America's $1T AI Gamble • Hacker News Board

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#21

Post by gbnwl » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:18 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #12

co_king_3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but I benefit so much from using Claude at work that I would gladly pay $1,500-$2,000 per month to keep using it.

At that cost I'd just buy some GPUs and run a local model though. Maybe a couple RTX 6000s.

Same but I imagine once prices start rising the prices of GPUs that can run any decent local models will soar (again) as well. You and I wouldn’t be the only person with this idea right?

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#22

Post by ekjhgkejhgk » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:19 PM UTC

co_king_3 wrote: post #13

galleywest200 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is more than one month rent for most of the world. Most people are simply not going to pay this.

Well then I'm sorry but unfortunately they are going to be left behind. People who are cut out to be software developers can afford the means of production.

The people who own "the means of production" isn't you.

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#23

Post by actionfromafar » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

co_king_3 wrote: post #13

galleywest200 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is more than one month rent for most of the world. Most people are simply not going to pay this.

Well then I'm sorry but unfortunately they are going to be left behind. People who are cut out to be software developers can afford the means of production.

Are you OpenAI? If not, you don't afford the means of production. You're the sharecropper.

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#24

Post by clownpenis_fart » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

co_king_3 wrote: post #10

WarmWash wrote: post #8

AI plans are not going to stay at $20/mo. People will go to alternative models, but it likely will be as popular as Linux.

I don't know about you, but I benefit so much from using Claude at work that I would gladly pay $1,500-$2,000 per month to keep using it.

I use my brain, it's free

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#25

Post by sambull » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

WarmWash wrote: post #8

AI plans are not going to stay at $20/mo. People will go to alternative models, but it likely will be as popular as Linux.

That why they need widen the moat; it appears not giving us access to hardware might be that moat.

They desperately need LLMs to stay rentier and hardware advances are a direct attack on their model.

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#26

Post by hattmall » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

BloondAndDoom wrote: post #7

xyst wrote: post #2

And this gamble is paid for by American taxpayers, increased cost of utilities, and multibillion dollar corporations receiving tax breaks/subsidies from the cities/counties they build in. This country is so awful. Great if you are rich. Awful if you are not in this top 0.01-1%. A massive $79T has been transferred from bottom 90% to top 1% since the 1970s. [1] [1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-2.html

If it’s any consolation, I’m rich yet the country is still shit. (Comparing to Europe as a previous immigrant of Western Europe.

Other than a few parasitic industries it's pretty great. If we can just get some common sense reforms in insurance, healthcare, advertising, and reverse some regulatory capture it would be comparably utopic.

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#27

Post by Octoth0rpe » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

flir wrote: post #18

co_king_3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well then I'm sorry but unfortunately they are going to be left behind. People who are cut out to be software developers can afford the means of production.

A $2k/month model, should it ever arise, won't need you .

I haven't looked at a cost analysis recently, but it's possible that we basically already have $2k/month models, if they were priced to be even slightly profitable.

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#28

Post by sQL_inject » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

rozap wrote: post #15

jryan49 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how they say with a straight face that when AI takes over they will finally share all the fruits of capital with us.

The French had a tool for this problem.

And look how it has worked out for them.

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#29

Post by organsnyder » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

nightski wrote: post #12

co_king_3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you, but I benefit so much from using Claude at work that I would gladly pay $1,500-$2,000 per month to keep using it.

At that cost I'd just buy some GPUs and run a local model though. Maybe a couple RTX 6000s.

That's about as much as my Framework Desktop cost (thankful that I bought it before all the supply craziness we're seeing across the industry). In the relatively small amount of time I've spent tinkering with it, I've used a local LLM to do some real tasks. It's not as powerful as Claude, but given the immaturity in the local LLM space—on both the hardware and software side—I think it has real potential.

Cloud services have a head-start for quite a few reasons, but I really think we could see local LLMs coming into their own over the next 3-5 years.

Re: America's $1T AI Gamble

#30

Post by Waterluvian » Tue, Feb 10, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

co_king_3 wrote: post #13

galleywest200 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is more than one month rent for most of the world. Most people are simply not going to pay this.

Well then I'm sorry but unfortunately they are going to be left behind. People who are cut out to be software developers can afford the means of production.

Your identity as real software developer relies on the community's broad, inclusive definition of what it means to be one. Something you're failing to extend to others.

To be sitting that far out on a limb of software development while sawing at the branches of others is quite an interesting choice.