Comment by spwa4
7 hours ago
Yep. To the point it makes you wonder if the "AI bubble" is totally misunderstood. It's less "AI bubble" and much more "Monopolize computing". Buy up computers until most companies have no choice but to use cloud, then buy out chip fabs entirely, then never give anyone a working free-programmable computer again. All software goes through approval from Google/Apple/Microsoft.
You know, what Microsoft has been trying with Palladium (can't risk general purpose computers! People might commit, oh the horror, copyright infringement, with those!)
Imho, as hardware keeps getting better, it seems to me this is the only thing that can make cloud investments worth it in the long term (which is only 2-3 years away) for hyperscalers. It's the only explanation. If OpenAI/SpaceX/Musk/... really thought AI would take over all jobs, they wouldn't be investing in compute, they'd be buying up farms, land, harbors, mines, bankrupt factories, fucking tax prep businesses ...
Make compute only possible within Goog/Amazon/Microsoft/... walled gardens ... that's the play. And this AI is a cute technology that conveniently needs lots of compute, but it's not even the actual core of the play. A very simple very old style monopoly grab, you know, the business plan people got convicted for trying in ancient Persia, 5000 years ago.
> Yep. To the point it makes you wonder if the "AI bubble" is totally misunderstood. It's less "AI bubble" and much more "Monopolize computing". Buy up computers until most companies have no choice but to use cloud.
Unless prices get categorically higher, I don't think that's likely. Like 10x more than it is now.
Companies were buying computers for all their employees in the 90's, where a mediocre laptop could pretty easily cost two grand in 1990s money. My mom just bought a middle-of-the-road laptop for about a thousand dollars in today-money, and that was a consumer buying it; companies can generally spend more. "No choice but to use the cloud" feels like it's way too strong of a conclusion to draw.
I think they'll keep cheap consumer electronics for the most part. Not as cheap as this last decade, but still cheap. They just want to control the entire software chain from boot to network-accessed resources.
Are you human? Then you must verify it from a "trusted computer", preferably with your driver's license. Gets governments and corporations as much information as they want, along with a guarantee that you can't "steal" their content and can't avoid their ads.
Oh I don’t disagree with that, I was responding to the very specific point made by OP about companies being “forced” to use the cloud.
I have no doubt that Google and Microsoft will increasingly do things to force us to provide more data so they can do awful things to us.
> the business plan people got convicted for trying in ancient Persia, 5000 years ago.
Excuse my ignorance, do you have more details on this?
Persia didn't even come into being until 500BC
What?
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A "monopoly" grab from a conspiracy spanning all of the major tech firms? You really think that's the most likely explanation? Not just that the firms are competing in AI and all realize they need massive compute?
Prices are up a bit but there are plenty of "free-programmable computers" from a dozen or more manufacturers on the market. That's not going away.
The word conspiracy is misused there. That is not what a conspiracy is. This would be all those companies acting in their own best interest, separate from each other. The word for that isn't conspiracy but collusion, and it doesn't even require those companies to actually cooperate with one another as implied by the word conspiracy. They would all be acting in their common interest, with no or limited agreements between them.
I don't think you have your definitions straight since collusion does mean conspiring to work together. Your original post pointed towards AI just being cover for a plan to create monopoly power amongst the tech firms. I don't see how you can make that argument with a straight face. Apple, HP, Dell, Asus, etc are just going to stop selling computers?
I take your point that AI is pushing up the price of computers, at least temporarily, but you're leaning way into conspiracy and cynicism in your original post.
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