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AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

seanhelvey.com

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Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#31

Post by ButlerianJihad »

cyfex wrote: post #19

"GPU compute powering crypto for the last decade..." I keep hearing this lately. Also, that GPU compute has been re-purposed from crypto to AI. I had the impression that crypto was powered by ASICs for the last... many years. And that was why GPU mining (let alone CPU mining) was not profitable

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cryptocurrencies

Major cryptocurrencies are based on Proof of Work or Proof of Stake. There are other consensus algorithms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrypt#Introduction

scrypt has been introduced to stave off ASIC and FPGA solutions.

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#32

Post by reverius42 »

decimalenough wrote: post #26
cyfex wrote: post #19

"GPU compute powering crypto for the last decade..." I keep hearing this lately. Also, that GPU compute has been re-purposed from crypto to AI. I had the impression that crypto was powered by ASICs for the last... many years. And that was why GPU mining (let alone CPU mining) was not profitable

Bitcoin mining is powered by ASICs. Random shitcoins are not.

Random shitcoin mining surely isn't a large fraction of industrial GPU usage?

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#34

Post by dools »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #29
dools wrote: post #18

I don't understand how you could compare crypto, which has no utility and no fair value, with AI which is used by hundreds of millions of people every day to achieve real outcomes.

Crypto bros claim that crypto is super useful, revolutionary tech too. The proof is in the pudding, and AI has yet to show any real utility.

> and AI has yet to show any real utility

Ummm ... have you not tried using LLMs for coding work?

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#35

Post by quietbritishjim »

GolfPopper wrote: post #24
jiggawatts wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tulips, NFTs, and the Metaverse all revolved around exclusivity and collectibles. Art with no real utilitarian value. I pay OpenAI $100/mo, twice what I pay for my mobile phone service. It’s a useful service that I use every day. I have never even heard of anyone in my social circle expressing even a mild interest in tulips, NFTs, or the metaverse. This bubble has much more in common with the rail road boom and the 2…

You start with "real utilitarian value" and your example is... how much you pay for it. That sounds more like a drug habit.

I think their point is that is pretty cheap for such a useful service. The opposite of a bubble price.

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#36

Post by latchkey »

cyfex wrote: post #19

"GPU compute powering crypto for the last decade..." I keep hearing this lately. Also, that GPU compute has been re-purposed from crypto to AI. I had the impression that crypto was powered by ASICs for the last... many years. And that was why GPU mining (let alone CPU mining) was not profitable

GPUs were used primarily for ethereum and to a lesser extent, other shitcoins. ETH switched to PoS in Sept 2022 and 18+ million GPUs were turned off almost over night. Nothing else has the liquidity to sustain a large operation any longer. ASIC's are used for bitcoin and a few smaller shitcoins, GPUs hadn't been used for bitcoin in many years.

GPUs used for mining don't translate well to AI at any large scale. It is all newly created (modern) hardware. Some miners who ran GPUs (and ASICs) have transitioned to running AI compute (CoreWeave, IREN, NScale, myself...), but that's not the same thing as taking the hardware and using it for AI. It is new hardware.

CPUs for mining crypto are a niche edgecase with very little liquidity and generally a bad idea, since it just incentivizes botnets.

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#37

Post by pydry »

smokel wrote: post #4

This is a pretty confusing article. It seems to string together some loosely related facts to make the current AI boom look bad.

Unless you subscribe to the view that This Time It's Different(tm), they seem pretty pertinent.

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#38

Post by decimalenough »

reverius42 wrote: post #32
decimalenough wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin mining is powered by ASICs. Random shitcoins are not.

Random shitcoin mining surely isn't a large fraction of industrial GPU usage?

Not anymore, but around 10 years ago it absolutely was, because for a short period you could literally print money with them.

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#39

Post by VorpalWay »

dools wrote: post #34
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crypto bros claim that crypto is super useful, revolutionary tech too. The proof is in the pudding, and AI has yet to show any real utility.

> and AI has yet to show any real utility Ummm ... have you not tried using LLMs for coding work?

Not OP, but I have, and I'm not impressed. Perhaps it would be good if you are doing things in the training data (like churning out yet another bland website). But if you are doing things that are not well represented in publicly available code, or in unusual languages, then LLMs are not great currently.

They are great for finding the right ffmpg command line arguments though, and not having to deal with that mess must count for something.

Re: AI Mania: From Tulips to Tokens

#40

Post by babelfish »

pydry wrote: post #37
smokel wrote: post #4

This is a pretty confusing article. It seems to string together some loosely related facts to make the current AI boom look bad.

Unless you subscribe to the view that This Time It's Different(tm), they seem pretty pertinent.

tulips do not have intelligence, tokens do
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