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AI needs $6T in annual revenue to justify data centre boom

222 points · 335 comments · Betelbuddy

  1. bunderbunder · · focus · HN ↗
    They talk a bit about where the AI companies are supposed to get their revenue from. I’d like to see these analyses go a step further and talk about how those AI customers are supposed to come up with that money as well.

    For example, the article suggests $1T from enterprise productivity tooling. A quick Google suggests the global enterprise productivity tooling market is only worth about $0.1T right now.

    Do we really expect all the world’s corporations to suddenly up their annual spend by 1,000% on average? Why?

    1. ItsMattyG · · focus · HN ↗
      it seems fairly obvious to me that once ai becomes as good as a worker, people will pay a workers wages to use it - 24/7, can't quit, can't complain that badly, no lunch breaks

      productivity tooling replaces employees

      1. scottLobster · · focus · HN ↗
        So we're talking about the complete destruction of the consumer economy.

        Hard to see how Google or Facebook keeps their advertising models in that environment. There aren't enough construction workers and data scientists to buy everything.

        1. ItsMattyG · · focus · HN ↗
          they won't need their advertising models because they'll have a new oligopoly on ai, and make the money directly from b2b

          which yes, will completely destroy the consumer economy and social structures and current forms of governance

          1. TheOtherHobbes · · focus · HN ↗
            If it's any consolation, in the end it will destroy capitalism too.
            1. ItsMattyG · · focus · HN ↗
              true, and humanity may all be dead due to rogue ai or speciation, so maybe there'd be no humans around to care
              1. vconnor · · focus · HN ↗
                But for a beautiful minute, everybody could one shot a dog food recipe website without knowing anything about HTML.
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