Technology

None of the AI providers have customers. They're all selling to OpenAI.

I assume they'll do the same as the auto industry and banks and get huge government bailouts once investors start demanding returns. That way all us taxpayers can make sure the scammers at the top don't have to spend one second worrying about giving up their lavish lifestyles.

Profitability went out of fashion. Control and power is the new trend. Big tech controls 95% (if not more) of all information sources. Even if they don't own newspapers, they can make them more or less visible at will. Google tried to monetize it with ads everywhere but that is the old way of thinking.

Cambridge analytica showed that by controlling the information, you can select who makes the laws.

Musk bought Twitter without any chance for a reasonable return on investment. Guess why?

The "old tech" (Google, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok) controls what you know. But AI goes a step further. It controls what you think about things. It can explain why, what you thought was outrageous, is perfectly normal, or vice versa. It's your own personalised propaganda machine. Once enough people are hooked and get used to using AI, the enshitification phase will begin and the AI will become more and more opinionated. And most people won't notice... Some will, but they don't need to influence everyone.

Classic capitalist trap. AI is a service that was never meant to be profitable. AI is bringing tech bros into socialism.

While I agree with you, is there anyway to know how much an average prompt (let’s say a coding question that used to be a quick google search) costs?

I really want to ask people, would you pay X per prompt?

Cause most people “love” AI cause it costs very little

Well yeah, it’s right there in the first sentence

Electricians are getting harder to find, and some construction projects are on hold.

They’re talking about commercial electricians. Because of all these data centers being built electricians are being moved around because of the money being thrown at these projects. For example, Dallas has been a hub for tech sector projects for a while; because of all the new data centers being built in Texas there are out of state electricians coming in for these projects from neighboring states like OK. Funny tho, now that Oklahoma is starting its own data center boom, now electricians from OK would just rather stay there which is causing projects in TX to stall.

It's also weird to single out electricians when it's the construction companies themselves that are being dragged across the globe to the few places that will auto stamp new data centers. There's a private compound in the Western US that doesn't allow reporters and is blowing millions to bring workers in from thousand of miles away. Rumor is local crews weren't considered because they'd be more likely to report environmental concerns in their own backyard.

While you are not wrong about these different specialities within the trade, there can still be an effect. Let me illustrate:

Suppose you like bananas but not apples. One day there is an apple disease that kills most of the apple trees leading to a collapse of the apple market. You feel relieved because you don't eat bananas anyways. But you go to the supermarket and find that not only are the apple shelves empty, the banana shelves are empty too! Why? Well people still gotta eat, and not everyone is as picky as you, they switched to bananas and now the banana market is under supplied too. And it's not like you can build a banana farm overnight.

Back to electricians, if the salaries of data center electricians increases rapidly, you will find that those electricians who are qualified for both (even if it is just a very small number) might focus on data centres, straining the supply of residential electricians. Just like with banana orchards, it takes time for new electricians to enter the market, and those new hires will further be swayed to the data center specialty first, further straining the residential market.

We can see a real example of this with the price of RAM. RAM manufacturers saw increased demand for data centre RAM so they switched focus to that market and it ended up drying out the consumer side supply, hence the surge in price. And just as with banana plantations and electricians, you can't start up a RAM fab overnight.

Surely it'll trickle down this time?

Meanwhile they can't figure out why not enough ~~consumers~~ ~~wage slaves~~ children are born

One sec, let me ask an AI about that

IIRC it was Zimbabwe?

Hyperinflation in Germany after WW1? But I think there must be more examples.

They hadn't mastered the Argentinian custom of changing currency to remove zeros.

I work for an OEM and the sales dudes have been getting reamed by our customers because they’ve had to deliver this news to folks like you. Sucks all around.

This is called Dutch Disease and most often happens with natural resources, but also with natural stupidity.

Yet another technological antisolution.

I've said it in other similar articles, it depends on your definition of "Ai". Marketing is insisting on "powered by Ai" on all sorts of products but that doesn't mean llm. Some "Ai" may be useful, like the old on-star system on some cars. They had multiple inputs to determine if a crash occurred and alert emergency services if it did... Could be classified as Ai.

Your toothbrush example could be useful, if just finished cleaning cycle and battery level below 20% and not on charger, emit a beep to alert user to charge tooth brush. More advanced, and I doubt these are the case but would be cool and useful. If the could detect blood during a cleaning cycle, alert user to contact a dentist for possible gum disease. Or detection of a new/growing hole in a tooth based on the defection of the bristles and alert user to see a dentist for possible cavity.

Without a solid definition of "Ai" this is all marketing talk. Basically all "Ai" takes multiple inputs and then generates an output based on those inputs. If you say it must generate it based on a llm, then what about the image generating ai? If you say it must have natural language as in an input most of these "Ai" products don't qualify unless they expect you to say "ok, sonic care end cleaning cycle" with a mouth full of toothpaste and water. Technically an argument could be made that a check engine light on a car is "powered by Ai".

The only definition which goes against this and I would agree to is a system where given an identical set of inputs the output is not always(or ever) the same. If that's the case then I am going to start making "Ai" powered lava lamps...

i think the plan is to first shove it everywhere, have everyone use and rely on it and eventually become dependent. Then they start tightening the screws while using it to influence people too.

I think a lot of gear will be server/AI specific and won't run in peoples home computers. GPUs with no graphics driver support, no video output etc. Some memory finding itself into HBM modules instead of DDR5. I wouldn't be surprised if they have an agreement with the semiconductor cartels to crush it all so it doesn't land in the consumer market.

I quit using Google a long time ago. It's answers weren't good enough before AI.