4 ms·

In the dotcom era, money was mostly being spent on people would could help create websites. In the AI era, money is mostly going to NVIDIA.

kulahan 1y ago
Surely we can all see the difference between a whole bunch of websites being paid for (lots of ethereal bits) and lots of actual computing hardware? Even if AI dies off, I imagine there are tons of uses for those same farms. Computing power might get cheap for a while, but I'd be pretty shocked if this resulted in another pets.com Definitely interested to see where my thinking is off here, if anyone can help. This just doesn't seem much like a bubble to me.
- grues-dinner 1y ago
  > Even if AI dies off, I imagine there are tons of uses for those same farms Are there tons of uses for 2023 crypto farm hardware? A trillion dollars of GPUs in various stages of obsolescence and/or shagged-outness in data centres might be useful to the right people but it's a depreciating asset.
  - kulahan 1y ago
    Everything in tech is a depreciating asset. If you're talking about GPUs used for mining crypto, yeah - most people run them well below max load, keep temps stable, and pay close attention to their crypto farm. Buying a used crypto farm GPU is great. If you're talking about purpose-built ASICs, probably still yes? It's not like it's performing some incredibly unique action when farming for crypto. The secondhand electronics market is fairly strong.
    - bloudermilk 1y ago
      Any good guides for buying on this secondhand market? I'd love to pick up some older decommissioned hardware but it's hard to find and harder to trust
      - kulahan 1y ago
        I'm not in the market myself; a number of friends buy them on eBay, but I don't know how to differentiate between good and bunk. I would assume that if they're selling 50 of them, though, that it's a good guess. Still, I think it's always something of a gamble. Maybe look for reputable dealers on there.
- SmirkingRevenge 1y ago
  It's like building a condo skyscraper just as the market crash of 2008 hits. The property will still be worth something but nowhere near the expected value pre-crash. For those still liquid when the dust settles, they'll be able to get great bargains on compute or even whole data centers. Maybe the land will be dotted with half-finished data centers that sit for years, like unfinished condo high-rises post 2008 crash
cornholio 1y ago
That's the entire economic premise of AI: labor automation. The end game is more returns to financial capital and less (or no) returns to human capital.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  Or in slightly more Marxist analysis: a complete power grab by the capitalist class, who sees AI as the great liberator from its pesky dependence on the working class - who could keep the worst excesses in check so far through collective action.
  - cornholio 1y ago
    The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of power struggles.
  - teaearlgraycold 1y ago
    The bubble is a gamble from the bourgeois class. Even though they are taking huge risks and burning an insane amount of money on Sam Altman’s empty promises the possibility that they could stop paying out payroll is tantalizing enough to keep going for quite a while.
  - slowmovintarget 1y ago
    Marxist analysis is essentially nonsense, though it sure feels good. Makes you tap your toes and really feel like "one of the People." But it's been bunk from the day it was penned. Jonathan Blow took this notion to task when said that the means of production are a $200 laptop you can buy at Walmart. What's really going on is industrial grade existential angst. "If my competitor trains a robot to do this job, they can run their factory 24x7, dramatically lowering their costs. If they do it and I don't, I can't compete. Therefore, I've got to do it or die." Rinse and repeat for call centers, web shops with "assistants," or software feature mills. Those CEOs and CTOs are convinced that the other guy is doing it, and their business will fail if they don't. There are a few that know better. This isn't a class struggle. It's cold-sweats-at-night fear of the future.
pants2 1y ago
The benefit then is if the AI bubble pops there aren't millions of unemployed

kulahan 1y ago

Surely we can all see the difference between a whole bunch of websites being paid for (lots of ethereal bits) and lots of actual computing hardware? Even if AI dies off, I imagine there are tons of uses for those same farms. Computing power might get cheap for a while, but I'd be pretty shocked if this resulted in another pets.com Definitely interested to see where my thinking is off here, if anyone can help. This just doesn't seem much like a bubble to me.

grues-dinner 1y ago
> Even if AI dies off, I imagine there are tons of uses for those same farms Are there tons of uses for 2023 crypto farm hardware? A trillion dollars of GPUs in various stages of obsolescence and/or shagged-outness in data centres might be useful to the right people but it's a depreciating asset.
- kulahan 1y ago
  Everything in tech is a depreciating asset. If you're talking about GPUs used for mining crypto, yeah - most people run them well below max load, keep temps stable, and pay close attention to their crypto farm. Buying a used crypto farm GPU is great. If you're talking about purpose-built ASICs, probably still yes? It's not like it's performing some incredibly unique action when farming for crypto. The secondhand electronics market is fairly strong.
  - bloudermilk 1y ago
    Any good guides for buying on this secondhand market? I'd love to pick up some older decommissioned hardware but it's hard to find and harder to trust
    - kulahan 1y ago
      I'm not in the market myself; a number of friends buy them on eBay, but I don't know how to differentiate between good and bunk. I would assume that if they're selling 50 of them, though, that it's a good guess. Still, I think it's always something of a gamble. Maybe look for reputable dealers on there.
SmirkingRevenge 1y ago
It's like building a condo skyscraper just as the market crash of 2008 hits. The property will still be worth something but nowhere near the expected value pre-crash. For those still liquid when the dust settles, they'll be able to get great bargains on compute or even whole data centers. Maybe the land will be dotted with half-finished data centers that sit for years, like unfinished condo high-rises post 2008 crash

cornholio 1y ago

That's the entire economic premise of AI: labor automation. The end game is more returns to financial capital and less (or no) returns to human capital.

saubeidl 1y ago
Or in slightly more Marxist analysis: a complete power grab by the capitalist class, who sees AI as the great liberator from its pesky dependence on the working class - who could keep the worst excesses in check so far through collective action.
- cornholio 1y ago
  The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of power struggles.
- teaearlgraycold 1y ago
  The bubble is a gamble from the bourgeois class. Even though they are taking huge risks and burning an insane amount of money on Sam Altman’s empty promises the possibility that they could stop paying out payroll is tantalizing enough to keep going for quite a while.
- slowmovintarget 1y ago
  Marxist analysis is essentially nonsense, though it sure feels good. Makes you tap your toes and really feel like "one of the People." But it's been bunk from the day it was penned. Jonathan Blow took this notion to task when said that the means of production are a $200 laptop you can buy at Walmart. What's really going on is industrial grade existential angst. "If my competitor trains a robot to do this job, they can run their factory 24x7, dramatically lowering their costs. If they do it and I don't, I can't compete. Therefore, I've got to do it or die." Rinse and repeat for call centers, web shops with "assistants," or software feature mills. Those CEOs and CTOs are convinced that the other guy is doing it, and their business will fail if they don't. There are a few that know better. This isn't a class struggle. It's cold-sweats-at-night fear of the future.

pants2 1y ago

The benefit then is if the AI bubble pops there aren't millions of unemployed