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

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

#811

Post by tim333 »

kelnos wrote: post #631
snake_doc wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China added ~90GW of utility solar per year in last 2 years. There's ~400-500GW solar+wind under construction there. It is possible, just may be not in the U.S. Note: given renewables can't provide base load, capacity factor is 10-30% (lower for solar, higher for wind), so actual energy generation will vary...

> It is possible Sure, GP was clearly talking about the US, specifically. > just may be not in the U.S. Absolutely 100% not possible in the US. And even if we could do it, I'm not convinced it would be prudent.

If you really had to you'd probably run turbines off natural gas but it's not a good idea environmentally.

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

#812

Post by MisterTea »

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...

Yesterday I was talking to coworkers about AI I mentioned that a friend of mine used ChatGPT to help him move. So a coworker said I have to test this and asked ChatGPT if he could fit a set of the largest Magnepan speakers (the wide folding older room divider style) in his Infinity QX80. The results were hilarious. It had some of the dimensions right but it then decided the QX80 is as wide as a box truck (~8-8.5 feet/2.5 m) and to align the nearly 7 foot long speakers sideways between the wheel wells. It also posted hilariously incomprehensible ASCII diagrams.

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

#814

Post by glaslong »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #541
PeterStuer wrote: post #515

If AI is a highlander market, then the survivor will be able to eventually aquire all those assets on the cheap from the failing competitors that flush their debt in bankruptcy. Meanwhile, highlander hopefuls are spending other peoples money to compete. Some of them with dreams of not just building a tech empire, but to truly own the machine that will rule the world in every aspect. Investors are keen on backing the…

Until China sees it valuable to fund open weights SOTA-ish models, even the winner might struggle. There is very little capture - protocols are mostly standard so models are mostly interchangeable and if you are trying to raise prices enough to break even on the whole operation, somebody else can probably profitably run inference cheaper.

"commoditize your complements" and all that.

"oh look, with open weights now everyone can run this quadrillion param 'superintelligent' model. but what's that? only we have the power capacity and cheap $/W to actually serve it? funny thing...!"

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

#815

Post by forty »

chrisweekly wrote: post #809
forty wrote: post #735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the most depressing part of all this is if people start thinking they would not have been able to do things without the LLM. Of course they would have, it's not like LLMs can do anything that you cannot. Maybe it would have taken more time at least the first time and you would have learned a few things in the process.

But reducing friction, eliminating the barrier to entry, is of fundamental importance. It's human psychology; putting running socks next to your bed at night makes it like 95% more likely you'll actually go for a run in the morning.

Yes, "I couldn't have bothered..." is different from " I wouldn't have been able to make...".

You might not go for a run when the socks are not there, but I don't think you would start questioning your ability to run.

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

#816

Post by delaminator »

bloppe wrote: post #590
delaminator wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your assessment of Claude simply isn’t true. Or Stackoverflow is really good. I’m producing multiple projects per week that are weeks of work each.

Would you mind sharing some of these projects? I've found Claude's usefulness is highly variable, though somewhat predictable. It can write `jq` filters flawlessly every time, whereas I would normally spend 30 minutes scanning docs because nobody memorizes `jq` syntax. And it can comb through server logs in every pod of my k8s clusters extremely fast. But it often struggles making quality code changes in a large code…

https://github.com/lawless-m

You can see by Contributors which ones Claude has done.

I have no idea if the code is any good, I’ve never looked at it and I have no idea how to code in Rust or Racket or Erlang anyway.

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

#817

Post by delaminator »

DoctorOW wrote: post #661
gloosx wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always "I'm producing 300 projects in a nanosecond" but it's almost never about sharing or actually deploying these ;)

The problem I had that the larger your project gets, the more mistakes Claude makes. I (not a parent commenter) started with a basic CRUD web app and was blown away by how detailed it was, new CSS, good error handling, good selection and use of libraries, it could even write the terminal commands for package management and building. As the project grew to something larger Claude started forgetting that some code alre…

I’ve got Claude on 10k loc projects, which is probably mid range.

But I also have it document and summarise its own work.

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

#818

Post by tim333 »

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...

An issue with the doom forecasts is most of the hypothetical $8tn hasn't happened yet. Current big tech capex is about $315bn this year, $250bn last against a pre AI level ~$100bn so ~$400bn has been spent so far on AI boom data centers. https://sherwood.news/business/amazon-plans-100-billion-spen...

The future spend is optional - AGI takeoff, you spend loads, not happening not so much.

Say it levels of at $800bn. The world's population is ~8bn so $100 a head so you'd need to be making $10 or $20 per head per year. Quite possibly doable.

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

#819

Post by delaminator »

freehorse wrote: post #667
gloosx wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is always "I'm producing 300 projects in a nanosecond" but it's almost never about sharing or actually deploying these ;)

At this point my prior is that all these 300/ns projects are some kind of internal tools, with very narrow scope and many just for a one-off use. Which is also fine and great and very useful and I am also making those, but it probably does not generalize to projects that require higher quality standards and actual maintenance.

Sure, but 80% of software is probably internal and short lived like that, if not more.

Solving the problems of the business that isn’t a software business.

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