mark
@davidgerard the hilariously bad take of these companies is they think that the non-workable aspects of this will be fixed by bigger clusters and more computing. Ignoring the fundamental problem and throwing hardware at it is such a poor developer attitude.
I make a living assembling these things and I know this is a short time horizon needing a career pivot in a few years
mark
@thomasapowell @davidgerard oh yes. I was so worried when guys were moving in during crypto that we would pivot to nfts. Thankfully that collapsed quickly.
I felt worse building systems for health are, as that industry capitalizes on misery and bad luck. At least AI and ads isn't absolutely unavoidable.
ThomasAPowell
Have you done any speculative thinking about what people might end up doing to use all these AI focused compute clusters for in a few years?
Please don’t let it be crypto 2.0… 😏
mark
@thomasapowell @davidgerard the dot com busy freed up a ton of computing and networking gear when the rubble cleared. Maybe the billions in gpus will have a use for them in 5 years
Jay
@thomasapowell @ATLeagle @davidgerard They’ll push hard to use it to replace entry level jobs, retail jobs, customer service/HR jobs, etc., many of which are more commonly held by women, younger people, and minorities, thus putting greater economic pressure on those groups and pushing many out of the workforce. They’ll tout them as increasingly necessary studying aides for the increasingly necessary college degrees for the vanishing middle class level positions.
mark
@WhiteCatTamer @thomasapowell @davidgerard that's why I call it a bubble and expect this to be a short term job. What is being sold will be discovered as pure bullshit soon enough. Those jobs will come back, and successful places won't have ever lost them
mark
@WhiteCatTamer @thomasapowell @davidgerard but it's too dumb to actually replace expertise
Jay
@thomasapowell @ATLeagle @davidgerard I think they see it as investment that will pay exponential dividends in the future when they have even greater economic leverage to drive salaries down.
ThomasAPowell
@WhiteCatTamer @ATLeagle @davidgerard
I was focusing more on the hardware because like the top of the thread premise makes about not financially pencilling out I agree with. Seen quotes on just GPUs being $17 spent to gain $1. Bubble hype to get 💰 losses taken because cash out but eventually this pops. See recent delivery example.
So what then? We have massive infra just like we had massive Aeron chairs in dotcom. What do we use the clusters for or just blow them out like the chairs ?
mark
@paninid @thomasapowell @davidgerard @pluralistic exactly this. Thanks
Coach Pāṇini ®
@ATLeagle @thomasapowell @davidgerard
“Tech bubbles come in two varieties: The ones that leave something behind, and the ones that leave nothing behind. Sometimes, it can be hard to guess what kind of bubble you’re living through until it pops and you find out the hard way.” - @pluralistic
https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/
Jay
@ATLeagle @thomasapowell @davidgerard Some definitely will, but others won’t because those companies will keep their prices low enough that they’re competitive.
Think of how phone trees, self-service lines, listicles/generic written garbage and customer service chatbots have proliferated. If enough of the big players do it long enough, it becomes the norm, and fewer people will be able to justify (especially to their bosses) paying extra.
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