6 ms·

It's amazing how he can imagine wars being fought over AI but not wars being fought over resources needed to "build enough infrastructure."

kulahan 2y ago
Taking it a step further, building that infrastructure may contribute somewhat directly to limiting the other resources actual wars are being fought over. This man needs to get out of his own head.
- throw_pm23 2y ago
  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
  - p1esk 2y ago
    Sam’s ambitions are way beyond “salary”.
    - kevinob11 2y ago
      Replace salary with the thing he wants
      - p1esk 2y ago
        Maybe he wants to make the world a better place?
        throw_pm23 2y ago
        Maybe :)
    - willturman 2y ago
      It's a quote from Upton Sinclair from an era where you generally had to have a profitable business and employees before you had investors.
      - novok 2y ago
        There were many ventures in the past that got investors without a current profitable going concern. Oil & mining speculation, chartering boat crews to go on exploration expeditions and more.
        Terr_ 2y ago
        Indeed, public investment was born from large projects where any profit would be many years off.
      - fragmede 2y ago
        I know theres this whole joke about being pre-revenue on the Silicon Valley TV show, but getting investors in order to be able to build a business which becomes profitable after goes back a long time. Like a really long time.
- vundercind 2y ago
  I think it’s misunderstanding the guy’s whole deal to expect truth or reality to be major factors in his writing. “Sell, sell, sell!” is the goal above all else. Sell whatever he’s invested in today. Sell himself. Sell!
  - bbor 2y ago
    You’re honestly convinced that he’s faking this level of futurism? I’m happy to see people call him wrong, maybe even defend him on a few point, but calling him dishonest on this central point seems irrational. Ditto for someone I personally have absolutely 0 respect for: Elon Musk. They are both honestly convinced that AI is incredibly important in the short-medium term, IMO - they just want to own the fix and be the hero.
    - vundercind 2y ago
      He might find the hype cycle itself entertaining and engaging, but I doubt he’s taking it seriously. I think he’d be worse at his job if he did.
      - bloppe 2y ago
        Is Sam Altman generally considered good at his job? OpenAI hasn't really come up with any groundbreaking breakthroughs (transformers came from Google and diffusion came from academia) and they definitely do not make a profit or have any concrete plan to become profitable. He's really good at raising gargantuan amounts of money, but that's not enough to be considered a good founder.
        vundercind 2y ago
        > He's really good at raising gargantuan amounts of money As far as what he does for others, that seems to be his entire job from what I can tell. Just going by what he visibly does.
        nickfromseattle 2y ago
        > Is Sam Altman generally considered good at his job? No credit for popularizing the current generation of AI, kicking off $hundreds of billions in CapEx spends, and for more concrete achievements, leading the fastest company to hit 100m users / $1b ARR?
KETHERCORTEX 2y ago
> he can imagine wars being fought over AI I wonder how did he come to such a prediction. When was the last time we had a war over advanced tech? Armies didn't fight over telegraph, radio, phones and cars. A war to get AI would also be foolish. A few hundred bombs from your adversaries and AI won't have electricity to function.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > I wonder how did he come to such a prediction. At the risk of belaboring the subtext: It's kind of prediction which flatters the predictor's ego, and exaggerates the importance of the company and its output. If believed, the claim can be leveraged to boost investor activity, land big contracts, and lobby for special legal/tax benefits.
- empath75 2y ago
  It's arguable that every major conflict of the 20th century was over resources required by the combustion engine -- fossil fuels and rubber, in particular.
- throwthrowuknow 2y ago
  You have to look at the late 1800s for examples. It won’t be wars over data centres and winning won’t be simple or even possible. It would look like the wars that the U.S. Army fought against indian tribes or like the British, French, German and Dutch colonization of Africa. That is assuming there is an AI side and a non-AI side. Incidentally those conflicts did involve a lot of strategic infrastructure like railways and telegraph lines. Fighting the expansionary actions of an AI enabled culture will not be as simple as bombing power plants, after all those are prime targets in any modern war and are well defended. How do you propose to win against an entire bloc of countries that have decided to use the products of AI to do whatever they wish with the world?
- richardw 2y ago
  Telegraph, radio, phones, cars didn't guarantee success. Those things can't outthink you. Somewhat extreme case: let's say Israel saw that Iran was days away from getting AGI. It would instantly throw every nuke it had at Iran. Now, scale that up to the global superpowers and near-superpowers. I wouldn't want to put money on what e.g. the U.S. would do if China was days away from AGI. There are a lot of options below going nuclear, e.g. assassinations, hacking, destruction of equipment. Once someone has a thing that can invent, hack, assemble, strategise 24/7, replicate itself, all bets are very much off. We need to sleep, it doesn't.
trhway 2y ago
>resources needed to "build enough infrastructure." Strarship will put into orbit 100tons at $10M or so. I.e. <5kg (Nvidia H100 plus 1M2 of aluminum radiator (would radiate 0.5-1Kw away at 60-70C) plus 0.5Kw of solar panels) for <$500, ie. peanuts compare to the price of the H100 or whatever NVDA would be charging $30K/card. And wars willn't be fought over AI. Wars will be fought using AI. Humans will have no chance in controlling millions of their own and responding to the actions of the millions of the enemy's simultaneously active automated high-precision munitions of all kinds, and that picture leads to a new, non-nuclear this time, AI-based MAD (that of course means that like with nuclear race back then all the parties have to build their capabilities right now as fast as possible, Manhattan project style).
- phs318u 2y ago
  > Wars will be fought using AI. I agree with the sentiment but not the mechanism (munitions). If power equates to control of resources then destroying the resources is kind of self-defeating. Far better then to "win" a war by getting friendly regimes installed that are aligned to your interests. We're already seeing the importance of this kind of approach, but the ultimate evolution will be that what used to be called propaganda (disinformation) will not just facilitate a war of guns and bombs, it will _be_ the war - able to directly achieve the end-goals of the "war" with not a single shot fired. AI is a huge amplifier of capability in this domain.
- com2kid 2y ago
  Heat doesn't radiate like that in space. This topic comes up on HN often enough. There isn't anything to carry the heat away because space is, by definition, empty. The energy has to be carried away by something. Cooling space stations is a legit real problem. The only thing space gets you is somewhat better solar efficiency, but we aren't lacking of land to build solar panels on here on earth.
  - trhway 2y ago
    >Heat doesn't radiate like that in space. What do you mean? I stated black body radiation numbers. >There isn't anything to carry the heat away because space is, by definition, empty. Heat radiation. Which is what Sun for example does in that empty space. >Cooling space stations is a legit real problem. Please, numbers. Otherwise it is just some hand-waving. >The only thing space gets you is somewhat better solar efficiency, but we aren't lacking of land to build solar panels on here on earth. Space gets you away from regulations, corrupt bureaucrats, and the threat of war/terrorism/etc. for example. At $100/Kg building in space looks to be just cheaper. And space allows to have solar and datacenter in the same unit, while on Earth you have to deliver your electricity from a solar farm somewhere to the datacenter. There is a reason Oracle started to talk nuclear in the datacenter. And between nuclear in the datacenter on Earth and solar+datacenter in space at $100/Kg i think the space scenario would be simpler and cheaper.

