My prediction is that it will go the same way as the dot com bubble. The hypesters and fraudsters will eventually collide with objective reality, but the technology will persist and society at large will benefit from the infrastructure and the increased access to knowledge.

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Shellban 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Assuming that we recover from the damage being done now. As one example, a friend of mine has remarked that large corporations will benefit from the current AI-induced reality of no one being able to afford their own hardware, and keep prices that way to enforce a renters model on computers.

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protocolture 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>large corporations will benefit from the current AI-induced reality of no one being able to afford their own hardware, and keep prices that way to enforce a renters model on computers.

Depends how long the RAM correction takes. It is interesting how RAM prices have stifled the creation of cheap laptops capable of running big models. But at the same time, this seems like a second order effect and not the intention.

	▲	api 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It’s a demand spike.

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thewebguyd 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's my fear, and unfortunately I think its likely to happen. I feel like we will settle down a little bit, but into a new higher "normal" baseline that still largely makes it unaffordable for most.

There's also still the risk of the creation of a new economic underclass, if both a) hardware remains too expensive for local inference and b) subscription or pay-per-token based inference also remains expensive or increases in price, then individuals will largely be locked out of the benefits that having access to AI could bring, leaving it purely in the hands of larger companies. People will only get to use and experience these tools through their employer, for the benefit of their employer.

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echelon 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> As one example, a friend of mine has remarked that large corporations will benefit from the current AI-induced reality of no one being able to afford their own hardware, and keep prices that way to enforce a renters model on computers.

Choose one:

- You spend 30 hours writing a program to manage data for your hobby. You write it on your personal computer.

- You spend one hour generating a program to manage data for your hobby. You have to lease an H200 behind an API to do it.

Which one will you choose?

I know which one I'm choosing.

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anon7725 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I choose A.

I know that many others choose A as well.

A wonderful service known as the web has connected people who choose A with others who choose A and of course with a great many who don’t need to make a choice and benefit from the work of others.

I mourn a world in which few will choose A, because for many to choose B seems to lock us all, tragedy of the commons style, into a worse world.

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echelon 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't have time for that.

I swear the anti-AI crowd would all be picking to die if you each had a choice between immortality and living to 85.

This all feels so damned performative. These are irrational decisions.

AI is better at this than you. You just won't admit it. And it's going to get 10,000x better than you in just a short while.

Programming computers is a fad. It's an anachronistic relic.

None of you is writing punch card programs.

None of you are building vaccum tube logic.

None of the things we build today are going to last. Your programs will be meaningless in a hundred years. Probably closer to ten years.

Programs and code and programming languages are as ephemeral as social media.

Get over it. It's not that important.

	▲	girvo 5 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This is so needlessly combative and performative, which is especially hilarious as you claim the others are the ones being so. > AI is better at this than you. You just won't admit it. And it's going to get 10,000x better than you in just a short while. Where is the 10x (not even 10,000x) revenue? No companies other than those selling the AI itself are seeing it.
	▲	II2II 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> I swear the anti-AI crowd would all be picking to die if you each had a choice between immortality and living to 85. It really depends on the cost of immortality. At the very least, it would have a psychological impact that some people may feel is undesirable. > None of you is writing punch card programs. > None of you are building vaccum tube logic. Perhaps none of us, but some people certainly do. We are intellectual creatures. Some of us do things out of pure curiosity. Can we create multinational corporations out of it? Almost certainly not. Can we create businesses out of it? People do so all of the time. There is a market for produce from small farms, hand crafts, heck, even vintage computing. > None of the things we build today are going to last. Your programs will be meaningless in a hundred years. Probably closer to ten years. Try telling that to people who are trying to retire legacy systems. Sure, most of them have been modernized. Perhaps they have even been modernized to the point where none of the original code exists. Yet the core ideas still exist since it turns out to be incredibly hard to discard things. The old ways of writing software will continue, even if they are nowhere near as popular. Call that irrational if you want. I call it human.
	▲	Jtsummers 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> None of the things we build today are going to last. Exactly, so why do you care how some people build things? It's not that important.
	▲	overgard an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> AI is better at this than you. You just won't admit it. And it's going to get 10,000x better than you in just a short while. It's just not though. Plagiarizing some shit it stole off github does not make it intelligent. Edit: just because it's amusing, here's something I'm literally running into right now with Opus 4.8 on "Max" settings being dumb. I asked it to add some C++ code to an existing C++ project for Unreal Engine. It did half the work, then balked, because "it doesn't have a way to compile C++". I just had to tell it "yes, actually, you just need to run the fricking extremely-standard-already-generated-build-script." If I had a novel build system it'd be one thing, but it already knows I'm working on an Unreal Engine project and that the build is completely standard and it still couldn't piece together that it could just run the compiler. I would not employ a C++ developer that could not figure out how to invoke the compiler.
	▲	anon7725 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> AI is better at this than you. Maybe so, but I am better at this when I engage with AI in a controlled manner.
	▲	javascriptfan69 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		What if they just like writing code?
	▲	sublinear 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Get over it. It's not that important. I don't think you understand what code is. What it does is far less important than how it does it. Software is bureaucracy and always has been. The discipline is just finally maturing into this role like so many other careers have.

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sdenton4 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Of course, you can use Option B to write the program, and then run it on your own machine...

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bigstrat2003 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Option A is fun, whereas option B is miserable. Option A is also cheaper. It's a pretty clear win for option A here.

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gyomu 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> society at large will benefit from the infrastructure

Data centers as infrastructure are very different from DSL rollout though. Much, much more expensive to maintain, with a much much shorter timespan.

If the bubble pops and data centers get shut down because there’s no one to pay the bills, there won’t be much left 5-10 years later in terms of infrastructure.

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m0llusk 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe we could repurpose old processors to power toaster ovens.

	▲	bigbuppo 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, a 125kW server stuffed into 5U will definitely work nicely for toast.