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So if we suddenly had no GPUs what part of "modern civilization" would fail? Crypto markets, so what? Gaming, ok, I play card games on my year 2015 low end phon

So if we suddenly had no GPUs what part of "modern civilization" would fail? Crypto markets, so what? Gaming, ok, I play card games on my year 2015 low end phone. And I could continue. Some startup that claims to do AI. (Actually I work for one, but not on the AI side). Appears to me the effects would be less than the pandemic or the Russian war.

philistine 4y ago
Your thought experiment is basically "what if computers could no longer display anything on a screen?" That is absolutely bigger than the pandemic or the Russian invasion.
- usr1106 4y ago
  Some modern computers use the GPU to display everything. E.g. on Ryzens you don't even get a BIOS screen or text console without a GPU. However that's just design choice because they assume that a GPU would be there anyway. It worked without one for decades. However, what probably wouldn't work as well without GPUs is video production and consumption. Linux users knew that for years, when GPUs were poorly supported. Doing on the CPU does not give you the same resolution/framerate and requires more energy. Some might claim that watching less Youtube/Tiktok and reading more books or exercise outside instead would be good for "modern civilization".
yellowapple 4y ago
My first guess would be CAD being a lot harder, which would have a lot of widespread impacts on all sorts of industries.
dougmwne 4y ago
I mean you are talking about trillions in economic value from those combined industries so while it may not measure up to the pandemic, few things would. And just because you personally prefer card games, a few billion people play video games. Also having a cheap phone from 2015 is quite an outlier. I absolutely get wanting to moderate tech use and I make full use of the digital wellness limiters to cut down on social media and interruptions, but phones are just so damn useful for just about everything in modern life. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater a bit there, no?
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  >phones are just so damn useful for just about everything in modern life Honestly, I'm not sure how true that is. I got rid of my smartphone just before my daughter was born (she's turning 2 this month) and there has never been a single point where I've regretted it. That's not to say I avoid Android entirely. I've still got a tablet at home for Netflix/Chromecast, and we'll use my wife's phone in the car for Google Maps, but that's about it. There really is no need to be 100% connected 24/7.
  - dougmwne 4y ago
    Like, you could also give up electricity, indoor plumbing or motorized transport if you really wanted to and manage to arrange your life so you don't regret it. You are basically reliant on your wife for accessing any kind of digital service without a website, communicating with anyone, or any computing whatsoever when not at home. For most that is giving up on staggering utility, but I know people who prefer to ride horses still, so different strokes of course.
    - AussieWog93 4y ago
      I don't think you can really compare electricity or indoor plumbing (unobtrusive technology) to smartphones (extremely obtrusive technology). I still use computers and the internet, including Android devices, at home and work (quite non-trivially, actually - I am my family's sole provider and 100% of that income comes from a mix of online business and remote consulting) and I'll still talk to friends, family and employees via SMS or occasionally voice. Genuinely, man, as someone who has actually done it, you miss out on absolutely nothing and gain so much.
  - theelous3 4y ago
    So "I make my wife do it" is the loophole. Classy.
    - AussieWog93 4y ago
      Did you actually read the comment you're responding to?
nine_k 4y ago
All the stuff that uses GPGPU computation heavily. - Weather prediction. - Other aerodynamic and hydrodynamic modeling, used in a lot of industry. - Image recognition. - Voice recognition / captioning. - Machine translation. - I suppose also stuff like large-scale mechanical modeling, protein folding models, etc.

philistine 4y ago

Your thought experiment is basically "what if computers could no longer display anything on a screen?" That is absolutely bigger than the pandemic or the Russian invasion.

usr1106 4y ago
Some modern computers use the GPU to display everything. E.g. on Ryzens you don't even get a BIOS screen or text console without a GPU. However that's just design choice because they assume that a GPU would be there anyway. It worked without one for decades. However, what probably wouldn't work as well without GPUs is video production and consumption. Linux users knew that for years, when GPUs were poorly supported. Doing on the CPU does not give you the same resolution/framerate and requires more energy. Some might claim that watching less Youtube/Tiktok and reading more books or exercise outside instead would be good for "modern civilization".

yellowapple 4y ago

My first guess would be CAD being a lot harder, which would have a lot of widespread impacts on all sorts of industries.

dougmwne 4y ago

I mean you are talking about trillions in economic value from those combined industries so while it may not measure up to the pandemic, few things would. And just because you personally prefer card games, a few billion people play video games. Also having a cheap phone from 2015 is quite an outlier. I absolutely get wanting to moderate tech use and I make full use of the digital wellness limiters to cut down on social media and interruptions, but phones are just so damn useful for just about everything in modern life. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater a bit there, no?

AussieWog93 4y ago
>phones are just so damn useful for just about everything in modern life Honestly, I'm not sure how true that is. I got rid of my smartphone just before my daughter was born (she's turning 2 this month) and there has never been a single point where I've regretted it. That's not to say I avoid Android entirely. I've still got a tablet at home for Netflix/Chromecast, and we'll use my wife's phone in the car for Google Maps, but that's about it. There really is no need to be 100% connected 24/7.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Like, you could also give up electricity, indoor plumbing or motorized transport if you really wanted to and manage to arrange your life so you don't regret it. You are basically reliant on your wife for accessing any kind of digital service without a website, communicating with anyone, or any computing whatsoever when not at home. For most that is giving up on staggering utility, but I know people who prefer to ride horses still, so different strokes of course.
  - AussieWog93 4y ago
    I don't think you can really compare electricity or indoor plumbing (unobtrusive technology) to smartphones (extremely obtrusive technology). I still use computers and the internet, including Android devices, at home and work (quite non-trivially, actually - I am my family's sole provider and 100% of that income comes from a mix of online business and remote consulting) and I'll still talk to friends, family and employees via SMS or occasionally voice. Genuinely, man, as someone who has actually done it, you miss out on absolutely nothing and gain so much.
- theelous3 4y ago
  So "I make my wife do it" is the loophole. Classy.
  - AussieWog93 4y ago
    Did you actually read the comment you're responding to?

nine_k 4y ago

All the stuff that uses GPGPU computation heavily. - Weather prediction. - Other aerodynamic and hydrodynamic modeling, used in a lot of industry. - Image recognition. - Voice recognition / captioning. - Machine translation. - I suppose also stuff like large-scale mechanical modeling, protein folding models, etc.