kulahan 2y ago

Taking it a step further, building that infrastructure may contribute somewhat directly to limiting the other resources actual wars are being fought over. This man needs to get out of his own head.

throw_pm23 2y ago
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
- p1esk 2y ago
  Sam’s ambitions are way beyond “salary”.
  - kevinob11 2y ago
    Replace salary with the thing he wants
    - p1esk 2y ago
      Maybe he wants to make the world a better place?
      - throw_pm23 2y ago
        Maybe :)
  - willturman 2y ago
    It's a quote from Upton Sinclair from an era where you generally had to have a profitable business and employees before you had investors.
    - novok 2y ago
      There were many ventures in the past that got investors without a current profitable going concern. Oil & mining speculation, chartering boat crews to go on exploration expeditions and more.
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        Indeed, public investment was born from large projects where any profit would be many years off.
    - fragmede 2y ago
      I know theres this whole joke about being pre-revenue on the Silicon Valley TV show, but getting investors in order to be able to build a business which becomes profitable after goes back a long time. Like a really long time.
vundercind 2y ago
I think it’s misunderstanding the guy’s whole deal to expect truth or reality to be major factors in his writing. “Sell, sell, sell!” is the goal above all else. Sell whatever he’s invested in today. Sell himself. Sell!
- bbor 2y ago
  You’re honestly convinced that he’s faking this level of futurism? I’m happy to see people call him wrong, maybe even defend him on a few point, but calling him dishonest on this central point seems irrational. Ditto for someone I personally have absolutely 0 respect for: Elon Musk. They are both honestly convinced that AI is incredibly important in the short-medium term, IMO - they just want to own the fix and be the hero.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    He might find the hype cycle itself entertaining and engaging, but I doubt he’s taking it seriously. I think he’d be worse at his job if he did.
    - bloppe 2y ago
      Is Sam Altman generally considered good at his job? OpenAI hasn't really come up with any groundbreaking breakthroughs (transformers came from Google and diffusion came from academia) and they definitely do not make a profit or have any concrete plan to become profitable. He's really good at raising gargantuan amounts of money, but that's not enough to be considered a good founder.
      - vundercind 2y ago
        > He's really good at raising gargantuan amounts of money As far as what he does for others, that seems to be his entire job from what I can tell. Just going by what he visibly does.
      - nickfromseattle 2y ago
        > Is Sam Altman generally considered good at his job? No credit for popularizing the current generation of AI, kicking off $hundreds of billions in CapEx spends, and for more concrete achievements, leading the fastest company to hit 100m users / $1b ARR?

