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

businessinsider.com

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

#761

Post by tim333 »

dogman144 wrote: post #86
beachy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just the same dynamic as old servers. They still work fine but power costs make them uneconomical compared to latest tech.

Manipulating this for creative accounting seems to be the root of Michael Burry’s argument, although I’m not fluent enough in his figures to map here. But, commenting that it interesting to see IBM argue a similar case (somewhat), or comments ITT hitting the same known facts, in light of Nvidia’s counterpoints to him.

Burry just did his first interview for many years https://youtu.be/nsE13fvjz18?t=265

with Michael Lewis, about 30 mins long. Highlights - he thinks we are near the top, his puts are for two years time. If you go long he suggests healthcare stocks. He's been long gold some years, thinks bitcoin is dumb. Thinks this is dotcom bubble #2 except instead of pro investors it's mostly index funds this time. Most recent headlines about him have been bad reporting.

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

#762

Post by gosub100 »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #240

"It is 1958. IBM passes up the chance to buy a young, fledgling company that has invented a new technology called xerography. Two years later, Xerox is born, and IBM has been kicking themselves ever since. It is ten years later, the late '60s. Digital Equipment DEC and others invent the minicomputer. IBM dismisses the minicomputer as too small to do serious computing and, therefore, unimportant to their business. DEC…

You, or your existence, probably triggers multiple transactions per day through a POWER mainframe without you even knowing it. Their mainframes handle the critical infrastructure that can't go down.It's so reliable we don't even think about it. I shudder to think about Microsoft or Apple handling that.

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

#763

Post by exe34 »

brookst wrote: post #717
wartywhoa23 wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They really should have been supplying at least a week worth of readymade "projects" to every freelance AI promoter out there to demonstrate x9000 AI productivity gains for the skeptics. Because vibing the air about those gains without any evidence looks too shilly.

As opposed to ad hominems and handwave dismissals, which are highly credible?

Pointing out the where the burden of proof lies is not an ad hominem. Calling it such is in fact a good example of poisoning the well. all the fan girls have to do is post links to code they have vibe coded. some people have even done that in this thread. it's not an unreasonable standard.

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

#764

Post by paddleon »

klaff wrote: post #120
UtopiaPunk wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's capital that belongs to people and those people..." That's not a fundamental law of physics. It's how we've decided to arrange our current society, more or less, but it's always up for negotiation. Land used to be understood as a publicly shared resource, but then kings and the nobles decided it belong to them, and they fenced in the commons. The landed gentry became a ruling class because the land "belonged" t…

Well said. I would add that corporations exist because we choose to let them, to let investors pool capital and limit risk, and in exchange society should benefit, and if it doesn't we should rearrange that deal.

You know, we created the US government as an expression of the fundamental rights of man, with the idea that the government would provide for the common welfare and preserve these rights.

In rebellion against a king who seemed to want to exploit us and felt that his being king made him the source of the rights we had.

Maybe we need to re-think the relationship with corporations the same way? Re-structure so that they serve the common good?

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

#765

Post by boringg »

infecto wrote: post #745
blablabla123 wrote: post #533

Despite the flashy title that's the first "sober" analysis from a CEO I read about the technology. While not even really news, it's also worth mentioning that the energy requirements are impossible to fulfill Also now using ChatGPT intensely since months for all kinds of tasks and having tried Claude etc. None of this is on par with a human. The code snippets are straight out of Stackoverflow...

I am a senior engineer, I use cursor a lot in my day to day. I find I can code longer and typically faster than without. Is it on par with human? It’s getting pretty darn close to be honest, I am sure the “10x” engineers of the world would disagree but it definitely has surpassed a junior engineer. We all have our anecdotes but I am inclined to believe on average there is net value.

I think surpassed is not the right word because it doesn't create/ideate. However it is incredibly resourceful. Maybe like having a jr engineer to do your bidding without thinking or growing.

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

#766

Post by RobertoG »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #240

"It is 1958. IBM passes up the chance to buy a young, fledgling company that has invented a new technology called xerography. Two years later, Xerox is born, and IBM has been kicking themselves ever since. It is ten years later, the late '60s. Digital Equipment DEC and others invent the minicomputer. IBM dismisses the minicomputer as too small to do serious computing and, therefore, unimportant to their business. DEC…

Didn't also pass on SAP at some point? I think I read that somewhere.

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

#767

Post by boringg »

carefulfungi wrote: post #754
forty wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the most depressing part of all this is if people start thinking they would not have been able to do things without the LLM. Of course they would have, it's not like LLMs can do anything that you cannot. Maybe it would have taken more time at least the first time and you would have learned a few things in the process.

It would be more depressing if our imagination didn't exceed the finite time we have to learn and master new skills.

Or if we stopped imagining.

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

#768

Post by mattlondon »

m101 wrote: post #760

To all those people that think IBM don't know anything. Calculate this number: # companies 100+ years old / # companies ever existed in 100+ years Then you will see why IBM is pretty special and probably knows what they are doing.

Pretty special? They were making guns and selling computation tools to the Nazis for a bunch of those years.

I think they trade now mostly on legacy maintenance contracts (e.g. for mainframes) for e.g. banks who are terrified of rocking their technology-stack-boat, and selling off-shore consultants (which is at SIGNIFICANT risk of disruption - why would you pay IBM squillions to do some contract IT work, when we have AI code agents? Probably why the CEO is out doing interviews saying you cant trust AI to be around forever)

I have not really seen anything from IBM that signals they are anything other than just milking their legacy - what have they done that is new or innovative in the past say 10 or 20 years?

I was a former IBMer 15 odd years ago and it was obvious then that it was a total dinosaur on a downward spiral, and a place where innovation happened somewhere else.

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

#769

Post by locallost »

snake_doc wrote: post #552
throwaway31131 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100GW per year is not going to happen. The largest plant in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China at 22GW and it’s off the scales huge. We’re not building the equivalent of four of those every year. Unless the plan is to power it off Sam Altman’s hot air. That could work. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations

China added ~90GW of utility solar per year in last 2 years. There's ~400-500GW solar+wind under construction there. It is possible, just may be not in the U.S. Note: given renewables can't provide base load, capacity factor is 10-30% (lower for solar, higher for wind), so actual energy generation will vary...

I am a huge proponent of renewables, but you cannot compare their capacity in GW with other energy sources because their output is variable and not always maximal. To realistically get 100GW in solar you would need at least 500GW of panels.

On the other hand, I think we will not actually need 100GW of new installations because capacity can be acquired by reducing current usage by making it more efficient. The term negawatt comes to mind. A lot of people are still in the stone age when it comes to this even though it was demonstrated quite effectively by reduced gas use in the US after the oil crisis in the 70s. Which basically recovered to the pre crisis levels only recently.

High gas prices caused people to use less and favor efficiency. The same thing will happen with electricity and we'll get more capacity. Let the market work.

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

#770

Post by krupan »

avisser wrote: post #710
enopod_ wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the thing. It's only about bookkeeping. The big AI corps keep pushing depreciation for GPUs into the future, no matter how long the hardware is actually useful. Some of them are now at 6 years. But GPUs are advancing fast, and new hardware brings more flops per watt, so there's a strong incentive to switch to the latest chips. Also, they run 24/7 at 100% capacity, so after only 1.5 years, a fair share…

> Also, they run 24/7 at 100% capacity, so after only 1.5 years How does OpenAI keep this load? I would expect the load at 2pm Eastern to be WAY bigger than the load after California goes to bed.

People outside the 4 U.S. Timezones exist?
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