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I love the tongue-in-cheek paradox myth that the Bitcoin whitepaper was written by a future god-AI to increase demand for GPUs (and thus boost supply) so we are

by cwkoss 3y ago

I love the tongue-in-cheek paradox myth that the Bitcoin whitepaper was written by a future god-AI to increase demand for GPUs (and thus boost supply) so we are able to assemble the future god-AI.

barbazoo 3y ago
I'd read that book!
- baq 3y ago
  Watch Tenet.
  - skulk 3y ago
    I'm from the future, traveling backwards in time to tell you to not watch Tenet.
    - barbazoo 3y ago
      Somehow I'm super sensitive to the audio (or might be video) and start feeling nauseous after a short time. Is there an explanation to this? I think it's that scratchy humming background sound.
      - skulk 3y ago
        I don't know, except that I agree that it's horribly mixed. It's almost impossible to make out what people are saying in certain parts, and that causes cognitive load that degrades the experience. Also, the story is completely nonsensical. The only good thing about that movie is that time-reversed fight scene and even that was kind of questionable.
    - KineticLensman 3y ago
      Also lots of similar wisdom, from Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time Traveller from 1909 [0]. [0] https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2022/06/17 https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2022/06/17
- majormajor 3y ago
  Hyperion/The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons has something similar.
tivert 3y ago
> I love the tongue-in-cheek paradox myth that the Bitcoin whitepaper was written by a future god-AI to increase demand for GPUs (and thus boost supply) so we are able to assemble the future god-AI. I know it's a joke, but the hole is the god-AI couldn't have been that smart, since cryptocurrency-mining quickly switched to ASICs, which muting the demand increase for GPUs.
- anamexis 3y ago
  But not before ramping up development and production of GPUs.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > But not before ramping up development and production of GPUs. Did the GPU manufactures ever embrace cryptocurrency? IIRC, they actually tried to discourage it (e.g. by butting throttling into mass market models to discourage their use for computation). Also, the graphs here show a long-term downward trend, with only a short-term sales blip 5 years ago due to cryptocurrency: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sales-of-desktop-graphics-cards-hit-20-year-low https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sales-of-desktop-graphics-....
    - refulgentis 3y ago
      Desktops is a very very key word there, I believe that’s why they repeat it so much. And it’s all tongue in cheek, and we all largely understand mining drove up gpu demand
  - kevingadd 3y ago
    Production MAYBE, I'm not sure what makes you think bitcoin would have ramped up the development of GPUs. What part of the last 10 years of GPU development looks bitcoin-focused to you? They're still very very focused on rendering and machine learning, not computing hashes.
- modernpink 3y ago
  Well, humans switched from using using brains to store all their memories once they could dump data onto external media via writing. Much like how crypto switching to ASICs frees up GPU capacity for AGI, writing freed the brain to develop higher GI.
thelittleone 3y ago
Conceptually this is paradoxical because of the notion that time is linear. Which it is to the best of our current understanding.
mkoubaa 3y ago
Then that god AI must have also pulled some strings for early video games
cwkoss 3y ago
Fun to imagine a time machine being built but the only thing it can transmit backward in time is PDFs
- babyshake 3y ago
  I wouldn't install Adobe Acrobat even if it gave me access to break the laws of spacetime.
teleforce 3y ago
Nah, many of the technical people who knew Hal Finney personally were claiming that the Caltech alumnus did write the original Bitcoin whitepaper not any random guys on the Internet [1]. The talk/conversation appeared to me not as OpenAI future plan but more on the CEO lamenting on how severely limited the company by the GPU or the lack thereof. It just a cheeky ploy by a CEO of an AI company that currently at 30B USD valuation to get more money in order to buy several [fill in the blank] of these most advanced GPU systems [2]. [1]Nakamoto's Neighbor: My Hunt For Bitcoin's Creator Led To A Paralyzed Crypto Genius: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/03/25/satoshi-nakamotos-neighbor-the-bitcoin-ghostwriter-who-wasnt/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/03/25/satosh... [2]Nvidia DGX GH200: 100 Terabyte GPU Memory System: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36133226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36133226
renonce 3y ago
Most Bitcoin miners have been using ASIC chips that compute nothing but Bitcoin format SHA256 since long ago so it’s not increasing demand for GPUs. Ethereum is but it has already switched to PoS.

