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IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

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Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#51

Post by newfriend »

ayaros wrote: post #37
scroot wrote: post #24

As an elder millennial, I just don't know what to say. That a once in a generation allocation of capital should go towards...whatever this all will be, is certainly tragic given current state of the world and its problems. Can't help but see it as the latest in a lifelong series of baffling high stakes decisions of dubious social benefit that have necessarily global consequences.

I'm a younger millennial. I'm always seeing homeless people in my city and it's an issue that I think about on a daily basis. Couldn't we have spent the money on homeless shelters and food and other things? So many people are in poverty, they can't afford basic necessities. The world is shitty. Yes, I know it's all capital from VC firms and investment firms and other private sources , but it's still capital . It shou…

Technological advancement is what has pulled billions of people out of poverty.

Giving handouts to layabouts isn't an ideal allocation of resources if we want to progress as a civilization.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#52

Post by trollbridge »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #31
mcculley wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if your competitor is running newer chips that consume less power per operation, aren't you forced to upgrade as well and dispose of the old hardware?

Sure, assuming the power cost reduction or capability increase justifies the expenditure. It's not clear that that will be the case. That's one of the shaky assumptions I'm referring to. It may be that the 2030 nvidia accelerators will save you $2000 in electricity per month per rack, and you can upgrade the whole rack for the low, low price of $800,000! That may not be worth it at all. If it saves you $200k/per rack…

A typical data centre is $2,500 per year per kW load (including overhead, hvac and so on).

If it costs $800,000 to replace the whole rack, then that would pay off in a year if it reduces 320 kW of consumption. Back when we ran servers, we wouldn't assume 100% utilisation but AI workloads do do that; normal server loads would be 10kW per rack and AI is closer to 100. So yeah, it's not hard to imagine power savings of 3.2 racks being worth it.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#53

Post by scarmig »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #40
scarmig wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His argument follows almost directly, and trivially, from his central premise: a 0% or 1% chance of reaching AGI. Yeah, if you assume technology will stagnate over the next decade and AGI is essentially impossible, these investments will not be profitable. Sam Altman himself wouldn't dispute that. But it's a controversial premise, and one that there's no particular reason to think that the... CEO of IBM would have an…

then it seems like neither Sam Altman (pro) or IBM (proxy con) have credible or even really interesting or insightful evidence, theories ... even suggestions for what's likely to happen? i.e. We should stop listening to all of them?

Agreed. It's essentially a giant gamble with a big payoff, and they're both talking their books.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#55

Post by johnrob »

newfriend wrote: post #51
ayaros wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a younger millennial. I'm always seeing homeless people in my city and it's an issue that I think about on a daily basis. Couldn't we have spent the money on homeless shelters and food and other things? So many people are in poverty, they can't afford basic necessities. The world is shitty. Yes, I know it's all capital from VC firms and investment firms and other private sources , but it's still capital . It shou…

Technological advancement is what has pulled billions of people out of poverty. Giving handouts to layabouts isn't an ideal allocation of resources if we want to progress as a civilization.

Invest in making food/shelter cheaper?

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#56

Post by milesvp »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #33

The interesting macro view on what's happening is to compare a mature data center operation (specifically a commoditized one) with the utility business. The margins here, and in similar industries with big infra build-out costs (ex: rail) are quite small. Historically the businesses have not done well; I can't really imagine what happens when tech companies who've only ever known huge, juicy margins experience low si…

Worse, is that a lot of these people are acting like Moore's law isn't still in effect. People conflate clock speeds on beefy hardware with moore's law, and act like it's dead, when transistor density rises, and cost per transistor continue to fall at rates similar to what they always have. That means the people racing to build out infrastructure today might just be better off parking that money in a low interest account, and waiting 6 months. That was a valid strategy for animation studios in the late 90s (it was not only cheaper to wait, but also the finished renders happened sooner), and I'd be surprised if it's not a valid strategy today for LLMs. The amount of silicon that is going to be produced that is specialized for this type of processing is going to be mind boggling.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#57

Post by droopyEyelids »

newfriend wrote: post #51
ayaros wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a younger millennial. I'm always seeing homeless people in my city and it's an issue that I think about on a daily basis. Couldn't we have spent the money on homeless shelters and food and other things? So many people are in poverty, they can't afford basic necessities. The world is shitty. Yes, I know it's all capital from VC firms and investment firms and other private sources , but it's still capital . It shou…

Technological advancement is what has pulled billions of people out of poverty. Giving handouts to layabouts isn't an ideal allocation of resources if we want to progress as a civilization.

What if some of the homeless people are children or people who could lead normal lives but found themselves in dire circumstances?

Some of us believe that keeping children out of poverty may be an investment in the human capital of a country.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#58

Post by nine_zeros »

ayaros wrote: post #37
scroot wrote: post #24

As an elder millennial, I just don't know what to say. That a once in a generation allocation of capital should go towards...whatever this all will be, is certainly tragic given current state of the world and its problems. Can't help but see it as the latest in a lifelong series of baffling high stakes decisions of dubious social benefit that have necessarily global consequences.

I'm a younger millennial. I'm always seeing homeless people in my city and it's an issue that I think about on a daily basis. Couldn't we have spent the money on homeless shelters and food and other things? So many people are in poverty, they can't afford basic necessities. The world is shitty. Yes, I know it's all capital from VC firms and investment firms and other private sources , but it's still capital . It shou…

> but it's still capital. It should be spent on meeting people's basic human needs, not GPU power.

What you have just described is people wanting investment in common society - you see the return on this investment but ultra-capitalistic individuals don't see any returns on this investment because it doesn't benefit them.

In other words, you just asked for higher taxes on the rich that your elected officials could use for your desired investment. And the rich don't want that which is why they spend on lobbying.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#59

Post by selectodude »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #26
bluGill wrote: post #10

I question depreciation. those gpu's will be obsolete in 5 years, but will the newer be enough better as to be worth replacing them is an open question. cpu's stopped getting exponetially faster 20 years ago, (they are faster but not the jumps the 1990s got)

I recently compared performance per dollar for CPUs and GPUs on benchmarks for GPUs today vs 10 years ago, and suprisingly, CPUs had much bigger gains. Until I saw that for myself, I thought exactly the same thing as you. It seems shocking given that all the hype is around GPUs. This probably wouldn't be true for AI specific workloads because one of the other things that happened there in the last 10 years was optimi…

That makes sense. Nvidia owns the market and is capturing all the surplus value. They’re competing with themselves to convince you to buy a new card.
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