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Comment by AnthonyMouse

1 year ago

There are two possibilities here.

First, the rule applies to WordPress and all that kind of thing, and then providers would have to KYC WordPress users. Which is a reason not to pass it.

Second, the rule is completely pointless, because it doesn't, and then anyone could create an AI training WordPress plugin that uses whatever arbitrarily fast hardware the server has and thereby easily bypass the rule. Which is a reason not to pass it.

That's silly, no Wordpress hosting has H100 GPUs hooked up to it.

If you skim the full context of this proposal and the topics it focuses on (dedicated servers, virtual servers, AI acceleration), and you've been paying attention to current geopolitics in these areas (top chips being sanctioned), it is completely obvious that goal here is to prevent things like evading sanctions by renting hardware instead of buying it.

  • What stops them? You could have a WordPress plugin that uses Stable Diffusion to generate images, or encodes uploaded video, or provides an AI chatbot, and needs fast GPUs because there are a lot of users. Providers will supply anything the customer is willing to pay for. The expected AI plugins would be doing inference rather than training, but the user could use the same hardware for plugins that do something else.

    • > Providers will supply anything the customer is willing to pay for.

      I suppose every company and every service should be in scope for KYC then. /s

      But the reality is that Wordpress hosts are not in the business of renting people dedicated servers the price of a nice house. And if they were asked to do so, it wouldn't be a simple automated request without scrutiny.

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