5 ms·

It baffles me how shortsighted the policymaking here is. Like, what did they expect to happen?

by stingraycharles 13d ago

mrheosuper 13d ago
they expect the Chinese to bend their knee and beg for the sweet, sweet chip
qaq 13d ago
they were sold an idea the AGI is right around the corner so even a slight delay might be critical to secure the "win"
adrianN 13d ago
They expect to retire with a decent amount of money before things go down hill.
odo1242 13d ago
They probably weren't expecting AI foundation models / model research to be quite as fungible as they are
- safety1st 13d ago
  Yes. Over the last 20 years the economy has become dysfunctional. It no longer really resembles a free market; monopolies have established barriers to entry everywhere. And the biggest investors are awash with helicopter money that's been doled out for favors by the political class. So those investors have tons of cash to burn and surprisingly few opportunities. Even within Silicon Valley/VC there are surprisingly few who seem to really understand the fundamental economics of software. Or perhaps those economics just aren't that important when you have billions of dollars on hand and cash is obviously not going to get you a return. Any whisper of possible exponential growth is worth throwing money at. Crypto? Why not. AI? Why not. Datacenters? Why not. Tulips? Why not. This is by all definitions an empire in decline. Everything is broken or fake. Everyone is afraid to do what needs to be done. Power forbids it. So we're all just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Our secret police aren't as bad as the late stage USSR's yet, but hold Uncle Sam's beer... (That's not a recommendation to try and time the nadir, by the way, as it could easily be 50 years away.)
  - piva00 12d ago
    It started way before the last 20 years, the past 40 years have created the conditions for this to happen. Overfinancialisation of the economy while removing safeguards to keep markets functional, like anti-trust enforcement, are the main forces behind this erosion. Through finance the focus of companies is completely shifted away from producing good products and services, and into how to extract more paper wealth from existing structures to the detriment of products. Not enforcing anti-trust and letting behemoths to form which cannot be competed against since with their amount of capital they can either buy their competition outright or just price dump for long enough to make competition non-viable. It's the failure of neoliberalism, and that agenda has been pushed into Western countries since the 1980s-1990s, it made enormous wealth for the few at the top while eroding whole societies, economically and socially, it's all dysfunctional.
    - odo1242 12d ago
      I feel like my point is being over extrapolated a bit. All I was saying is that people in 2020 believed AI companies had much more of a moat then they actually do - that other companies would struggle to obtain enough data (y’know, downloading the internet to train models wasn’t legal back then) or resources to compete
      - piva00 12d ago
        I replied to the extrapolation, not to your comment directly, I think your point might be more fitting under that comment than mine, I just drilled down from the points above mine.
  - user43928 12d ago
    Datacenters and AI obviously work and come with a credible value proposition and path to profitability. Comparing this to crypto or turnips makes me doubt the merit of any other opinions your comment offers.
    - pixl97 12d ago
ekianjo 13d ago
if you sell them ASML equipment your market gets destroyed tomorrow instead of 10 years later so what options do they have?
- DeepSeaTortoise 12d ago
  No longer strangling their own economy would be a good start. Take a look at the magnificance that was the ESRS. A 300 A4 pages long list of yearly reporting duties. And the best thing is: Just because they're no longer nicely summarized in one place, doesn't mean the underlying duties went away.
georgemcbay 13d ago
> It baffles me how shortsighted the policymaking here is. Like, what did they expect to happen? As someone who is myself 'old af' by tech standards (I'll be 53 very soon) the main problem is that the policymakers are all 70+ years old. Their concept of what China even is is forever stuck in pre-2004 thinking from back when they still had significant neuroplasticity. Vote these fucking fossils out, kids, before it is entirely too late. (And, yeah, before someone inevitably brings it up, some exceptions-that-prove-the-rule older policymakers/politicians do avoid this trap of getting stuck in the past, but most don't)

It baffles me how shortsighted the policymaking here is. Like, what did they expect to happen?

mrheosuper 13d ago

they expect the Chinese to bend their knee and beg for the sweet, sweet chip

qaq 13d ago

they were sold an idea the AGI is right around the corner so even a slight delay might be critical to secure the "win"

adrianN 13d ago

They expect to retire with a decent amount of money before things go down hill.

odo1242 13d ago

They probably weren't expecting AI foundation models / model research to be quite as fungible as they are

safety1st 13d ago
Yes. Over the last 20 years the economy has become dysfunctional. It no longer really resembles a free market; monopolies have established barriers to entry everywhere. And the biggest investors are awash with helicopter money that's been doled out for favors by the political class. So those investors have tons of cash to burn and surprisingly few opportunities. Even within Silicon Valley/VC there are surprisingly few who seem to really understand the fundamental economics of software. Or perhaps those economics just aren't that important when you have billions of dollars on hand and cash is obviously not going to get you a return. Any whisper of possible exponential growth is worth throwing money at. Crypto? Why not. AI? Why not. Datacenters? Why not. Tulips? Why not. This is by all definitions an empire in decline. Everything is broken or fake. Everyone is afraid to do what needs to be done. Power forbids it. So we're all just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Our secret police aren't as bad as the late stage USSR's yet, but hold Uncle Sam's beer... (That's not a recommendation to try and time the nadir, by the way, as it could easily be 50 years away.)
- piva00 12d ago
  It started way before the last 20 years, the past 40 years have created the conditions for this to happen. Overfinancialisation of the economy while removing safeguards to keep markets functional, like anti-trust enforcement, are the main forces behind this erosion. Through finance the focus of companies is completely shifted away from producing good products and services, and into how to extract more paper wealth from existing structures to the detriment of products. Not enforcing anti-trust and letting behemoths to form which cannot be competed against since with their amount of capital they can either buy their competition outright or just price dump for long enough to make competition non-viable. It's the failure of neoliberalism, and that agenda has been pushed into Western countries since the 1980s-1990s, it made enormous wealth for the few at the top while eroding whole societies, economically and socially, it's all dysfunctional.
  - odo1242 12d ago
    I feel like my point is being over extrapolated a bit. All I was saying is that people in 2020 believed AI companies had much more of a moat then they actually do - that other companies would struggle to obtain enough data (y’know, downloading the internet to train models wasn’t legal back then) or resources to compete
    - piva00 12d ago
      I replied to the extrapolation, not to your comment directly, I think your point might be more fitting under that comment than mine, I just drilled down from the points above mine.
- user43928 12d ago
  Datacenters and AI obviously work and come with a credible value proposition and path to profitability. Comparing this to crypto or turnips makes me doubt the merit of any other opinions your comment offers.
  - pixl97 12d ago

ekianjo 13d ago

if you sell them ASML equipment your market gets destroyed tomorrow instead of 10 years later so what options do they have?

DeepSeaTortoise 12d ago
No longer strangling their own economy would be a good start. Take a look at the magnificance that was the ESRS. A 300 A4 pages long list of yearly reporting duties. And the best thing is: Just because they're no longer nicely summarized in one place, doesn't mean the underlying duties went away.

georgemcbay 13d ago

> It baffles me how shortsighted the policymaking here is. Like, what did they expect to happen? As someone who is myself 'old af' by tech standards (I'll be 53 very soon) the main problem is that the policymakers are all 70+ years old. Their concept of what China even is is forever stuck in pre-2004 thinking from back when they still had significant neuroplasticity. Vote these fucking fossils out, kids, before it is entirely too late. (And, yeah, before someone inevitably brings it up, some exceptions-that-prove-the-rule older policymakers/politicians do avoid this trap of getting stuck in the past, but most don't)