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Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

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Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#32
post #10

After increasing the prices of RAM, GPUs and flash memory for the entire world, energy cost is next. Thanks AI!

Energy costs have already risen substantially[0], but the increase has been slower, and it's garnered a bit less media attention than the recent leap in PC hardware prices. [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec...

Also, consumer energy costs tend to be hedged, so an increase in wholesale will generally only have delayed effect on more visible consumer rates. This was very noticeable in Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine; while spot market rates went very high very quickly, it took about a year for consumer rates to peak in most places.

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#33

My take is that if we are still scrambling to find something objectively useful (as recognized by the median person) then we really are in AI bubble territory. When non techie friends/family bring up AI there are two major topics: 1) the amount of slop is off the charts and 2) said slop is getting harder to recognize which is scary. Sometimes they mention a bit of help in daily tasks at work, but nothing major.

My non tech friends/family use AI to ask for silly stuff (they could google it), or just to ask silly questions and see how they react. We have a relative not that famous but maybe known in a niche and they spent like a whole weekendd sending screenshots of GPT, where they asked if this person was known, who was this person, etc.

They don't find AI useful, just a toy. Is their fault? Maybe.

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#34

LLMs and their capabilities are very impressive and definitely useful. The productivity gains often seem to be smaller than intuitively expected though. For example, using ChatGPT to get a response to a random question like "How do I do XYZ" is much more convenient than googling it, but the time savings are often not that relevant for your overall productivity. Before LLMs you were usually already able to find the in…

You're overestimating the mean person's ability to search the web effectively.

And perhaps both are overestimating the mean person's ability to detect a hallucinated solution vs a genuine one.

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#35
post #10

After increasing the prices of RAM, GPUs and flash memory for the entire world, energy cost is next. Thanks AI!

But wait! There is more! Copilot Notepad. Copilot MS Paint. Copilot Shoes. Copilot Ice Cream.

> Copilot Shoes

LOL. "Looks like you're trying to tie those laces - would you like me to order you velcro?"

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#36
post #10

After increasing the prices of RAM, GPUs and flash memory for the entire world, energy cost is next. Thanks AI!

But wait! There is more! Copilot Notepad. Copilot MS Paint. Copilot Shoes. Copilot Ice Cream.

And eventually Copilot Bluescreen.

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#37

> We will quickly lose even the social permission to take something like energy [...] A way to drum up sense of urgency without mentioning that it's the patience of the investors (and _not_ the public) that will be the limiting factor here?

Similar to my thoughts. If we are still scrambling to find stuff the average Joe finds useful, the 100s of Billions poured into this gold rush are wasted (IMHO).

This reminds me of the early 1980s, when home PCs were still very new, the main use cases that vendors used to promote were managing household accounts and recipes. These use cases were extremely unimpressive for most ordinary people. It took a long time for PCs to become ubiquitous in homes - until gaming and the web became common.

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#38
post #10

After increasing the prices of RAM, GPUs and flash memory for the entire world, energy cost is next. Thanks AI!

Energy costs have already risen substantially[0], but the increase has been slower, and it's garnered a bit less media attention than the recent leap in PC hardware prices. [0]: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2025-ai-data-centers-elec...

They built an oceanic fiber termination down in South Carolina. Data centers are starting to move in. Now they'll charge you $12/KWh during your peak usage.

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#39

LLMs and their capabilities are very impressive and definitely useful. The productivity gains often seem to be smaller than intuitively expected though. For example, using ChatGPT to get a response to a random question like "How do I do XYZ" is much more convenient than googling it, but the time savings are often not that relevant for your overall productivity. Before LLMs you were usually already able to find the in…

This is partly because Google is past the enshittification hump and ChatGPT is just starting to climb up it - they just announced ads.

This. And the wonderful thing about LLMs is that they can be trained to bend responses in specific directions, say toward using Oracle Cloud solutions. There's fertile ground for commercial value extraction that goes far beyond ads. Think of it as product placement on steroid.

Re: Satya Nadella: "We need to find something useful for AI"

#40

> We will quickly lose even the social permission to take something like energy [...] A way to drum up sense of urgency without mentioning that it's the patience of the investors (and _not_ the public) that will be the limiting factor here?

Also note that he's not saying Microsoft must find a use for AI, but that customers should.

He's blaming customers that his product isn't hitting the valuation he wants.

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