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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

#271

Post by j45 »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #226
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…

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.

The usage of Azure in business is something else.

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

#272

Post by lmm »

djtango wrote: post #53
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…

> 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…

> 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?

The whole point of an AGI is that you don't need to be a tech master (or even someone of basic competence) to use it, it can just figure it all out.

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

#273

Post by EQYV »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #210
joquarky wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And Sears had all the opportunity to be Amazon

Sears also did everything it could to annihilate itself while dot-com was happening. their CEO was a believer of making his departments compete for resources leading to a brutal, dysfunctional clusterfuck. rent seeking behavior on the inside as well as outside.

Sounds kinda like Amazon..

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

#274

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

apsec112 wrote: post #208
toomuchtodo wrote: post #24

Microsoft CEO Admits That AI Is Generating Basically No Value - https://futurism.com/microsoft-ceo-ai-generating-no-value Bit of a click bait title, but it certainly seems like the realization is setting in that the hype has exceeded near term realistic expectations and some are walking back claims (for whatever reason; honesty, derisking against investor securities suits, poor capital allocation, etc). Nadella appea…

He doesn't actually say that, the (very biased and polemical) article writer seems to have made that up. The actual quote is: "Us self-claiming some [artificial general intelligence] milestone, that's just nonsensical benchmark hacking to me. So, the first thing that we all have to do is, when we say this is like the Industrial Revolution, let's have that Industrial Revolution type of growth. The real benchmark is: t…

What kind of growth? who is going to buy all that stuff, if a third of the workforce has suddenly been made redundant?

(I always thought that this 'evil microsoft' trope is a sign of stupidity, now i am having second thoughts...)

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

#276

Post by topaz0 »

PeterStuer wrote: post #183

Microsoft said they were going to spend 80 Billion on AI data centers, and they confirmed this again, so there is no 'scaling back'. Speculation: I suspect after they observed the incredible speed with which Grok was able to build out a leading edge AI infrastructure themselves in Memphis, far faster than what the traditional data-centers could offer it, Microsoft might have had an epiphany and went 'wait, why are we…

"Why aren't we polluting a poor disenfranchised population with the cheapest, dirtiest solution we can find?"

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

#277

Post by zrail »

tbrownaw wrote: post #268
jajko wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have worked at a place with serious opsec and none of that was allowed. Everything pointed at private mirrors containing vetted packages. Very few people had the permissions to write to those repos.

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

#278

Post by llm_trw »

jcgrillo wrote: post #266
llm_trw wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prov…

If I was sending it as a business email I'd edit it before sending it off. But the first draft saved me between 10 to 30 minutes of trying to get out of the headspace of "this is a fucking disaster and I need to look for a new job" to speaking corporatese that MBAs can understand.

This is where the HI comes into the equation.

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

#279

Post by internet101010 »

bsenftner wrote: post #203
petee wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent more time yesterday trying to get "AI" to output runnable code, and retyping, than if I had just buckled down and done it myself. But I don't think you can blame users if they're given an immature tool, when it really is on companies to give us a product that is obvious to use correctly. Its not an exact analogy, but I always like to think of how doors are designed - if you have to put a sign on it, its a bad…

Think of it like you're talking to someone so smart that they answer before you're finished explaining, and get the general idea wrong, or seem really pedantic and your misplaced use of a past tense verb that should have been active tense causes then to completely reinterpret what you're talking about. Think of our current LLMs like idiot savants, and trust them as much. I don't use AI to write code if that code is n…

Oddly enough, Databricks's query generator is named Genie. It's halfway decent, too.

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

#280

Post by shermantanktop »

lenerdenator wrote: post #126
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…

> human messiness will slow implementation If by "messiness" he means "the general public having massive problems with a technology that makes the human experience both philosophically meaningless and economically worthless", then yeah, I could absolutely see that slowing implementation.

Picking on "philosophically meaningless" a bit...

I'm a hobby musician. There are better musicians. I don't stop.

I like to cook. There are better cooks. I don't stop.

If you are Einstein or Michael Jordan or some other best-of-the-best, enjoyment of life and the finding of worth/meaning can be tied to absolute mastery. For the rest of us, tending to our own gardens is a much better path. Finding "meaning" at work is a tall order and it always has been.

As for "economically worthless," yes if you want to get PAID for writing code, that's a different story, and I worry about how that will play out in the scope of individual lifetimes. Long term I think we'll figure it out.

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