The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
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The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
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Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#2The only reason to blame AI is that it doesn't live up to promises, so corps are betting that scale will solve the problem. So datacenter after datacenter wants to be built in areas that can't supply them water/power.
And that money sink is causing the layoffs. If AI really helped like it expected to, you would grab any dev you could so that you could have a army of 100x devs.
Humans are still cheaper for the real costs. Augmented humans are on average a few percentage points better.
Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#3The only reason to blame AI is that it doesn't live up to promises, so corps are betting that scale will solve the problem. So datacenter after datacenter wants to be built in areas that can't supply them water/power. And that money sink is causing the layoffs. If AI really helped like it expected to, you would grab any dev you could so that you could have a army of 100x devs. Humans are still cheaper for the real co…
The same thing was said about the crazy build-out of fiber and telecommunications infrastructure. That infrastructure did prove useful but it took about 10-20 years before that was the case. It took 4G becoming broadly available and the ensuing increase of mobile devices to use at least of the overbuilt network capacity.
Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#4The only reason to blame AI is that it doesn't live up to promises, so corps are betting that scale will solve the problem. So datacenter after datacenter wants to be built in areas that can't supply them water/power. And that money sink is causing the layoffs. If AI really helped like it expected to, you would grab any dev you could so that you could have a army of 100x devs. Humans are still cheaper for the real co…
The same thing was said about the crazy build-out of fiber and telecommunications infrastructure. That infrastructure did prove useful but it took about 10-20 years before that was the case. It took 4G becoming broadly available and the ensuing increase of mobile devices to use at least of the overbuilt network capacity.
While I get this stream of thought, the major difference is that the internal hardware will age much faster than the core infrastructure. The real question is, how much of these build out costs is the center itself and the hardware within.
That fiber build out will last for decades, a Blackwell GPU, not so much.
Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#5The only reason to blame AI is that it doesn't live up to promises, so corps are betting that scale will solve the problem. So datacenter after datacenter wants to be built in areas that can't supply them water/power. And that money sink is causing the layoffs. If AI really helped like it expected to, you would grab any dev you could so that you could have a army of 100x devs. Humans are still cheaper for the real co…
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Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#6The only reason to blame AI is that it doesn't live up to promises, so corps are betting that scale will solve the problem. So datacenter after datacenter wants to be built in areas that can't supply them water/power. And that money sink is causing the layoffs. If AI really helped like it expected to, you would grab any dev you could so that you could have a army of 100x devs. Humans are still cheaper for the real co…
The same thing was said about the crazy build-out of fiber and telecommunications infrastructure. That infrastructure did prove useful but it took about 10-20 years before that was the case. It took 4G becoming broadly available and the ensuing increase of mobile devices to use at least of the overbuilt network capacity.
The difference is that fibre is infrastructure, LLMs are an application. Who knows, maybe they will pass and leave behind that server infra, and that's where our digital consciousnesses will live once our bodies die.
Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same thing was said about the crazy build-out of fiber and telecommunications infrastructure. That infrastructure did prove useful but it took about 10-20 years before that was the case. It took 4G becoming broadly available and the ensuing increase of mobile devices to use at least of the overbuilt network capacity.
While I get this stream of thought, the major difference is that the internal hardware will age much faster than the core infrastructure. The real question is, how much of these build out costs is the center itself and the hardware within. That fiber build out will last for decades, a Blackwell GPU, not so much.
I could be wrong but it seems like in the case of a crash no one will be buying new GPUs and thus the existing ones could hold their value longer. Of course that value will no longer be massively inflated by bubble FOMO.
Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#8Feels early to blame AI for most of this. A lot of it still looks like a reset from 2021-era hiring assumptions rather than actual labor replacement
Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#9The only reason to blame AI is that it doesn't live up to promises, so corps are betting that scale will solve the problem. So datacenter after datacenter wants to be built in areas that can't supply them water/power. And that money sink is causing the layoffs. If AI really helped like it expected to, you would grab any dev you could so that you could have a army of 100x devs. Humans are still cheaper for the real co…
The same thing was said about the crazy build-out of fiber and telecommunications infrastructure. That infrastructure did prove useful but it took about 10-20 years before that was the case. It took 4G becoming broadly available and the ensuing increase of mobile devices to use at least of the overbuilt network capacity.
Chalk an cheese, Wavelength Division Multiplexing took out Globalcrossing Worldcom etc…
But the secondary market that grew out of it was because once it is in the ground it has a long lifespan and low upkeep costs, this is not the same thing as ultra high power density data centers.
Cooling needs to be balanced with demand, they may not work for even cloud scale type loads without serious issues etc…
Not that it matters, my hometown has an announced DC and it is looking more and more like it is a shill, as do several of the others in the area.
Re: The tech jobs bust is real. Don't blame AI (yet)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I get this stream of thought, the major difference is that the internal hardware will age much faster than the core infrastructure. The real question is, how much of these build out costs is the center itself and the hardware within. That fiber build out will last for decades, a Blackwell GPU, not so much.
I could be wrong but it seems like in the case of a crash no one will be buying new GPUs and thus the existing ones could hold their value longer. Of course that value will no longer be massively inflated by bubble FOMO.
It isn’t about holding value, the cards are going to burn up. If they don’t, in 5 years one could run a rack of 4 cards at home at an affordable rate. Either the cards become affordable again and the datacenter is useless, or they don’t, and nobody can fucking afford to rent them.