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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

#771

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...

Take this "sober" analysis with a big pinch of salt.

IBM have totally missed the AI boat, and a large chunk of their revenue comes from selling expensive consultants to clients who do not have the expertise to do IT work themselves - this business model is at a high risk of being disrupted by those clients just using AI agents instead of paying $2-5000/day for a team of 20 barely-qualified new-grads in some far-off country.

IBM have an incentive to try and pour water on the AI fire to try and sustain their business.

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

#772

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

Amazing that 4 of the top 5 are renewables in China.

Does that cout the dams that flood valleys and displace thousands of people, plants, and animals from their homes?

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

#773

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...

> Also now using ChatGPT intensely since months for all kinds of tasks and having tried Claude etc.

the facts though, read like an endorsement not a criticism

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

#774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Surpassed is probably the wrong word but the intent is more that it can comprehend quite complicated algorithms and patterns and apply them to your problem space. So yea it’s not a human but I don’t think saying subpar to a human is the right comparison either. In many ways it’s much better, I can run N parallel revisions and have the best implementation picked for review. This all happens in seconds.

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

#775

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 less. not sure if that's a good thing. but small little bugs and improvements get cleared so quickly now.

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

#776
post #770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The Pacific ocean is big.

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

#777

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.

Senior engineer here as well. I would say Opus 4.5 is easily a mid-level engineer. It's a substantial improvement over Sonnet 4.5, which required a lot more hand-holding and interventions.

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

#778
post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always "I'm producing 300 projects in a nanosecond" but it's almost never about sharing or actually deploying these ;)

The problem I had that the larger your project gets, the more mistakes Claude makes. I (not a parent commenter) started with a basic CRUD web app and was blown away by how detailed it was, new CSS, good error handling, good selection and use of libraries, it could even write the terminal commands for package management and building. As the project grew to something larger Claude started forgetting that some code alre…

> The problem I had that the larger your project gets, the more mistakes Claude makes

I think the reason for this is because these systems get all their coding and design expertise from training, and while there is lots of training data available for small scale software (individual functions, small projects), there is much less for large projects (mostly commercial and private, aside from a few large open source projects).

Designing large software systems, both to meet initial requirements, and to be maintainable and extensible over time, is a different skill than writing small software projects, which is why design of these systems is done by senior developers and systems architects. It's perhaps a bit like the difference between designing a city and designing a single building - there are different considerations and decisions being made. A city is not just a big building, or a collection of buildings, and large software system is not just a large function or collection of functions.

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

#779
post #729
post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always "I'm producing 300 projects in a nanosecond" but it's almost never about sharing or actually deploying these ;)

Here's mine fully deployed, https://hackernewsanalyzer.com/ . I use it daily and have some users. ~99.7% LLM code. About 1 hour to first working prototype then another 40 hours to get it polished and complete to current state.

To be clear, roughly 39.8 hours of just prompting and output to make this website?

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

#780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any dream of owning a home, having retirement, even a career after a couple years when it’s clear I’m over the hump. I’m trying to squeeze as much as I can before that happens and squirrel it away so at least I can have a van down by a river.

What does squirreling it away mean though? A pile of cash instead of investments? The reality is that you don’t get to throw in the towel.

SPY/VOO/land with a river for the van. Probably working at the local Shell or 7-11
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