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Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

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Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#851

Post by jncfhnb »

rchaud wrote: post #796

The US appears to be fully in the grips of centralized economic autarky. A tiny coterie of industrialists who have the President's ear decide how to allocate a gigantic amount of capital for their pet projects while the state raises tariffs and implements bans to protect them from competition. Didn't go well for South America in the 60s and 70s but perhaps, as economists are prone to saying, "this time will be differ…

The effectiveness of policies is influenced by your starting position. South America is relatively poor. The United States is the best positioned country in the world by a long shot.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#852

Post by 65 »

Parfait__ wrote: post #848
65 wrote: post #841

Can someone convince me Sam Altman is not evil? I have no proof he is not evil.

Couldn't we say the same about you?

I am text on a screen. Sam Altman, as a story of a person, doesn't indicate to me he is moral or ethical.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#853

Post by ahmeneeroe-v2 »

aylmao wrote: post #844
ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private capital. That detail seems to derail your whole comment.

How so? Does this capital being private ensure "this time will be different"?

Capital owners allocate their capital to their "pet projects" all day every day. That is how the whole thing works.

I'm not saying "this time will be different". I'm saying this is business as usual.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#854

Post by maxlin »

mppm wrote: post #558

Apart from my general queasiness about the whole AGI scaling business and the power concentration that comes with it, these are the exact four people/entities that I would not want to be at the tip of said power concentration.

I don't like how OpenAI turned majorly from what it was founded upon and their bias training ... but when considering the actual opponent here is China, it's not the worst.

I think OpenAI was originally founded against that kind of force. Autocratic governments becoming masters of AI.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#855

Post by JumpCrisscross »

i_love_retros wrote: post #805
whimsicalism wrote: post #800

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is private capital. yes, we are in an era of big projects and big capital deployment. is that synonymous with centralized autarky? i don’t agree

What does it have to do with Trump then? Why was he involved?

> What does it have to do with Trump then? Why was he involved?

One of the broken parts of the American system is permitting. Trump can sidestep that by letting this be built on federal land. That, in turn, unlocks investment.

Beyond that, DoD and DoE are massive buyers of compute. Seeding the venture with purchase agreements from them de-risks the project further.

Finally, by Trump putting his name to it he assigns it his bully pulpit's prestige. (Though that doesn't appear to have carried over to Musk, who's already taking pot shots at it.)

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#856

Post by Valakas_ »

biimugan wrote: post #728

I really don't understand the national security argument. If you really do fear some fundamental breakthrough in AI from China, what's cheaper, $500 billion to rush to get there first, or spending a few billion (and likely much less) in basic research in physics, materials science, and electronics, mixed with a little bit of espionage, mixed with improving the electric grid and eliminating (or greatly reducing) fossi…

It's fascinating how most people still don't get it.

ASI is basically a god. This is the ultimate solution (or problem). It will push us to the singularity, and create an utopia or drive humanity to extinction. Imagine someone who is so smart that would win every single nobel prize available, and make multiple discoveries in a matter of a year. And now multiply this person's intelligence by 100 (most likely more, but 100 is already hard enough to grasp). There's no point in investing in anything else. An investment in ASI is an investment in everything (could be a bad one though, depending on the outcome).

The government is banking on being able to control it, which is also pretty funny. It's like a pet hamster thinking they can dictate what a human does.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#857

Post by bcrosby95 »

famouswaffles wrote: post #438
TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #300

I'm confused and a bit disturbed; honestly having a very difficult time internalizing and processing this information. This announcement is making me wonder if I'm poorly calibrated on the current progress of AI development and the potential path forward. Is the key idea here that current AI development has figured out enough to brute force a path towards AGI? Or I guess the alternative is that they expect to figure…

"There are maybe a few hundred people in the world who viscerally understand what's coming. Most are at DeepMind / OpenAI / Anthropic / X but some are on the outside. You have to be able to forecast the aggregate effect of rapid algorithmic improvement, aggressive investment in building RL environments for iterative self-improvement, and many tens of billions already committed to building data centers. Either we're a…

So they're either wrong or building Skynet.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#858

Post by aylmao »

maxlin wrote: post #854
mppm wrote: post #558

Apart from my general queasiness about the whole AGI scaling business and the power concentration that comes with it, these are the exact four people/entities that I would not want to be at the tip of said power concentration.

I don't like how OpenAI turned majorly from what it was founded upon and their bias training ... but when considering the actual opponent here is China, it's not the worst. I think OpenAI was originally founded against that kind of force. Autocratic governments becoming masters of AI.

Interestingly perhaps, as a foreigner (not from the USA or China) I can tell you not everyone around the world shares this perspective. There's people who trust China's single-party system over the USA's oligarchy.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#859

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rchaud wrote: post #831
boringg wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apples to oranges comparison. The problem set is completely different regarding your doom example of South America.

How? the problem is the same: a need for rapid industrial development to grow the economy. The solutions are the same: government picks winners, which is how an upstart like OpenAI can be paired with a dinosaur like Oracle. The latter's CEO of course being a long time friend of Trump.

> the problem is the same: a need for rapid industrial development to grow the economy

This is first-mover industrial development being funded by private actors looking out for a return on their investments. South America saw nothing similar--it was duplicating others' industrialisation with state capital (often borrowed from overseas) while spending massively on handouts.

Re: Stargate Project: SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, MGX to build data centers

#860

Post by JumpCrisscross »

CSSer wrote: post #622
deknos wrote: post #589

This is so much money with which we could actually solve problems in the world. maybe even stop wars which break out because of scarcity issues. maybe i am getting to old or to friendly to humans, but it's staggering to me how the priorities are for such things.

For less than this same price tag, we could’ve eliminated student loan debt for ~20 million Americans. It would in turn open a myriad number of opportunities, like owning a home and/or feeling more comfortable starting a family. It would stimulate the economy in predictable ways. Instead we gave a small number of people all of this money for a moonshot in a state where they squabble over who’s allowed to use which ba…

> we could’ve eliminated student loan debt for ~20 million Americans. It would in turn open a myriad number of opportunities, like owning a home

I'd give the money to folks starting in the trades before bailling out the college-educated class.

Also, wiping out numbers on a spreadsheet doesn't erect new homes. If we wiped out student debt, the portion of that value that went into new homeownership would principally flow to existing homeowners.

Finally, you're comparing a government hand-out to private investment into a capital asset. That's like comparing eating out at a nice restaurant to buying a bond. Different prerogatives.

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