Comment by mschuster91
17 hours ago
> the idea that all companies will need to buy tokens from a handfull of tech companies to run their businesses or make their products is awful.
To the leadership of these tech companies that actually is the dream. Sam Altman said the quiet part aloud recently: "From a global allocation perspective, actually, it's quite terrible to have everybody have a bunch of the world's limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer, and being used maybe 5% of the time."
And it certainly fits into the neofeudal worldview of other relevant Big Tech leaders. Be it Peter "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible" Thiel, or unnamed bigwigs discussing if shock collars are effective to prevent their staff from revolting after a doomsday scenario [2].
We shall own nothing and rent everything, that is the mindset these people believe.
(And if you ask me: the AI IPOs are part of that strategy. Assuming OpenAI and Anthropic both IPO, they will get part of every American's and most other countries' pension funds... and when they collapse, a lot of that value will be gone. The initial investors into SpaceX, OAI and Anthropic all will have made their money and put it aside, and we will be left holding bags)
[1] https://www.ign.com/articles/openai-ceo-sam-altman-thinks-it...
[2] https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2025/0511/1512086-doomsday-...
How is that saying the quiet part out loud?
He literally said we'll own nothing and be happy
he said nothing about being happy
Altman was simply making an accurate observation about DRAM, in the context of a conversation about DRAM shortages and precisely why it is difficult for DRAM manufacturers to respond to the market price incentive to increase DRAM production. Even if you think it is bad that DRAM is currently expensive, as I do, that doesn't change the underlying fact about the world that Altman's comment reflects.
Thiel's comment is also pro-individual-ownership - in context he was talking about the danger that in a mass democracy the people as a whole would vote to have the government restrict the freedom and confiscate the property of successful people (particularly prescient in light of the recent California attempt at a billionaire wealth tax). RAM being expensive is better than RAM being rationed by a democratically-elected government so no one person has too much, as judged by the voting masses.
> Altman was simply making an accurate observation about DRAM
no, he was lying by omission
"it's quite terrible" only if you ignore all the problems with plans they promote and measure it only in metrics Altman wants to measure, as they support his plans
For start, Altman would charge as much as possible to optimize profits, so very significant part of efficiency increase would become profits of "Open"AI.
As another obvious problem: handing so much power to a specific company has own costs.
There are so many problems here with this specific part - starting from their power dictating how can you use it, access to your data. And that part is getting worse for anyone not planning to obey all decisions coming from USA. We have already seen export controls being invoked.
But wider, if you think that outsourcing thinking to a specific SaaS has no costs, beyond current subscription costs, then I have several thousands of bridges for sale.
> Altman was simply making an accurate observation about DRAM
Which might be true, I'm willing to accept that, but it does not change the fact his message was incredibly tone deaf.
Cost of living in general is through the roof for years now, many people haven't had the financial ability to meaningfully upgrade their computers for just about the same timeframe - first Bitcoin drove CPU prices through the roof, then GPU prices, once that died down due to ASICs there were a few fads that "mined" RAM, HDD and SSD, and in parallel to the latter Covid hit, disrupting supply chains. After Covid was somewhat over, the Russians invaded Ukraine, then we got the various MENA conflicts after Oct 7th, and now the Iran war is wrecking everything - and ever since AI entered the picture somewhat three years ago, first GPUs and now everything else has exploded in price. Entry level smartphones have all but disappeared. And don't forget our existing computers got less and less useful because first Microsoft pushed the garbage called Windows 11 onto everyone it could and second, everyone and their dog went for Electron resource hog apps.
For Altman to now say "your unused RAM could be of much better use in our servers" is like a giant fat fucking middle finger, telling us to sacrifice even more of our needs just for the opportunity of him and his fellow rich bastard friends to make more money, all while he and his fellow rich bastard friends are executing the setup of a financial crisis that will make 2007 look fucking tame.
> Thiel's comment is also pro-individual-ownership - in context he was talking about the danger that in a mass democracy the people as a whole would vote to have the government restrict the freedom and confiscate the property of successful people (particularly prescient in light of the recent California attempt at a billionaire wealth tax).
Oh for fucks sake. Taxes aren't theft, they provide for the environment that makes these rich fucks able to earn money in the first place. Thiel is worth 38 billion dollars. Even if you'd tax the guy 50% of his wealth, he'd still have more than one single human and their descendants can ever feasibly gamble away.
> RAM being expensive is better than RAM being rationed by a democratically-elected government so no one person has too much, as judged by the voting masses.
At least in a rationed system that allocates supply fairly, ordinary people wouldn't have to run with barely working hardware because they can't afford to buy something new and modern for once as all the new stuff is hoarded by the rich like a LotR dragon hoards his gold pile.
And as evidenced by this week's elections - the people are fed up beyond belief. Either we the people get some relief, the sooner the better, or the situation may indeed devolve into open riots.
> At least in a rationed system that allocates supply fairly
if you assume crazy fairy land that is not going to happen, then you can assume cheap and plentiful RAM for better results
Successful people are not successful without keeping unsuccessful people from success; inflation since Millennials were born is almost 300% and taxes have been slashed; takes 800k/yr now to have the buying power of $200k in the 1980s
Thiel has benefited from wealth being wielded by rich media owners to convince the masses decades long trends in deflation of buying power through inflation of costs are good for them
With such a system giving him a boost he was successful before Millennials and GenZ were adults or even born
Altman came along during ZIRP; being successful when the government is intentionally printing money is not really success