KETHERCORTEX 2y ago

> he can imagine wars being fought over AI I wonder how did he come to such a prediction. When was the last time we had a war over advanced tech? Armies didn't fight over telegraph, radio, phones and cars. A war to get AI would also be foolish. A few hundred bombs from your adversaries and AI won't have electricity to function.

Terr_ 2y ago
> I wonder how did he come to such a prediction. At the risk of belaboring the subtext: It's kind of prediction which flatters the predictor's ego, and exaggerates the importance of the company and its output. If believed, the claim can be leveraged to boost investor activity, land big contracts, and lobby for special legal/tax benefits.
empath75 2y ago
It's arguable that every major conflict of the 20th century was over resources required by the combustion engine -- fossil fuels and rubber, in particular.
throwthrowuknow 2y ago
You have to look at the late 1800s for examples. It won’t be wars over data centres and winning won’t be simple or even possible. It would look like the wars that the U.S. Army fought against indian tribes or like the British, French, German and Dutch colonization of Africa. That is assuming there is an AI side and a non-AI side. Incidentally those conflicts did involve a lot of strategic infrastructure like railways and telegraph lines. Fighting the expansionary actions of an AI enabled culture will not be as simple as bombing power plants, after all those are prime targets in any modern war and are well defended. How do you propose to win against an entire bloc of countries that have decided to use the products of AI to do whatever they wish with the world?
richardw 2y ago
Telegraph, radio, phones, cars didn't guarantee success. Those things can't outthink you. Somewhat extreme case: let's say Israel saw that Iran was days away from getting AGI. It would instantly throw every nuke it had at Iran. Now, scale that up to the global superpowers and near-superpowers. I wouldn't want to put money on what e.g. the U.S. would do if China was days away from AGI. There are a lot of options below going nuclear, e.g. assassinations, hacking, destruction of equipment. Once someone has a thing that can invent, hack, assemble, strategise 24/7, replicate itself, all bets are very much off. We need to sleep, it doesn't.

trhway 2y ago

>resources needed to "build enough infrastructure." Strarship will put into orbit 100tons at $10M or so. I.e. <5kg (Nvidia H100 plus 1M2 of aluminum radiator (would radiate 0.5-1Kw away at 60-70C) plus 0.5Kw of solar panels) for <$500, ie. peanuts compare to the price of the H100 or whatever NVDA would be charging $30K/card. And wars willn't be fought over AI. Wars will be fought using AI. Humans will have no chance in controlling millions of their own and responding to the actions of the millions of the enemy's simultaneously active automated high-precision munitions of all kinds, and that picture leads to a new, non-nuclear this time, AI-based MAD (that of course means that like with nuclear race back then all the parties have to build their capabilities right now as fast as possible, Manhattan project style).

phs318u 2y ago
> Wars will be fought using AI. I agree with the sentiment but not the mechanism (munitions). If power equates to control of resources then destroying the resources is kind of self-defeating. Far better then to "win" a war by getting friendly regimes installed that are aligned to your interests. We're already seeing the importance of this kind of approach, but the ultimate evolution will be that what used to be called propaganda (disinformation) will not just facilitate a war of guns and bombs, it will _be_ the war - able to directly achieve the end-goals of the "war" with not a single shot fired. AI is a huge amplifier of capability in this domain.
com2kid 2y ago
Heat doesn't radiate like that in space. This topic comes up on HN often enough. There isn't anything to carry the heat away because space is, by definition, empty. The energy has to be carried away by something. Cooling space stations is a legit real problem. The only thing space gets you is somewhat better solar efficiency, but we aren't lacking of land to build solar panels on here on earth.
- trhway 2y ago
  >Heat doesn't radiate like that in space. What do you mean? I stated black body radiation numbers. >There isn't anything to carry the heat away because space is, by definition, empty. Heat radiation. Which is what Sun for example does in that empty space. >Cooling space stations is a legit real problem. Please, numbers. Otherwise it is just some hand-waving. >The only thing space gets you is somewhat better solar efficiency, but we aren't lacking of land to build solar panels on here on earth. Space gets you away from regulations, corrupt bureaucrats, and the threat of war/terrorism/etc. for example. At $100/Kg building in space looks to be just cheaper. And space allows to have solar and datacenter in the same unit, while on Earth you have to deliver your electricity from a solar farm somewhere to the datacenter. There is a reason Oracle started to talk nuclear in the datacenter. And between nuclear in the datacenter on Earth and solar+datacenter in space at $100/Kg i think the space scenario would be simpler and cheaper.