4 ms·

...what? 60 thousand dollars for a dedicated computer that you can't use is not everyone, not on their own computers, and is also a crazy large amount of money

by alexb_ 4y ago

...what? 60 thousand dollars for a dedicated computer that you can't use is not everyone, not on their own computers, and is also a crazy large amount of money for nearly everyone. Sure there are some that could, but that's not what I said.

H8crilA 4y ago
Indeed. What "everyone" can use is a ~$200 smartphone, so there's a ~300x gap to be bridged.
- wjnc 4y ago
  log(300) / log(2) = only 8.2 doublings away. That's near future material.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    Maybe at 90s hardware growth rates, but not now.
    - rictic 4y ago
      The dream of the 90s is alive in the GPU market: https://aiimpacts.org/2019-recent-trends-in-gpu-price-per-flops/ https://aiimpacts.org/2019-recent-trends-in-gpu-price-per-fl... Moore's law didn't stop, just Dennard scaling. Expect graphics and AI to continue to improve radically in performance/price, while more ordinary workloads see only modest improvements.
      - thfuran 4y ago
        GPU TDP seems on the verge of going exponential, cost per transistor isn't really decreasing so much at the very latest nodes, and even that article seems to suggest it'd likely be decades before 300x flops/$
- ben_w 4y ago
  Most of the cost of a phone isn’t the processor, so probably closer to x1000. Hardware may get that much cheaper, but it was never guaranteed, and we’re not making progress as fast as we used to.
paganel 4y ago
Plus, that's the energy costs involved when running a computer now worth 60k, I'm pretty sure that in the current socio-economic climate those power costs will surpass the initial acquisition cost (those 60k, that is) pretty easily.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  An 80GB nvidia A100 goes for $20k and uses 300 watts, the energy costs of using one (or three) isn’t going to surpass the hardware costs for… a while.
  - paganel 4y ago
    I wanted to add that I was writing it metaphorically in a way, as in, seeing as how high those energy bills will be they might as well all add up to 60k. Not sure about most of the people in here, but I would get really nervous at the thought of running something that eats up 3x300 watts per hour, for 24/7, just as part of a personal/hobby project. The incoming power bills would be too high, you have to be in the wage-percentile for which dropping 60k on a machine just to carry out some hobby project is ok, i.e. you’d have to be “high-ish” middle-class at least. The recent increases in consumer power prices are a heavy blow for most of the middle-class around Europe (not sure about how things are in the States), so a project like this one is just a no-go for most of middle-class European programmers/computer people.
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      At full power 3 of those would cost me ~$3.50 per day ($0.15 per kWh is what I paid for last month's electricity, though I could pay less if I made some difference choices), I occasionally have a more expensive coffee order, or have a cocktail worth three times as much. Things are getting more expensive here but nothing like the situation in Europe (essentially none of our energy was imported from Russia, historically ~10% of oil imports but that was mostly to refine and re-export, we have all the natural gas locally that we need) The US crossed the line into being a net hyrdocarbon energy exporter a while ago (unsure what the case is recently but it is at worst about at parity)
px43 4y ago
Eh, 60k is just a bit more expensive than your average car, and lots of people have cars, and that's just how things are today. I imagine capabilities will be skyrocketing and prices will fall drastically at the same time.
- fuzzer37 4y ago
  > 60k is just a bit more expensive than your average car If by "A bit" you mean about 30-40k
  - CRConrad 4y ago
    > > 60k is just a bit more expensive than your average car > If by "A bit" you mean about 30-40k 30k more expensive: Than your very-low-end-"average" car. 40k more expensive: Than your average used car. AFAICS. All in what one sees as an "average" car, I suppose.

by alexb_ 4y ago

H8crilA 4y ago

Indeed. What "everyone" can use is a ~$200 smartphone, so there's a ~300x gap to be bridged.

wjnc 4y ago
log(300) / log(2) = only 8.2 doublings away. That's near future material.
- thfuran 4y ago
  Maybe at 90s hardware growth rates, but not now.
  - rictic 4y ago
    The dream of the 90s is alive in the GPU market: https://aiimpacts.org/2019-recent-trends-in-gpu-price-per-flops/ https://aiimpacts.org/2019-recent-trends-in-gpu-price-per-fl... Moore's law didn't stop, just Dennard scaling. Expect graphics and AI to continue to improve radically in performance/price, while more ordinary workloads see only modest improvements.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      GPU TDP seems on the verge of going exponential, cost per transistor isn't really decreasing so much at the very latest nodes, and even that article seems to suggest it'd likely be decades before 300x flops/$
ben_w 4y ago
Most of the cost of a phone isn’t the processor, so probably closer to x1000. Hardware may get that much cheaper, but it was never guaranteed, and we’re not making progress as fast as we used to.

paganel 4y ago

Plus, that's the energy costs involved when running a computer now worth 60k, I'm pretty sure that in the current socio-economic climate those power costs will surpass the initial acquisition cost (those 60k, that is) pretty easily.

colechristensen 4y ago
An 80GB nvidia A100 goes for $20k and uses 300 watts, the energy costs of using one (or three) isn’t going to surpass the hardware costs for… a while.
- paganel 4y ago
  I wanted to add that I was writing it metaphorically in a way, as in, seeing as how high those energy bills will be they might as well all add up to 60k. Not sure about most of the people in here, but I would get really nervous at the thought of running something that eats up 3x300 watts per hour, for 24/7, just as part of a personal/hobby project. The incoming power bills would be too high, you have to be in the wage-percentile for which dropping 60k on a machine just to carry out some hobby project is ok, i.e. you’d have to be “high-ish” middle-class at least. The recent increases in consumer power prices are a heavy blow for most of the middle-class around Europe (not sure about how things are in the States), so a project like this one is just a no-go for most of middle-class European programmers/computer people.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    At full power 3 of those would cost me ~$3.50 per day ($0.15 per kWh is what I paid for last month's electricity, though I could pay less if I made some difference choices), I occasionally have a more expensive coffee order, or have a cocktail worth three times as much. Things are getting more expensive here but nothing like the situation in Europe (essentially none of our energy was imported from Russia, historically ~10% of oil imports but that was mostly to refine and re-export, we have all the natural gas locally that we need) The US crossed the line into being a net hyrdocarbon energy exporter a while ago (unsure what the case is recently but it is at worst about at parity)

px43 4y ago

Eh, 60k is just a bit more expensive than your average car, and lots of people have cars, and that's just how things are today. I imagine capabilities will be skyrocketing and prices will fall drastically at the same time.

fuzzer37 4y ago
> 60k is just a bit more expensive than your average car If by "A bit" you mean about 30-40k
- CRConrad 4y ago
  > > 60k is just a bit more expensive than your average car > If by "A bit" you mean about 30-40k 30k more expensive: Than your very-low-end-"average" car. 40k more expensive: Than your average used car. AFAICS. All in what one sees as an "average" car, I suppose.