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The Painful Truth: The RAM Crisis Is Only Just the Beginning

62 points · 69 comments · perelin

bigglebear · 1789619937 · focus · HN ↗
I think it's time we start talking about putting limits on how much compute AI companies can purchase or own, relative to the rest of the world. It's not fair that they can use trillions of dollars of investor billionaires money to consume all of the resources that everybody needs. Where is fair distribution? What about all of the industries they're destroying in the process by hoarding it all for themselves?
Otherwise, there will be no end to this. There are no hard limits on the speed of a parallel bruteforce. It's an infinite complexity problem class. The more parallel bruteforce power you have, the more likely you are to be able to solve a problem. So there is no world where demand ends. So if something isn't done about this, we'll have million dollar GPUs and RAM sticks because they've priced everyone out of the market and are the only ones able to afford them. Say goodbye to owning your own hardware at that point.
1. ollysb · 1789620624 · focus · HN ↗
  How could you enforce this?
  1. bigglebear · 1789646466 · focus · HN ↗
    That's the entire point of having the discussion. Figuring out how to enforce it.
2. deathanatos · 1789620804 · focus · HN ↗
  > I think it's time we start talking about putting limits on how much compute AI companies can purchase or own, relative to the rest of the world. It's not fair that they can use trillions of dollars of investor billionaires money to consume all of the resources that everybody needs.
  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornering_the_market
  Right now, the RAM market is effectively cornered. Anti-trust enforcement is what I'd look to, but the GOP do not believe in ensuring competitive markets / enforcement. (The current admin is pretty clearly 110% pro corporation.) Vote in November, but in all likelihood, there won't be government intervention earlier than 2028, and even that is optimistic. One hopes the AI bubble pops, but I think this market can remain irrational for far longer than I can keep old hardware alive.
  1. bigglebear · 1789646592 · focus · HN ↗
    The alternative is unfortunately much worse. Democrats will just ban AI altogether, they're already heavily funded by the doomer cult. All of the doomer NGOs tie back to democrat representatives and the likes of Bernie who want to throw people in jail for 20 years for using an AI model.

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