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[–] 33 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

well, at least it is computer hardware, which famously keeps its value over long periods of time

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  • [–] [S] 22 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

    This is one of the most absurd aspects of the whole AI build out in the US. Like this tech is still rapidly evolving, and we don't even know that current hardware is optimal for running modern LLMs. In fact, it's almost certainly isn't given that we already see stuff like this being developed. So, the US ended up investing astronomical sums of money into producing vast amounts of first gen chips that will likely be obsolete in a couple of years. Meanwhile, the part that is actually needed is power generation since whatever future chips are made are still going to need power, and that aspect has been almost entirely ignored. Incidentally, the situation appears to be completely opposite in China. There's been a massive investment in the grid, but the data centre build out has been very modest.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    I am convinced that it is an effort to control who has access to AI and compute in general more than it is for the AI.

    They wanted to make sure that they didn’t have any competition and that you would have to rent from them.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    I am 10000% in belief of this. Its not tinfoil hat. They want to own your compute. Then youre absolutely beholden to them, and they can control the narrative and sow dissent even better.

    Log onto bezosnet with your faceid and blood sample please.

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  • [–] -2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    China already has the dirt on all its citizens. That's why there's no rush for them. Usa wants to jam as many in as possible before the bubble pops or the public boycotts them. These I bet are mostly for surveiling citizens.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 weeks ago

    So basically just inflating prices to keep the AI bubble bubbling. Amazon sponsoring Nvidia which then sponsors Amazon in return.

    Surely the mark of healthy business practices!

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  • [–] 14 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Ed Zitron called it at least a year ago. He recently released an estimate of how many there are:

    As of September, likely about $234bn worth (of the $561.5bn of Nvidia GPUs purchased since 2023) are sitting in warehouses or unpowered data centers.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Ed needs to be in office or something making a difference. Hes on fucking point at every turn and ive never seen him be wrong.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (2 children)

    'We bought 600 train engines and 8000 rail cars, because we will probably figure out how to build 800,000 miles of new rail lines, somewhere, at some point.'

    'Also the train engines and rail cars we bought are guaranteed to be horrendously inefficent within 2 years.'

    'Also also, the train engines are highly fuel intensive and no we are not planning to fund any new fuel production.'

    'We are very smart.'

    'Why yes, our future rail line traffic demand projections are based on the "thoughts and prayers" model, thanks for asking!'

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  • [–] [S] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    The big difference is that rail lines and rail cars will have value for many decades after being built. Meanwhile, chips are a notoriously depreciating asset that's likely to become worthless in a year or two.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago

    Many people may see this and assume its just them drinking their own koolaid essentially but there is a bit of a twisted logic to it. They're basically just buying so many of these to keep the foundries happy to make them. They do have this delusion that they'll need more of them, but its more that they want production to increase so they are creating demand. Which is actually WORSE for the economy, because once their bet fails not only are these GPUs worthless but the foundries have built out production capacity that is now worth way less.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago

    Give them a break, it's not like they're a big cloud services company

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago

    Just remember these fuckers want to live forever, and then everything makes sense.

    They expect AI to be able to grant them inmortality, either biologically OE digitally.

    Their ego is so grand that maybe existing as a AI replica of themselves is enough.

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  • 3 comments in c/usa@midwest.social view that post
    [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago

    This is fine.

    They don’t depreciate or anything, right? Nvidia will have no problems selling the next next-generation chips.

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  • They've stopped hoarding workers and are hoarding GPUs now.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    The whole "data center opponents are terrorists" thing is about to get fucking crazy.

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