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Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

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Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#111

Post by hdgvhicv »

al_borland wrote: post #15
walrus01 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2008 all over again, but instead of Washington Mutual and Countrywide, we have whatever the heck is going on now.

I don’t know if the public would be as accepting of a bailout for AI companies… trillion dollar businesses that pushed technology with the goal of eliminating 50% of white collar workers… that isn’t really mission critical. If they want the reward, they need to accept the risk when the bet doesn’t go their way. If they aren’t willing to accept that, they shouldn’t be making such big bets.

Socialise the losses, privatise the profits.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#112

Post by hinata08 »

blks wrote: post #71
darth_avocado wrote: post #3

Well technically they don’t own the debt, the SPVs that own the data centers do. The giants just have long term commitments, but if shit hits the fan, it’s not the tech giants but the banks that lent the money to the SPVs that are at risk. This usually means all of us are on the hook.

Capitalists love to socialize losses

*costs

Privatize revenues, socialize costs of business

You're not "competitive" if you have to pay for workers, ink or investments. Workers only get a wage because of communist populists who don't understand business, and (insert place - even the Philippines these days) has the most highest taxes and wages around the world.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#113

Post by laughing_man »

dartharva wrote: post #37
King-Aaron wrote: post #13

These debts mean nothing if the US government actually views AI technology as being on par with the Manhattan project. They'll just bail them out or nationalise them.

They'll bail them out with what money? US is already almost $40T in debt, how do you think the bond market would react if another $2T were abruptly added to it?

Here's the thing about debt, though: If your debt is denominated in your own sovereign currency, you can just print more when you run out of money.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#114

Post by petesergeant »

londons_explore wrote: post #100
laughing_man wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is if large banks fail they take everyone else with them. We should have dealt with this in 2009, but for some reason it didn't happen. But money talks, I guess.

Iceland let it's banks default, and is now doing rather well. In fact, bank failure and then having the government only guarantee ~$50k of funds per person is a good way to hand wealth to the people and take it from corporations and the super wealthy.

> and is now doing rather well

I was going to write a shitty reply to this, but the more research I did, the more it seems actually this went pretty well for them. UK and NL governments that lost deposits in the Icelandic banks mostly got their cash back (eventually), there was recession and unemployment but not that much worse than other countries, and the country is in good standing again with the markets.

I would note that this is much much easier to do if your investors are foreign, rather than domestic pension funds, so it doesn’t bring down the government, though.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#115

Post by hdgvhicv »

dartharva wrote: post #37
King-Aaron wrote: post #13

These debts mean nothing if the US government actually views AI technology as being on par with the Manhattan project. They'll just bail them out or nationalise them.

They'll bail them out with what money? US is already almost $40T in debt, how do you think the bond market would react if another $2T were abruptly added to it?

Just have to suck it up. Otherwise they won’t see that 40t.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#116

Post by surgical_fire »

UberFly wrote: post #57
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They think they’re immune. Even after Luigi, they still think they’re immune

As far-fetched as it sounds, I'd prefer elected officials and the justice system hold people accountable rather than psychotic murderers.

Speaking hypothetically, that is preferable, yes.

And the importance of the justice system working properly is that when it fails constantly and deliberately, many will come to the conclusion that the only option left is murder.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#117

Post by lelanthran »

no-name-here wrote: post #105
lelanthran wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gotta know, which of those specific points in your second citation do you have a problem with? The only one I can see having a problem with is "d. Subversion...". I expect that most voters welcome efforts that aim to stop other groups using violence and intimidation to suppress their speech or legal religious activities. The only problem with these proposed laws is the same problem with all existing laws - selectiv…

I was responding to the grandparent commenter’s claims that ‘public anger’ no longer exists - so whether you want to point to one of those examples, right-wing pushes to pass new laws labeling those impacting “civil tranquility” as domestic “civil terrorists”, or public anger seen across social media (Reddit, etc), my point is that the argument that public anger no longer exists seems unsupported.

I understand now, apologies.

I agree with you, that public anger still exists[1], but I will not consider that link I mentioned in my response as an example of the suppression of public anger.

A new law that specifically calls out people as criminals when they attempt to limit a person from entering their place of worship, etc is not a law suppressing the expression of public anger.

======================

[1] One can even make the argument that Trump got elected on the back of public anger. The values he espoused are unpalatable, but there is little question that the whole suppression of opinions in the last decade have had much to do with his popularity.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#118

Post by rmunn »

bogdan wrote: post #95
rmunn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the difference between innovating and copying/distilling someone else's innovation. https://wccftech.com/chinas-kimi-k3-identifies-itself-as-ant...

I'll link to this comment as a rebuttal https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48984531

Good UIs look alike, yes. But I'm not sure that comment is a good rebuttal in this particular case, because the model calling itself Claude is pretty strong evidence of distilling: https://x.com/denisewu/status/2077984660211269870

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#119

Post by Terr_ »

roschdal wrote: post #43

Imagine shorting Alphabet stock now , just before the AI bubble bursts, what an opportunity of a lifetime.

Good luck timing it. "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

There isn't always a mechanism that will translate being-right about some fundamental fact into making-money from it.

P.S. It isn't trivially "solved" by someone setting up a gambling scheme either. Many people who are right will still lose because they didn't also guess when other people would start to agree with the conclusion. Plus there's the time-value of money for things which take longer to play out.

Re: Five US tech giants' hidden debts soar to $1.65T on opaque AI funding

#120

Post by rmunn »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #68
rmunn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the difference between innovating and copying/distilling someone else's innovation. https://wccftech.com/chinas-kimi-k3-identifies-itself-as-ant...

As opposed to all the copying AI companies have done of everyone else's work, in order to build something that tries to replace and undercuts the people who did that work? World's smallest violin.

Not saying the American AI companies are ethically in the right, just that the work they did is a lot more expensive to do than what the companies distilling their work are doing.
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