3 ms·

When nobody lets you build a land data center they're going to make a lot of sense.

by lesuorac 1mo ago

grim_io 1mo ago
That's an if, not a when. A very big, hugely improbable if. Nobody? really?
- piloto_ciego 1mo ago
  I know it sounds bananas, indeed I thought it sounded bananas for a long time, but in a world where we can't get high speed rail built anywhere because of permitting, and there's an artificial scarcity of available land to build, they make a lot of sense. In space you can just start. Nobody is really going to stop you.
  - jazzyjackson 1mo ago
    People are going to be even more pissed off when there are more satellites than stars (I know nominally they’re not visible but they are shortly after launch while moving into position, and at large scale that would be happening all the time, not to mention the other side of burning up in the atmosphere after a few years)
    - MarkusQ 1mo ago
      Do you have any idea how many stars there are?
      - jazzyjackson 1mo ago
        Depends on what city you’re in :p
        MarkusQ 1mo ago
        Actually, no, they're still there even if you're indoors with your eyes closed.
        piloto_ciego 1mo ago
        <DONALD HOFFMAN INTENSIFIES>
        MarkusQ 1mo ago
        Five stars. Well played sir, well played.
mchusma 1mo ago
Yeah, the Data Center NIMBY crowd is making these look real good right now.
arrosenberg 1mo ago
The cost of getting them there will be absurd and even if someone was willing to fund it, where do you put the heat they will generate?
- piloto_ciego 1mo ago
  If trying to do it terrestrially is because the city council will riot then doing it on orbit seems like the better play. Just saying. “I can do it in this challenging environment or I can not do it at all” is kind of a false choice if you think AGI is imminent. Personally, I think we’re already there for KVM stuff, it’s just the goal posts are accelerating at an exponential rate the same with the capabilities.
  - arrosenberg 1mo ago
    "If you think AGI is imminent" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The rate of improvement has already leveled off significantly and there is little-to-no evidence that LLMs are close to or capable of achieving general intelligence. If you assume we aren't going to create a singularity in the next few decades, then no, it doesn't make sense economically to do it. Even ignoring that we'd have to develop a design that works in space, and even if SpaceX is able to significantly reduce cost per kg to orbit, it would still cost 15-30x more to build the same data center, and you have to pay that premium every time a piece of equipment burns out. It would be cheaper to build aircraft carrier sized ships to hold them or give every adult in the town where they are building a couple million dollars to fuck off. And again, that's only if SpaceX can produce an as-of-yet mythical level of scale. If they stop anywhere short of that, then we're talking about billions of dollars to build in space what you could build on earth for tens of millions.
    - piloto_ciego 1mo ago
      Everyone says this about the rate of improvement every month, and yet, I'm not just basically conjuring the code into existence that's paying my bills and building my company. Personally, I know it's just my anec-data, but I'm pretty much convinced that for kvm work, we're already there or extremely close to agi in any meaningful sense.
runako 1mo ago
A hypothetical operational space data center will cost a multiple over a similar terrestrial facility. It would be cheaper/more efficient to offer a municipality or its citizens a fraction of that multiple to secure approvals, now that the bullying approach is running out of steam. Instead of installing MWs of illegal gas generation and also still causing local electricity rates to spike, why not arrange to buy down the electricity of local ratepayers and also comply with existing laws & regulations? It's worth asking why operators aren't doing that yet. I suspect it's because neither OAI nor Anthropic have an extra $50B-$100B to put out at the moment. We'll see what happens post-IPO.
wat10000 1mo ago
Never going to happen. Yeah, we might get to a point where lots of people object to them in lots of places. But nobody allowing them anywhere? Mongolia wouldn't let you build in a little corner of the vast steppe? Algeria wouldn't let you plop down in a nice patch of unused Sahara? The worst that would happen is that it becomes difficult to build in convenient places. That certainly would be annoying. But the problem with space as the solution is that space is by far the least convenient place imaginable, with the possible exception of the bottom of the deep ocean.
UltraSane 1mo ago
It would be much cheaper just to bribe enough people to build a terrestrial data center.

