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IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

businessinsider.com

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Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#591

Post by b112 »

z0mghii wrote: post #445
tharkun__ wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in Europe? Asking coz I just did a quick comparison and it seems to depend but for comparison I have a really old AMD Athlon "e" processor (like literally September 2009 is when it came out according to some quick Google search, tho I probably bought it a few months later than that but still ...) that runs at ~45W TDP. In idle conditions, it typically consumes around 10 to 15 watts (internet wisdom, not kill-a-…

Well if you have a system that does "nothing" it's hard to argue to replace it

"Nothing" from parent was a comparison. Doesn't mean their system is idle.

However many systems are mostly idle. A file server often doesn't use much cpu. It often isn't even serving anything.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#592

Post by writebetterc »

koliber wrote: post #574
writebetterc wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying $8 billion to cover interest, another commenter said 80, but the actual article says ""$8 trillion of CapEx means you need roughly $800 billion of profit just to pay for the interest". Eight HUNDRED billion. Where does the eight come from, from 90% of these companies failing to make a return? If a few AI companies survive and thrive (which tbh, sure, why not?) then we're still gonna fall face down into…

right. My goof. That adds two more zeroes across all the math. More crazy, but I think in the realm of "maybe, if we squint hard."

I think it's the realm of maybe in Silicon Valley. That's 5000 dollars. Look at this statement:

> Let's say only about 1/3 of the world's adult population is poised to take advantage of paid tools enabled by AI

2/3 of the world's adult population is between 15 and 65 (roughly: 'working age'), so that's 50% of the working world that is capable of using AI with those numbers. India's GDP per capita is 2750USD, and now the price tag is even higher than 5k.

I don't know how to say this well, so I'll just blurt it out: I feel like I'm being quite aggressive, but I don't blame you or expect you to defend your statements or anything, though of course I'll read what you've got to say.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#593

Post by simianwords »

jacquesm wrote: post #586
simianwords wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would he siphon off? He has no stake in OpenAI. And any other stake must be public. Or are you suggesting something more shady? Elon is the complete opposite of martingale. He has helped produce value beyond just bets. Spacex, Tesla and so on.

Sorry, I didn't realize that was a rhetorical question.

it is not rhetorical. you have not provided a mechanism through which Sam can make money out of this whereas I'm describing ways in which this bubble popping is not something he would prefer.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#594

Post by rvnx »

will4274 wrote: post #583
blablabla123 wrote: post #533

Despite the flashy title that's the first "sober" analysis from a CEO I read about the technology. While not even really news, it's also worth mentioning that the energy requirements are impossible to fulfill Also now using ChatGPT intensely since months for all kinds of tasks and having tried Claude etc. None of this is on par with a human. The code snippets are straight out of Stackoverflow...

> While not even really news, it's also worth mentioning that the energy requirements are impossible to fulfill If you believe this, you must also believe that global warming is unstoppable. OpenAI's energy costs are large compared to the current electricity market, but not so large compared to the current energy market. Environmentalists usually suggest that electrification - converting non-electrical energy to elec…

Imagine how big pile of trash as the current generation of graphics cards used for LLM training will get outdated. It will crash the hardware market (which is a good news for gamers)

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#595

Post by esseph »

chii wrote: post #453
physicsguy wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data centre cards a don’t have fans and don’t have video out these days.

i dont mean consumer market for video cards - i mean a consumer buying ai chips to run themselves so they can have it locally. If i can buy a $10k ai card for less than $5000 dollars, i probably would, if i can use it to run an open model myself.

You need the hardware to wrap that in, and the power draw is going to be... significant.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#596

Post by randomNumber7 »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #105
newfriend wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technological advancement is what has pulled billions of people out of poverty. Giving handouts to layabouts isn't an ideal allocation of resources if we want to progress as a civilization.

In the USA cowboys were homeless guys. You know that right? Like they had no home, slept outside. Many were pretty big layabouts. Yet they are pretty big part of our foundation myth and we don't say 'man they just should have died'. Can I go be a cowboy? Can I just go sleep outside? maybe work a few minimal paying cattle run jobs a year? No? If society won't allow me to just exist outside, then society has an obligat…

If you are not willing to fight for your rights you will lose them.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#597

Post by EagnaIonat »

rvnx wrote: post #587
will4274 wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this AI paper written by a reputable subject matter expert? It seems to be written by a physicist and also be the only academic work by this author in English

Absolutely. If it is not written by someone who has real world experience and deep knowledge it has no more value than a HN comment.

It's a good read and good citations.

The core piece as quoted from the abstract: "AGI predictions fail not from insufficient compute, but from fundamental misunderstanding of what intelligence demands structurally."

Then goes in detail as to what that is and why LLMs don't fit that. There are plenty other similar papers out there.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#598

Post by [deleted] »

physicsguy wrote: post #452
matt-p wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you could use training GPUs for inference right? That would be use case number 1 for a 8 * a100 box in a couple of years. It can also be used for non IO limited things like folding proteins or other 'scientific' use cases. Push comes to shove im sure an old A100 will run crysis.

> Push comes to shove im sure an old A100 will run crysis. They don’t have video out ports!

[deleted]

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#599

Post by enopod_ »

darth_avocado wrote: post #295
Octoth0rpe wrote: post #18

> Krishna also referenced the depreciation of the AI chips inside data centers as another factor: "You've got to use it all in five years because at that point, you've got to throw it away and refill it," he said This doesn't seem correct to me, or at least is built on several shaky assumptions. One would have to 'refill' your hardware if: - AI accelerator cards all start dying around the 5 year mark, which is possib…

Isn’t that what Michael Burry is complaining about? That five years is actually too generous when it comes to depreciation of these assets and that companies are being too relaxed with that estimate. The real depreciation is more like 2-3 years for these GPUs that cost tens of thousands of dollars a piece. https://x.com/michaeljburry/status/1987918650104283372

That's exactly the thing. It's only about bookkeeping.

The big AI corps keep pushing depreciation for GPUs into the future, no matter how long the hardware is actually useful. Some of them are now at 6 years. But GPUs are advancing fast, and new hardware brings more flops per watt, so there's a strong incentive to switch to the latest chips. Also, they run 24/7 at 100% capacity, so after only 1.5 years, a fair share of the chips is already toast. How much hardware do they have in their books that's actually not useful anymore? Noone knows! Slower depreciation means more profit right now (for those companies that actually make profit, like MS or Meta), but it's just kicking the can down the road. Eventually, all these investments have to get out of the books, and that's where it will eat their profits. In 2024, the big AI corps invested about $1 trillion in AI hardware, next year is expected to be $2 trillion. Only the interest payments for that are crazy. And all of this comes on top of the fact that none of the these companies actually make any profit at all with AI. (Except Nvidia of course) There's just no way this will pan out.

Re: IBM CEO says there is 'no way' spending on AI data centers will pay off

#600

Post by randomNumber7 »

jstummbillig wrote: post #106
scroot wrote: post #24

As an elder millennial, I just don't know what to say. That a once in a generation allocation of capital should go towards...whatever this all will be, is certainly tragic given current state of the world and its problems. Can't help but see it as the latest in a lifelong series of baffling high stakes decisions of dubious social benefit that have necessarily global consequences.

I don't know what to do with this take. We need an order of magnitude more clean productivity in the world so that everyone can live a life that is at least as good as what fairly normal people in the west currently enjoy. Anyone who think this can be fixed with current Musk money is simply not getting it: If we liquidated all of that, that would buy a dinner for everyone in the world (and then, of course, that would…

> I don't know why this time would be any different.

This time there is the potential to replace human workers. In the past it only made them more productive.

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