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Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

mooreslawisdead.com

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Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#221

Post by alecco »

embedding-shape wrote: post #15

> Budget brands normally buy older DRAM fabrication equipment from mega-producers like Samsung when Samsung upgrades their DRAM lines to the latest and greatest equipment. This allows the DRAM market to expand more than it would otherwise because it makes any upgrading of the fanciest production lines to still be additive change to the market. However, Korean memory firms have been terrified that reselling old equipm…

Strategically, US+EU should buy them. Will they? Probably too stupid/clumsy to figure it out.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#223

Post by ahartmetz »

FuckButtons wrote: post #194
embedding-shape wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought that was our open goal. Is the goal also to hurt South Korean businesses and all businesses in the world, just to "pwn China" basically?

That’s more or less how a trade war works, yes. Obviously, it’s not just Korean dram manufacturers that have been or will be the only collateral damage.

Is it collateral damage if they get sky-high prices for their products instead of a smaller amount for the production equipment? The US thing seems like a convenient excuse of sorts for cartel behavior.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#224

Post by hnfong »

zozbot234 wrote: post #214
alsetmusic wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple did stuff like this all the time at their high point in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and it would happen often in other markets. Interesting in that I thought about their purchase of $1B of solid state memory at the height of their iPod run. The difference is that Apple had a hit product that was selling as quickly as they could be produced and there was a legitimate need if they wanted to meet the demand.…

> The difference is that Apple had a hit product that was selling as quickly as they could be produced and there was a legitimate need if they wanted to meet the demand. What if OpenAI expects to be in the same boat? Their "hit product" is just R&D and training for new very large models. Of course if they're wrong, they've just set a huge pile of their own cash on fire.

If there was a law against buying the supplies of materials and letting them rot in a storehouse just to deprive competitors of them, your argument would be what OpenAI would try to make in court...

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#225

Post by saghm »

rcarmo wrote: post #222

I see no real evidence of any of the claims in this article. Why is it garnering so much attention?

RAM being super expensive right now is a hot topic, and I imagine people are curious about why, so anything that purports to explain that is somewhat likely to at least get a cursory look from people. Without taking a stance on either whether this is happening here, if enough people look at something and happen to think it makes sense, a lack of evidence might not be enough to prevent the narrative from taking over; otherwise, we'd never have issues with people believing false things in the first place, and that happens all the time.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#226

Post by saghm »

embedding-shape wrote: post #15

> Budget brands normally buy older DRAM fabrication equipment from mega-producers like Samsung when Samsung upgrades their DRAM lines to the latest and greatest equipment. This allows the DRAM market to expand more than it would otherwise because it makes any upgrading of the fanciest production lines to still be additive change to the market. However, Korean memory firms have been terrified that reselling old equipm…

If the free market requires both that companies both ignore that they exist in a world with consequences and that they manage to perfectly predict future demand, that sounds more like an issue with the idea that the free market will solve everything than an issue with the market not being free enough. Otherwise, if you're not happy with the way a company acts, and you don't seem to trust that another company will come and rest their lunch for their perceived poor decisions, your only remaining remedy is to pressure them by non-economic methods to increase production, at which point you don't really believe in the free market either.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#227

Post by drtgh »

jascha_eng wrote: post #70

I'm curious how OpenAI has the funds to pay for 40% of the worlds ram production? Sure they are big and have a few billions but I kind of assumed that 40% for a year or whatever they are buying is easily double digit billions? That has to hurt even them, especially because they cant buy anything else? Also what are these contracts? Surely Samsung could decide to cancel the contract by paying a large fee but is that f…

Ponzi scheme [1] , Anticompetitive hoarding [2] , Cornering the market, Raising rivals' costs (RRC), Consumer welfare harm, and so on

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi_scheme

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding_(economics)

I think the event is big enough to stop them and send them behind bars.

> Samsung

I think that Samsung -and other manufacturers- have been intentionally limiting their production capacities so as not to devalue the prices of their chips (for SSD at least) so may be they are an interested part. This, combined with the madness we are seeing, is abuse^2 . I think they should also end up behind bars.

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#228

Post by RGamma »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #61
OldGreenYodaGPT wrote: post #24

More anti sam anti AI propaganda, nothing dirty about this deal

As an AI researcher, I thought it was relatively well established (at least among my colleagues) that being pro-AI actually meant you were anti-Sam as well. He's the worst actor in the industry and has done an incredible amount of damage to its brand.

Care to elaborate on this?

Re: Sam Altman’s DRAM Deal

#229

Post by pas »

watwut wrote: post #205
jayd16 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure any realistic definition of free market would mean your actions are free from consequence. The global market is anarchy in the literal sense and no one is bound by a higher authority. Coercion and cartels are part of a free market. Economic efficiency actually requires a lot of rules and regulations to achieve the free market playground we like to imagine.

Nah, it is simply just not free market. USA is actively and systematically acting against free market .

Well, when was it last free? A few millena ago?

China did not let US companies establish completely foreigner subsidiaries, yet the US granted it MFN status.

However, the US had protective tariffs since ever too.

Not to mention the controls on migration and remote work (which is a very significant drag on economic growth, as it prevents more efficient allocation of labor).

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