When nobody lets you build a land data center they're going to make a lot of sense.

grim_io 1mo ago

That's an if, not a when. A very big, hugely improbable if. Nobody? really?

piloto_ciego 1mo ago
I know it sounds bananas, indeed I thought it sounded bananas for a long time, but in a world where we can't get high speed rail built anywhere because of permitting, and there's an artificial scarcity of available land to build, they make a lot of sense. In space you can just start. Nobody is really going to stop you.
- jazzyjackson 1mo ago
  People are going to be even more pissed off when there are more satellites than stars (I know nominally they’re not visible but they are shortly after launch while moving into position, and at large scale that would be happening all the time, not to mention the other side of burning up in the atmosphere after a few years)
  - MarkusQ 1mo ago
    Do you have any idea how many stars there are?
    - jazzyjackson 1mo ago
      Depends on what city you’re in :p
      - MarkusQ 1mo ago
        Actually, no, they're still there even if you're indoors with your eyes closed.
        piloto_ciego 1mo ago
        <DONALD HOFFMAN INTENSIFIES>
        MarkusQ 1mo ago
        Five stars. Well played sir, well played.

mchusma 1mo ago

Yeah, the Data Center NIMBY crowd is making these look real good right now.

arrosenberg 1mo ago

The cost of getting them there will be absurd and even if someone was willing to fund it, where do you put the heat they will generate?

piloto_ciego 1mo ago
If trying to do it terrestrially is because the city council will riot then doing it on orbit seems like the better play. Just saying. “I can do it in this challenging environment or I can not do it at all” is kind of a false choice if you think AGI is imminent. Personally, I think we’re already there for KVM stuff, it’s just the goal posts are accelerating at an exponential rate the same with the capabilities.
- arrosenberg 1mo ago
  "If you think AGI is imminent" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. The rate of improvement has already leveled off significantly and there is little-to-no evidence that LLMs are close to or capable of achieving general intelligence. If you assume we aren't going to create a singularity in the next few decades, then no, it doesn't make sense economically to do it. Even ignoring that we'd have to develop a design that works in space, and even if SpaceX is able to significantly reduce cost per kg to orbit, it would still cost 15-30x more to build the same data center, and you have to pay that premium every time a piece of equipment burns out. It would be cheaper to build aircraft carrier sized ships to hold them or give every adult in the town where they are building a couple million dollars to fuck off. And again, that's only if SpaceX can produce an as-of-yet mythical level of scale. If they stop anywhere short of that, then we're talking about billions of dollars to build in space what you could build on earth for tens of millions.
  - piloto_ciego 1mo ago
    Everyone says this about the rate of improvement every month, and yet, I'm not just basically conjuring the code into existence that's paying my bills and building my company. Personally, I know it's just my anec-data, but I'm pretty much convinced that for kvm work, we're already there or extremely close to agi in any meaningful sense.

runako 1mo ago

A hypothetical operational space data center will cost a multiple over a similar terrestrial facility. It would be cheaper/more efficient to offer a municipality or its citizens a fraction of that multiple to secure approvals, now that the bullying approach is running out of steam. Instead of installing MWs of illegal gas generation and also still causing local electricity rates to spike, why not arrange to buy down the electricity of local ratepayers and also comply with existing laws & regulations? It's worth asking why operators aren't doing that yet. I suspect it's because neither OAI nor Anthropic have an extra $50B-$100B to put out at the moment. We'll see what happens post-IPO.

wat10000 1mo ago

Never going to happen. Yeah, we might get to a point where lots of people object to them in lots of places. But nobody allowing them anywhere? Mongolia wouldn't let you build in a little corner of the vast steppe? Algeria wouldn't let you plop down in a nice patch of unused Sahara? The worst that would happen is that it becomes difficult to build in convenient places. That certainly would be annoying. But the problem with space as the solution is that space is by far the least convenient place imaginable, with the possible exception of the bottom of the deep ocean.

UltraSane 1mo ago

It would be much cheaper just to bribe enough people to build a terrestrial data center.