A bubble that knows it's a bubble • Hacker News Board

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#131

Post by throw-qqqqq » Sun, Aug 31, 2025, 3:43 PM UTC

aredox wrote: post #122

throw-qqqqq wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nikkei 225 index is at all-time-highs in August 2025. Highest pay hikes in 30 years, BoJ raised interest rates etc. (sure, both because of inflation, but still). Things seem to be slowly changing in Japan.

The yen is crashing, there are rice shortages and the country is at 0% growth - before Trump's tarriffs. At this point it is wrong to speak about Japan's "lost decade" - it should be "lost decade s ".

> The yen is crashing

In my opinion, that happens because the JPYUSD carry trade. This reverses as they raise interest rates (which has been kept artificially low in Japan for decades).

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#132

Post by LarsDu88 » Fri, Sep 05, 2025, 5:46 AM UTC

ehnto wrote: post #63

lm28469 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how most people can't even afford a car without taking loans but we're talking about personal robot assistants as if it was right around the corner and the natural evolution of things

With the wealth gap increasing ever further, I think we will see technology in lock step with that divide. I doubt robots will actually end up in every household, but a niche luxury product and utility for businesses makes some sense. Even if you think about it from that perspective, robot makers would still want them to be a universal robot not dozens of unique use case bots. If a business can pay 30k for a general…

As wealth becomes more skewed, it won't matter that most people can't afford a robot butler. The smaller proportion of people with the majority of the wealth will make it worthwhile.

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#133

Post by LarsDu88 » Fri, Sep 05, 2025, 5:50 AM UTC

bostik wrote: post #46

fhd2 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> however, the core infrastructural asset of GPUs tends to become rapidly obsolete after about 5 years. Is it all about the actual GPUs though, is that the only "infrastructure" being built? A list from the top of my head of things that I'd say do last: 1. Data center buildings (take a while to build, contents completely aside). 2. Organisations and processes for running operations and procurement in said data center…

Consider the second order effects of building all those data centers. The GPU hardware rots and becomes obsolete in a matter of years, but the national infrastructure required to support the physical sites isn't going away. Things such as... - improved power distribution networks - logistics arrangements to build and support the DC sites - lots and lots of new fibre interconnects to support the massive bandwidth need…

That's fine, but the non-GPU infrastructure represents half of the cost of the datacenter. The physical GPUs and compute represents the other half and will rather rapidly depreciate.

This is not as hardy as fiberoptic communication lines used to build the internet, or railroad lines used to build transportation infrastructure.

Re: A bubble that knows it's a bubble

#134

Post by LarsDu88 » Fri, Sep 05, 2025, 5:51 AM UTC

tarsinge wrote: post #99

LarsDu88 wrote: post #4

I had the same thoughts as much as 2 years ago on how this will play out. Unlike with railroads and fiber optic cable however, the core infrastructural asset of GPUs tends to become rapidly obsolete after about 5 years. Commoditization of this scale of compute is definitely going to be a boon for many fields of research. Unfortunately fundamental public research is exactly what is being cut right now in the US. Long…

What’s the intersection between the current LLM driven bubble and robotics? Apart from Tesla’s PR?

Just look at every Nvidia GTC presentation for the past 3 years and Chinese investments into companies like Unitree. The plethora of robotics startups that all build humanoid machines (rather than wheeled arms)