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Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

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Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#261

Post by smallnix »

jajko wrote: post #136
qgin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you don’t have widespread adoption until AI takes the form of a plug-and-play “remote employee”. You click a button on Microsoft Teams and hire “Bob” who joins your team org, gets an account like any other employee, interacts over email, chat, video calls, joins meetings, can use all your software in whatever state it’s currently in. It has to be a brownfield solution because most of the world is brownfield.

Completely unusable in any bank, or almost any organization dealing with data secrecy. You have complex, often mandatory processes to onboard folks. Sure, these can be improved but hiring some 'Bob' would be far from smooth sailing. Big enough corps will eventually have their own trusted 'Bobs' just like they have their own massive cluster farms (no, AWS et al is not a panacea and its far from cheap&good solution). G…

When serious money is on the line the previously hard rules can become soft quite fast. 1 major escalation away in my experience.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#262

Post by Terr_ »

markus_zhang wrote: post #252
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I spent 55 minutes in a physical store trying to get a replacement for two Hue pendant lights that stopped working. The lights had been handed in a month ago and diagnosed as "can't be repaired" two weeks ago. All my waiting time today was spent watching different employees punching a ridiculous amount of keys on their keyboards, and having to get manual approval from a supervisor (in person) three times. I am…

Yeah. I hope software engineers slow down a bit. We are good enough. There is no need to push ourselves out of jobs.

In some ways, we're always putting ourselves out of the job, anytime you write some code and then abstract it away in a reusable form.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#263

Post by Kamq »

bronco21016 wrote: post #125
QuadmasterXLII wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ only takes phone calls for appointments” is a huge selling point for a physicians office. People are very tired of apps.

I’d far prefer a well done app. It’s so frustrating doing a back and forth of dates when trying to make an appointment.

Fair, but I'd prefer phone over a poorly done app.

And given the state of most apps...

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#264

Post by jcgrillo »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #229
markus_zhang wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact most of the industries out there are still slow and inefficient. Some physicians only accept phone calls for making appointments. Many primary schools only take phone calls and an email could go either way just not their way. It's just we programmers who want to automate everything.

Today I spent 55 minutes in a physical store trying to get a replacement for two Hue pendant lights that stopped working. The lights had been handed in a month ago and diagnosed as "can't be repaired" two weeks ago. All my waiting time today was spent watching different employees punching a ridiculous amount of keys on their keyboards, and having to get manual approval from a supervisor (in person) three times. I am…

Nonsense. They wouldn't be out of work, their jobs would just be easier and more pleasant. And your experience as a customer would be better. But clearly their employer and your choice of store isn't sufficiently incentivized to care, otherwise they would have done the software competently.

The hilarious thing is there is absolutely no improvement AI could possibly make in the experience you've described. It would just be a slower, costlier, more error prone version of what can easily be solved with a SQL database and a web app.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#265

Post by rsynnott »

mrtksn wrote: post #152
kamranjon wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Before AI I would have to study how Bluetooth works now I don't have to.” And “It's very good at handling the BS part of coding…” This is the part that I think is difficult in a team situation. Learning and understanding is the important part, and certainly isn’t BS. I understand that it really can make it seem like velocity has increased when you really are shipping things that more or less “work”, but it’s really…

It is effective because you can spend your mental energy on the things that matter, things that make difference. Code quality actually doesn't matter when you remove the human from the loop as long as it works correctly because it becomes something made by a machine to be interpreted by a machine.

Not understanding how Bluetooth works while building a Bluetooth thing seems like… a problem, though. Like, there are going to be bugs, and you’re going to have to deal with them, and that is where the “just ask the magic robot” approach tends to break down.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#266

Post by jcgrillo »

llm_trw wrote: post #101
djtango wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if there is fast takeoff AGI, he thinks human messiness will slow implementation Five years ago during covid all these clunky legacy businesses couldn't figure out a CSV let alone APIs but suddenly with AGI they are going to become tech masters and know how to automate and processize their entire operations? I found it very amusing that at the turn of the decade "digitalisation" was a buzzword as Amazon was ap…

Counterpoint: the PC. The minicomputer revolution was meant to replace all the big iron in the basement with computers shared by teams. This lasted a decade until we got computers meant for one person and we've used that format of computation for nearly 50 years now. Everyone is talking about how AI will replace people. It won't. AI without HI is useless. However, HI with AI is much better at handling all the bullshi…