by cwkoss 3y ago

I love the tongue-in-cheek paradox myth that the Bitcoin whitepaper was written by a future god-AI to increase demand for GPUs (and thus boost supply) so we are able to assemble the future god-AI.

barbazoo 3y ago

I'd read that book!

baq 3y ago
Watch Tenet.
- skulk 3y ago
  I'm from the future, traveling backwards in time to tell you to not watch Tenet.
  - barbazoo 3y ago
    Somehow I'm super sensitive to the audio (or might be video) and start feeling nauseous after a short time. Is there an explanation to this? I think it's that scratchy humming background sound.
    - skulk 3y ago
      I don't know, except that I agree that it's horribly mixed. It's almost impossible to make out what people are saying in certain parts, and that causes cognitive load that degrades the experience. Also, the story is completely nonsensical. The only good thing about that movie is that time-reversed fight scene and even that was kind of questionable.
  - KineticLensman 3y ago
    Also lots of similar wisdom, from Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time Traveller from 1909 [0]. [0] https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2022/06/17 https://www.gocomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2022/06/17
majormajor 3y ago
Hyperion/The Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons has something similar.

tivert 3y ago

> I love the tongue-in-cheek paradox myth that the Bitcoin whitepaper was written by a future god-AI to increase demand for GPUs (and thus boost supply) so we are able to assemble the future god-AI. I know it's a joke, but the hole is the god-AI couldn't have been that smart, since cryptocurrency-mining quickly switched to ASICs, which muting the demand increase for GPUs.

anamexis 3y ago
But not before ramping up development and production of GPUs.
- tivert 3y ago
  > But not before ramping up development and production of GPUs. Did the GPU manufactures ever embrace cryptocurrency? IIRC, they actually tried to discourage it (e.g. by butting throttling into mass market models to discourage their use for computation). Also, the graphs here show a long-term downward trend, with only a short-term sales blip 5 years ago due to cryptocurrency: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sales-of-desktop-graphics-cards-hit-20-year-low https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sales-of-desktop-graphics-....
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    Desktops is a very very key word there, I believe that’s why they repeat it so much. And it’s all tongue in cheek, and we all largely understand mining drove up gpu demand
- kevingadd 3y ago
  Production MAYBE, I'm not sure what makes you think bitcoin would have ramped up the development of GPUs. What part of the last 10 years of GPU development looks bitcoin-focused to you? They're still very very focused on rendering and machine learning, not computing hashes.
modernpink 3y ago
Well, humans switched from using using brains to store all their memories once they could dump data onto external media via writing. Much like how crypto switching to ASICs frees up GPU capacity for AGI, writing freed the brain to develop higher GI.

thelittleone 3y ago

Conceptually this is paradoxical because of the notion that time is linear. Which it is to the best of our current understanding.

mkoubaa 3y ago

Then that god AI must have also pulled some strings for early video games

cwkoss 3y ago

Fun to imagine a time machine being built but the only thing it can transmit backward in time is PDFs

babyshake 3y ago
I wouldn't install Adobe Acrobat even if it gave me access to break the laws of spacetime.

teleforce 3y ago

Nah, many of the technical people who knew Hal Finney personally were claiming that the Caltech alumnus did write the original Bitcoin whitepaper not any random guys on the Internet [1]. The talk/conversation appeared to me not as OpenAI future plan but more on the CEO lamenting on how severely limited the company by the GPU or the lack thereof. It just a cheeky ploy by a CEO of an AI company that currently at 30B USD valuation to get more money in order to buy several [fill in the blank] of these most advanced GPU systems [2]. [1]Nakamoto's Neighbor: My Hunt For Bitcoin's Creator Led To A Paralyzed Crypto Genius: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/03/25/satoshi-nakamotos-neighbor-the-bitcoin-ghostwriter-who-wasnt/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2014/03/25/satosh... [2]Nvidia DGX GH200: 100 Terabyte GPU Memory System: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36133226 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36133226

renonce 3y ago

Most Bitcoin miners have been using ASIC chips that compute nothing but Bitcoin format SHA256 since long ago so it’s not increasing demand for GPUs. Ethereum is but it has already switched to PoS.