worth listening to.

Like you want maximum utilisation in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment,

The supply is only constrained because you keep hoarding more than you need. Maybe it's time for some communization? So communities where data centers are built get most if not all of the profits from it?

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[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 33 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Can you imagine everyone carrying around gigabytes of memory, in their pocket? Unthinkable.

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[–] vritrahan@lemmy.zip 32 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Central planning but by the private sector

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

On a somewhat related note, the private sector routinely does central planning in areas dominated by few large players. E.g. Walmart. They use a version of the mathematical models the Soviets came up with to do central planning at Gosplan.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 17 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Combining the worst parts of capitalism with the worst parts of communism, we've basically created the perfect economic system. Well, for the billionaires and oligarchs anyway.

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[–] SparroHawc@lemmy.zip 29 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

And who made those resources scarce, Sam? WHO MADE THEM SCARCE???

also screw you for trying to make the answer to 'How should those resources be allocated?' be 'In the way that best enriches me personally'.

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[–] RedSnt@feddit.dk 24 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Moronic logic. The only reason LLM's work is because they scraped the internet, something only possible because personal computing became available to the wider public.
Next he's going to suggest that we just stop giving people any education and let a handful of elites do the thinking for the masses. What an absolute clown.

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[–] hirihit640@sh.itjust.works 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

distributing trust to every person on the planet is so inefficient. All trust should be given to me!

[–] LazyOldPervert@lemmus.org 23 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Fuck this loser piece of shit

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[–] Saryn@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Computing for me, not for thee

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[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 22 points 2 weeks ago

CEO of Pizza Hut says making pizzas at home is a terrible allocation of resources.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 21 points 2 weeks ago

actually it's quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used five percent of the time.

Why is it terrible for us plebeians to have our own RAM, huh?

Like you want maximum utilisation in the cloud if you're trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment

WHY IS IT SUPPLY-CONSTRAINED, ALTMAN? WHY IS THERE CURRENTLY A RAM SHORTAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?

Nobody wants the fucking cloud and that's why major tech companies are forcing it on them without asking, and burying the opt-out if it's offered at all.

And somehow many people's intuition is the opposite of that

Gee I wonder why our intuitions don't align with your "Give me everything and have nothing" philosophy...

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 21 points 2 weeks ago

Guy selling product: “Here’s why owning your own product instead of renting it from me is a terrible idea”

Guy with the spying infrastructure in place to steal your product when renting his product, says you escaping his ability to spy is waste of resources.

[–] nonentity@sh.itjust.works 19 points 2 weeks ago

Exclusively pursuing efficiency manifests as intrinsically brittle systems and monocultures. Maximum utilisation is only desirable for strip mining.

Disperse, choreographed capabilities provides reliability and resiliency, slack permits flexibility and predictable maintenance.

All this is orthogonal to the legitimacy of the use and demand of the grift this clown is selling.

[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 19 points 2 weeks ago

Shovel seller vehemently against you building your own shovel

[–] capital5@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Fucking idiot is too stupid to realize that local DRAM can be used for useful shit, as opposed to whatever he wants to use it for.

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[–] nil@piefed.ca 18 points 2 weeks ago

It's not about resource utilization in the first place. We don't trust you.

[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 18 points 2 weeks ago

As if the ONLY thing your memory could be used for is running AI models.

Hey buddy, we need this shit to use our BROWSERS or to play GAMES. I have a GPU in my computer that can run most new AI models when quantized at a speed that would be perfectly reasonable for any home user that doesn't want it to literally replace every ounce of their thinking, and I bought that shit before ChatGPT was even a thing, because I wanted to play fucking video games.

I have a NAS with 16 gigs of RAM and a consumer-grade CPU that's a few generations old, and it can still run models with zero GPU or AI accelerator if you give it a little time.

Is it going to be perfectly tuned, and run at the highest possible speed if you design a datacenter just for AI models? Of course it is. But do most people on this planet need that or give a fuck about it? Absolutely not.

[–] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 17 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

He's not wrong.

Think Solar. Wayyyy more affordable to share a farm than build your own, and less battery required if load is shared when not in use by some. This is an extreme of that, even.

BUT. People want sovereign API because of trust, not efficiency. I don't mind a shared solar farm, but I want my own Safe Deposit Box for my important documents, not one shared with a bunch of smokers who have proven they drop ashes everywhere.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 2 weeks ago

Solar is a bad example. It's super economic to have a panel on your balcony. No need to use the grid infrastructure at all most of the time

Keeps the load off the grid by generating the power exactly where needed instead of having to put the load onto the grid

[–] SupraMario@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

This is more like housing

He's saying, rent from me because you don't really need a house, you should be happy with a single apartment that I have crammed 10 people into and rent is $5k a month. Be happy I give you electric and water access.

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[–] djmikeale@feddit.dk 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Sounds like a problem for the sharing economy: kinda like you're able to do https://foldingathome.org/

I'm sure someone will come up with a solution that lets you rent out excess capacity from your gpu cluster.

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[–] SSSAsrld12@szmer.info 17 points 2 weeks ago
[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

"Raping your own siblings at home is terribly inefficient when we have private islands where we can keep and rape other people's siblings."

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[–] iocase@lemmy.zip 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Please don't run AI for free on your own workstation 😭 it's a very bad use of your computer 😥

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[–] kylie_kraft@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)
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[–] hotdogthud@lemmy.world 16 points 2 weeks ago

we lost Captain Picard yesterday, yet this lazy-eyed cardboard human gets to keep using oxygen. there is no justice in this world.

[–] psycotica0@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 weeks ago

He's absolutely right! This is a great argument for nationalizing it into a public service. I imagine he'll be happy to hand over what he's got so far, and step back going forwards. Thanks Sam!

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 15 points 2 weeks ago

But Sam, local inference is what would prevent our data from being used by creepy advertisers.

[–] LeftReddit2@lemmy.world 13 points 2 weeks ago

Never felt so proud to have a Local LLM in my router, yes my router of all things... my router which is an old and downgraded Mac Mini I had lying around.

[–] eestileib@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 weeks ago

Oh BROTHER this does this guy suck!

[–] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

This is what crack heads sound like when explaining why they stole some junk off of someone's porch

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[–] empireo223@sh.itjust.works 12 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah no. I will hoard all the computing resources I can. Fuck you Altman.

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