The important question is: Who is planning to buy the datacenters and their hardware when these ludicrously overvalued AI companies are forced to shut doors?
As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
431–440 of 536 posts
Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#432Earlier quoted context omitted.
> AI slop is to AI art what point and shoot amateur photography is to artistic photography. Sorry... It's all slop buddy. The medium is the message, and genAI's message is "I want it cheap and with low effort, and I don't care too much about how it looks"
For fun I decided to try out the find and replace on this comment > Sorry... It's all slop buddy. The medium is the message, and photography's message is "I want it cheap and with low effort, and I don't care too much about how it looks" Hmm... it seems like you have failed to actually make an argument here
So fun.
Photography is neither cheap nor low effort. Ask AI about it.
Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#433Earlier quoted context omitted.
So my understanding of the situation is that, Crucial folks had downsized their factory production (see my other comments for reference perhaps) but then AI involvement started demanding chips just at the time their factory production was at their lows. So now for these AI companies, they got tons of money to burn so they are willing to pay a lot more, so now crucial only have a limited supply of ram and the thing is…
> Well, would you increase the prices 3-4x? (Text below is quite long, let me say it here, you made great points in your answer!) It seems they could. They not only single handed caused it to double or more without trying :/ Not sure if it would trigger other sorts of regulatory issues though It is my impression that there is a fabricated scarcity of all goods. That's a common practice in cloth retailers. In the 90s…
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Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#434I cannot stop thinking about the LLMs having this Midas touch quality, because everything they touch seems to ruin things or make people want to avoid them, for example: - Ghibli studio style graphics, - the infamous em-dashes and bullet points - customer service (just try to use Klarnas "support" these days...) - Oracle share price ;) - imagine being one of the worlds most solid and unassailable tech companies, losi…
Oracle was "one of the worlds most solid and unassailable tech companies"?
Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#435Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you, but: > I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. - Paul Graham, 2008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
That view is about 18 years old and HN was very different then. As with any communication platform it risks turning into an echo chamber, and I am pretty sure that particular PG view has been rejected for many years (I think dang wrote on this more than once). HN works very hard to avoid becoming politicized and not discouraging minority views is a large part of that. For example, I now seldom bother to write anythin…
> HN works very hard to avoid becoming politicized and not discouraging minority views is a large part of that.
> For example, I now seldom bother to write anything that I expect to rub the left coast folks the wrong way: I don't care about karma, but downvoted posts are effectively hidden. There is little point of writing things that few will see.
These two statements don't seem to agree with each other.
Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#436Earlier quoted context omitted.
And in the process of doing so they're providing a hugely valuable service by building these complex systems out of lots different components, and people and companies find a lot of value in that service. Calling this "scalping" is just economically illiterate conspiracy theorizing.
The majority of these companies have long term purchase agreements for hardware at prices far lower than the market prices today, that's front-running the hardware market, the same as scalpers buying up GPU's to restrict supply and then sell at higher prices. > And in the process of doing so they're providing a hugely valuable service The value is in the hardware itself, the added services aren't essential - just pac…
Literally everything you are describing, like long term purchase agreements, have been used by corporations (and non-corporations, like farmers) for decades if not centuries, and nobody called this "scalping" before.
You're just "trying to make fetch happen". Stop trying to make fetch happen, Gretchen, because nobody else thinks it's scalping.
Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#437Earlier quoted context omitted.
So art is just a status signifier? "This is hard to make so I must be really special"?
Uh, yes?
"This is hard to make" hasn't been the distinguishing factor for popular/expensive/trendy art for a long time.
There is a literal cliche "my six year old could've done this" about how some of the techniques do not require the years of training they used to.
And a literal cliche response about how the eye and execution is the current determining factor: "but they didn't."
Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#438Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's probably time to relearn those (the upper classes never stopped using them) Can you tell me more about these? I’m actively trying to find ways to cultivate my community.
Face-to-face social gatherings - parties, dinners, clubs, meetups Membership organizations - country clubs, professional associations, alumni networks, charitable boards Personal introductions and referrals - being introduced through mutual acquaintances Cultural and civic participation - involvement in local institutions, community organizations, religious groups
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Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#439Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's probably time to relearn those (the upper classes never stopped using them) Can you tell me more about these? I’m actively trying to find ways to cultivate my community.
Face-to-face social gatherings - parties, dinners, clubs, meetups Membership organizations - country clubs, professional associations, alumni networks, charitable boards Personal introductions and referrals - being introduced through mutual acquaintances Cultural and civic participation - involvement in local institutions, community organizations, religious groups
Ha, I can only wish. Maybe true if you live in NYC, SF, Berlin or London.
But most of these don't exist or help with socializing and making new connections where I live (medium sized European university city).
Everyone here only hangs out with their family and school/university mates and that's it. Any other available events are either for college students or lonely retirees but nothing in between.
Re: As AI gobbles up chips, prices for devices may rise
#440Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's probably time to relearn those (the upper classes never stopped using them) Can you tell me more about these? I’m actively trying to find ways to cultivate my community.
Face-to-face social gatherings - parties, dinners, clubs, meetups Membership organizations - country clubs, professional associations, alumni networks, charitable boards Personal introductions and referrals - being introduced through mutual acquaintances Cultural and civic participation - involvement in local institutions, community organizations, religious groups
There are also private group chats open only to selected elite and wealthy people. When you see several prominent people suddenly make similar public statements on a particular issue there's a good chance they used those group chats behind the scenes to coordinate messaging.