Thread

Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes

255 points · 249 comments · gmays

_8L34K · 1790863104 · focus · HN ↗
"Meta is claiming that the costly A.I. computer chips it buys from companies, including Nvidia, are entitled to a taxpayer-provided discount as part of the experiment."
Why do these schemes always involves these private companies siphoning money from taxpayers? It's "communism" (or whatever) to subsidize public health, yet we are expected to subsidize experimental AI companies.
1. treis · 1790863308 · focus · HN ↗
  We aren't expected to. We (or our elected representatives) passed a law saying that experimental spending gets tax breaks. And I don't really see an argument that LLMs aren't in an experimental phase.
  1. simonw · 1790863564 · focus · HN ↗
    I'm happy to make that argument. LLMs were experimental in 2023. It's 2026 now, and enormous numbers of people use them on a daily basis (ChatGPT has 1.2 billion weekly users now, according to Sam Altman at OpenAI DevDay).
    They're only experimental in the way that computers are still experimental, since we continue to find new ways to use computers.
    treis · 1790863719 · focus · HN ↗
    I think that's shaky but also that's OpenAI and not Meta. Up until whenever Muse was launched Meta didn't have anything I'd call a LLM product.
    zeezer0 · 1790864274 · focus · HN ↗
    You don't consider Llama an LLM?
    treis · 1790872254 · focus · HN ↗
    It wasn't a product
    simonw · 1790864430 · focus · HN ↗
    They've had AI-powered chat and search features in WhatsApp/Instagram/Facebook itself for a few years now.
    2023-09: "Meta AI is a new assistant you can interact with like a person, available on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram" - <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2023/09/introducing-ai-powered-assistants-characters-and-creative-tools/" rel="nofollow">https://about.fb.com/news/2023/09/introducing-ai-powered-ass...
    2024-04: "You can use Meta AI in feed, chats, search and more across our apps" - <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2024/04/meta-ai-assistant-built-with-llama-3/" rel="nofollow">https://about.fb.com/news/2024/04/meta-ai-assistant-built-wi...
    2024-09: "You can now use your voice to talk to Meta AI on Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram DM, and it’ll respond back to you out loud" - <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/metas-ai-product-news-connect/" rel="nofollow">https://about.fb.com/news/2024/09/metas-ai-product-news-conn...
    treis · 1790872678 · focus · HN ↗
    Meh those sound mostly like pilots and AFAIK most of this stuff didn't last long.
    I agree that at some point it stopped being a pilot and started being a product. So not that interested in arguing exactly when that happened.
  2. kennywinker · 1790864510 · focus · HN ↗
    That law is literally privatized profits, public losses.
    Companies get a tax break on risks. If they pan out, they keep the profits and the tax break.
    Neoliberalism is a scourge.
  3. jeremyjh · 1790867210 · focus · HN ↗
    There are experiments but the majority of chips now are going into production workloads and Meta isn’t even denying that.
  4. danny_codes · 1790867669 · focus · HN ↗
    I mean this is clearly a huge stretch. Presumably the intent of this law is to incentivize novel innovation. In this case we incentivize nothing. Data centers are commodities.
    treis · 1790872224 · focus · HN ↗
    LLMs are not and Llama did pretty much exactly what this type of program encourages. It was a pilot that made no money, was thrown away, and spurred a ton of independent research.
    This is also a weird split brain with HN. Half the front page is mocking companies for throwing away money on AI. That Chinese models (which surely got a huge boost from LLaMa) are going to render all this investment a gigantic loss.
2. philipallstar · 1790863789 · focus · HN ↗
  No one is siphoning money from taxpayers. Paying less tax legally is not taking any money from you.
  1. esalman · 1790863963 · focus · HN ↗
    Then who is paying for the data centers?
    atomicUpdate · 1790867890 · focus · HN ↗
    Meta is. That’s very clearly stated in the article and literally no one is disputing that fact.
    esalman · 1790871482 · focus · HN ↗
    If I pay $2000 for childcare and then get $1000 tax credit, am I really paying $2000 for childcare?
    philipallstar · 1790959357 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes. You're just having slightly less money stolen by the government.
    [deleted] · 1790867937 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  2. [deleted] · 1790865231 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
  3. wilburx3 · 1790865342 · focus · HN ↗
    It is exactly that. We are subsiding them and will not be repaid for it.
    frumplestlatz · 1790870314 · focus · HN ↗
    It's literally their money. Not taking other people's money is not a subsidy.
    You can argue that they should be paying those taxes under the current law, but it's not a subsidy.
    hnav · 1790877480 · focus · HN ↗
    if they pay less, there's more pressure on you and I to pay more
    HDThoreaun · 1790879581 · focus · HN ↗
    No, according to the law its literally our money
    frumplestlatz · 1790880901 · focus · HN ↗
    Then it's tax fraud and illegal, not a subsidy. If it's not illegal, then ... it's still not a subsidy.
  4. jeremyjh · 1790867279 · focus · HN ↗
    The article is pointing out that it is not legal.
  5. danny_codes · 1790867728 · focus · HN ↗
    Who picks up the bill? I remind you we are -1.8T a year in cash flow.
    Hint: you pick up the bill
    philipallstar · 1790871262 · focus · HN ↗
    Most people don't pick up the bill. Anyone net tax-negative does not pick up the bill. Facebook definitely pays more tax than me, both as a corporation and from all the employees they employ.
    danny_codes · 1790880753 · focus · HN ↗
    But _you_ are tax positive I assume, and therefore are picking up the bill. When FB tax dodges, we incur debt that _you_ will pay for. Perhaps indirectly, but you are paying for it as a taxpayer.
    philipallstar · 1790959333 · focus · HN ↗
    What debt are we incurring? If I stop working and don't pay tax, I didn't rob you. Me paying less tax doesn't rob you. Stupid spending of your taxes on things you don't need or want robs you.
    danny_codes · 1790965146 · focus · HN ↗
    > What debt are we incurring?
    The public debt, obviously.
    > If I stop working and don't pay tax, I didn't rob you.
    Depends if you have income from capital.
    > Me paying less tax doesn't rob you.
    Depends on the tax code.
    > Stupid spending of your taxes on things you don't need or want robs you.
    Fair.
    The argument comes down to the "fairness" of society. What level of taxation is "fair"? There's probably not a single right answer.
    However, there are answers that result somewhat deterministically in rising inequality. So for those of us who don't want to live in a highly inequitable society, there is a "more right" answer.
    Now, I'm sure other people (presumably people who are doing well under high inequality) would think the "right answer" is to increase inequality as much as possible.
    Personally, I don't think that kind of society would be very nice to live in.
    philipallstar · 1791050962 · focus · HN ↗
    Inequality is not a problem in a world where people can choose to work really hard or chill their whole lives and have the hard workers pay for their food stamps.
    The main thing is choice, and that will always result in different outcomes. A violinist will probably end up with less money in her life than a stockbroker ends up in his, but money is not the only measure of a life.
    On that measure however, with the massive scale that certain companies can achieve, some people will have far more net worth than others. But that won't be because the others had anything taken from them. It'll be because massive value was supplied to some customers, or some value was supplied to millions of customers.

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