Since I don't have an expendable army, I must be either an idiot or a troglodyte. Where my understanding falters is finding a domain where accuracy and truth aren't relevant. In your example you said nothing about a "phased rollout", is that even germane to this scenario? Is there appreciable "financial risk?" Are you personally qualified to make that judgement? You put your name at the bottom of this letter and provided absolutely no evidence backing the claim, so you'd best be ready for the shitstorm. I don't think HR will smile kindly on the "uh idk chatgpt did it" excuse.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#267

Post by jcgrillo »

lolinder wrote: post #105
qgin wrote: post #22

A few things from the Dwarkesh interview with Satya: * He sees data center leases getting cheaper in near future due to everyone building * He’s investing big in AI, but in every year there needs to be a rough balance between capacity and need for capacity * He doesn’t necessarily believe in fast takeoff AGI (just yet) * Even if there is fast takeoff AGI, he thinks human messiness will slow implementation * It won’t…

This is a very refreshing take. Our current intellectual milieu is largely incapable of nuance—everything is black or white, on or off, good or evil. Too many people believe that the AI question is as bipolar as every other topic is today: Will AI be godlike or will it be worthless? Will it be a force for absolute good or a force for absolute evil? It's nice to see someone in the inner circles of the hype finally ack…

Whoa there, hold yer horses ;) Let's wait and see until we have something like an answer to "will it be intelligent?" Then we might be ready to start trying to answer "will it be useful?"

I agree completely though, it's nice to see a glimmer of sanity.

EDIT: My best hope is this bubble bursts catastrophically, and puts the dotcom crash to shame. Then we might get some sensible regulation over the absolute deluge of fraudulent, George Jetson spacecamp bull shit these clowndick companies spew on a daily basis.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#268

Post by tbrownaw »

jajko wrote: post #136
qgin wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you don’t have widespread adoption until AI takes the form of a plug-and-play “remote employee”. You click a button on Microsoft Teams and hire “Bob” who joins your team org, gets an account like any other employee, interacts over email, chat, video calls, joins meetings, can use all your software in whatever state it’s currently in. It has to be a brownfield solution because most of the world is brownfield.

Completely unusable in any bank, or almost any organization dealing with data secrecy. You have complex, often mandatory processes to onboard folks. Sure, these can be improved but hiring some 'Bob' would be far from smooth sailing. Big enough corps will eventually have their own trusted 'Bobs' just like they have their own massive cluster farms (no, AWS et al is not a panacea and its far from cheap&good solution). G…

> Giving any form of access to some remote code into internal network of a company? Opsec guys would never ack that

Solarwinds.

Local agent machines for cloud CI/CD pipelines.

Devs using npm and pypi and such.

To be a bit reductive, `apt-get update` or equivalent.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#269

Post by protocolture »

snapcaster wrote: post #235
MichaelZuo wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are taking the bet that industry will overbuild, how is it not a canary in a coal mine? There is almost certainly at least one person in Redmond working on this that’s smarter and better informed than you, just going off probability.

>There is almost certainly at least one person in Redmond working on this that’s smarter and better informed than you, just going off probability. this isn't the actual test though right? it's surely true, and yet companies make bad decisions all the time. It needs to be conditioned on "someone smarter and better informed than you _with influence in the organization sufficient to enact change_"

Yeah the guy who designed the Courier for Microsoft was smarter and better informed than me, the problem is he was smarter and better informed than his leadership at microsoft who canned the project in favour of doing nothing, messing around with nokia, and ending up with a watered down product years too late in terms of the surface.

Re: Microsoft cancels leases for AI data centers, analyst says

#270

Post by j45 »

aresant wrote: post #185

- This is a proper MSFT resource allocation commentary, not an industry wide canary in coalmine - MSFT CapEx is up 45% YoY, positioning for inference dominance - MSFT is prioritizing AI inference for millions of customers over massive AI training for OpenAI - Losing inference demand risks clients moving to AWS/GCP - MSFT taking bet that industry overbuild will lead to more attractive leasing terms in future vs owning…

- Improving scale in efficiency of inference / training likely something too.

- Existing data-centre footprints might have enough planned hardware swaps.

- There might be better places to lease data centers for power. The US, Canada, and others all have perspectives on this.

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