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As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

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Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#131

Post by trinsic2 »

deadbabe wrote: post #60
vee-kay wrote: post #38

For last 2 years, I've noticed a worrying trend: the typical budget PCs (especially Laptops) are being sold at higher prices with lower RAM (just 8GB) and lower-end CPUs (and no dedicated GPUs). Industry mandate should have become 16GB RAM for PCs and 8GB for mobile, since years ago, but instead it is as if computing/IT industry is regressing. New budget mobiles are being launched with lower-end specs as well (e.g.,…

I think it will be a good thing actually. Engineers, no longer having the luxury of assuming that users have high end system specs, will be forced to actually write fast and efficient software. No more bloated programs eating up RAM for no reason.

I don't think it's going to happen in this day and age. Some smart people will but most barley know how to write there own code let alone write efficient code

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#132

Post by ssl-3 »

dottjt wrote: post #101
999900000999 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, we can expect better from software. Maybe someone can fork Firefox and make it run better, hard cap how much a browser window can use. The pattern of lazy almost non existent optimization combined with blaming consumers for having weak hardware, needs to stop. On my 16GB ram lunar lake budget laptop CachyOS( Arch) runs so much smoother than Windows. This is very unscientific, but using htop , running Chrome/YouTu…

That's not happening though, hence why we need more ram.

Eh? As I see it, we've got options.

Option A: We do a better job at optimizing software so that good performance requires less RAM than might otherwise be required

Option B: We wish that things were different, such that additional RAM were a viable option like it has been at many times in the past.

Option C: We use our time-benders to hop to a different timeline where this is all sorted more favorably (hopefully one where the Ballchinians are friendly)

---

To evaluate these in no particular order:

Option B doesn't sound very fruitful. I mean: It can be fun to wish, but magical thinking doesn't usually get very far.

Option C sounds fun, but my time-bender got roached after the last jump and the version of Costco we have here doesn't sell them. (Maybe someone else has a working one, but they seem to be pretty rare here.)

That leaves option A: Optimize the software once, and duplicate that optimized software to whomever it is useful using that "Internet" thing that the cool kids were talking about back in the 1980s.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#133

Post by torginus »

It's somewhat alarming to see that companies (owned by a very small slice of society) producing these AI thingies (whose current economic is questionable value and actual future potential is up to hot debate), can easily price the rest of humanity out of computing goods.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#134

Post by Ekaros »

Outside say video and image editing and maybe lossless audio. Why is this much ram even needed in most use cases? And I mean actually thinking about using it. Computer code unless you are actually doing whole Linux kernel, is just text. So lot of projects probably would fit in cache. Maybe software companies should be billed for user's resources too...

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#135

Post by l9o »

It feels like a weird tension: we worry about AI alignment but also want everyone to have unrestricted local AI hardware. Local compute means no guardrails, fine-tune for whatever you want.

Maybe the market pricing people out is accidentally doing what regulation couldn't? Concentrating AI where there's at least some oversight and accountability. Not sure if that's good or bad to be honest.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#136

Post by MangoToupe »

999900000999 wrote: post #93
vee-kay wrote: post #38

For last 2 years, I've noticed a worrying trend: the typical budget PCs (especially Laptops) are being sold at higher prices with lower RAM (just 8GB) and lower-end CPUs (and no dedicated GPUs). Industry mandate should have become 16GB RAM for PCs and 8GB for mobile, since years ago, but instead it is as if computing/IT industry is regressing. New budget mobiles are being launched with lower-end specs as well (e.g.,…

Or, we can expect better from software. Maybe someone can fork Firefox and make it run better, hard cap how much a browser window can use. The pattern of lazy almost non existent optimization combined with blaming consumers for having weak hardware, needs to stop. On my 16GB ram lunar lake budget laptop CachyOS( Arch) runs so much smoother than Windows. This is very unscientific, but using htop , running Chrome/YouTu…

> I was only using 6GBs of ram.

Insane that this is seen as "better software". I could do basically the same functionality in 2000 with 512mb. I assume this is because everything runs through chrome with dozens more layers of abstraction but

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#137

Post by trinsic2 »

shevy-java wrote: post #22
Imustaskforhelp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asus is ramping up production of ram... So lets see if they might "save us"

So far all I am seeing is an increase in prices, so any company claiming it will "ramp up production" here is, in my opinion, just lying for tactical reasons. Governments need to intervene here. This is a mafia scheme now. I purchased about three semi-cheap computers in the last ~5 years or so. Looking at the RAM prices, the very same units I bought (!) now cost 2.5x as much as before (here I refer to my latest compu…

Taxed extra is a good idea. But they bought our current administration so we all know that's not going to happen unless something big happens like Trump gets impeached, and all the criminals in congress go to prison. I'm wondering how likely that will happen. people need to get more directly involved in putting pressure on senators.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#139

Post by palmotea »

torginus wrote: post #133

It's somewhat alarming to see that companies (owned by a very small slice of society) producing these AI thingies (whose current economic is questionable value and actual future potential is up to hot debate), can easily price the rest of humanity out of computing goods.

> It's somewhat alarming to see that companies (owned by a very small slice of society) ... can easily price the rest of humanity out of computing goods.

If AI lives up to the hype, it's a portent of how things will feel to the common man. Not only will unemployment be a problem, but prices of any resources desired by the AI companies or their founders will rise to unaffordability.

Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise

#140

Post by trinsic2 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #44
cglan wrote: post #41

At this current pace, if "the electorate" doesn't see real benefits to any of this. 2028 is going to be referendum on AI unfortunately. Whether you like it or not, AI right now is mostly - high electricity prices - crazy computer part prices - phasing out of a lot of formerly high paying jobs and the benefits are mostly - slop and chatgpt Unless OpenAI and co produce the machine god, which genuinely is possible. If m…

I hope they do. We live in a time of incredibly centralized wealth & power and AI and particularly "the machine god" has the potential to make things 100x worse and return us to a feudal system if the ownership and profits all go to a few capital owners.

IMHO this is exactly what is happening. Everyone should be on the phone with there senators putting pressure to enforce anti-trust and deal with citizens united
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