Chinese open-source models are becoming the norm. You don’t need the latest model from ChatGPT (e.g., a Ferrari) to complete your task. A simple Honda will suffice (open-source models), and it uses a lot less energy since it runs on your home or company’s infrastructure.
Because of that, I predict that we’re going to see a lot of financial hardship among AI companies.
it uses a lot less energy since it runs on your home or company’s infrastructure.
A CPU-cycle requires energy no matter where it is. The open source models may be more efficient, or you may distribute the power usage over a greater geographical area. But you’re not using less energy because you’re running the model at home.
Because of that, I predict that we’re going to see a lot of financial hardship among AI companies.
I do like the idea that open source will kill tech giants.
You are correct. OpenAI etc. valuations are based on the difference between revenue and cost. The key part is that open source breaks the monopoly. It stops excessive rent being charged (now or in the future) to use Ai models.
Tech giants will still exist, but closed model advantages won’t.
i thought tech valuations were based off of vibes and social currency
If the valuation were based on the marginal cost OpenAI and Anthropic would be worth negative a trillion dollars…
Current marginal cost is certainly negative.
The expectation is that development costs will get cheaper (model design solidifies), Training costs will get cheaper (no need to retrain the whole model) and running costs will get cheaper (datacenter economies of scale).
All this is still true.
OpenAI, anthropic, Google etc. will generate excessive by being able to charge more than cost because their models are vastly superior.
Is likely to be false.
Datacenter economies of scale do not seem to be panning out, 'cause they’re buying into a RAM cartel who knows they’re desperate.
Coreweave’s reports say that the GPUs are 85% of the cost of a data center, and that they’ll last 6 usable years. This isn’t like building a facility like TSMC, datacenters feel more like COGS than capital to me, and those aren’t businesses I would want anything to do with even if I didn’t think they were all run by conmen who are rapists or racists or both.
Are you americans ready for the bailout? Open your wallets wide!
I’ve worked in IT for close to 30 years and I’ve never met anyone with a good word to say about Oracle. I remember them being notorious for auditing their customers and nailing them to wall for even the slightest perceived infraction of their convoluted license agreements. I don’t understand how they still exist.
Broadcom support portal goes brrrrrr
Imagine failing this hard at your job and keeping it.
And I know his job is to keep the stock price high… but 28 percent growth over the last five years in tech is still failing at your job.
Besides the usual CEO shenanigans, they really want AI to succeed, to replace usually leftist intellectuals with a far-right AI.
I want cold fusion, cancer to be cured for 1 dollar, and flying ponies. But I know I’m not getting those.
They aren’t going to get true AI either.
Couldn’t happen to a better group of companies. Let them all beg for bailouts and be denied.
and be denied
Maybe under a sane leadership, certainly not now. Trump will give them a bailout and a shipping container full of “deported” teenagers.
Even Obama handed out bailouts like candy. No chance this admin doesn’t.
While I agree with the anti Oracle sentiment, that’s 21,000 employees that didn’t say they wanted AI BS. The suits and ceos that do this aren’t the ones that pay the price. It’s always the ordinary people like you and I.
I don’t think employees can really be separated from the company mission. They might not be the ones who benefit the most, but they still receive some benefit in exchange for producing the outcome.
People resign from roles on ideological grounds all the time.
We’re still throwing out morality platitudes on tech workers as we’ve watched since COVID as the tech sector at all levels has bled jobs, senior staff looking for positions for 2-3 years in some cases.
It’s impossible out there. I have moral objections to the way my company operates too but if I quit now my family will lose everything. I mean thankfully I’m not exactly crushing orphans in the orphan crushing machine but in a sane market I would look for something a little more aligned with my personal ideals. However just like buying a stick of RAM for a reasonable price, it just ain’t happening right now.
It depends on the level of your objection I guess.
“My family’s homeless but at least I’m not working for a corporation anymore”
“I chose a job that I find satisfying even though I could earn more if I sold out”
Yeah again this leaves out the “job I already have” vs “mythical better job that simply doesn’t exist right now” part
You’re still part of the corporate machine if you work at Walmart or McDonald’s, they won’t pay you enough to feed your family and I doubt the job is satisfying.
Like you do realise it was standard operating procedure in the US tech scene to apply for at least 400-500 jobs BEFORE the layoff craze that’s lasted years now, right?
It’s different in my country but it took me 3 whole months to find a new job when unemployed which was pretty bad compared to my previous experience. A bit later it took my friend a YEAR to get a new job. Now their boss is saying every engineer should be providing at least 3x value to customers using AI and they have no option but to stay at this job because nobody is hiring.
Start forcing users to use AI
lose staff
Fire staff so that AI can take over
lose staff
Find out AI can’t replace the users, get devalued
lose staffseems pretty toxic
My last day at a dumpster fire AI slop company is next week, and I can’t wait.
How are you feeling now?
Morally I feel I made the right decision, financially probably not but I’ll choose morals over cash any day.
Won’t know if I’ll stay in IT yet for a few months at this new job, or if I need to pivot harder
Last week we received the CPU (Critical Patch Update) for Oracle products, which is a list of strongly recommended patches. They issue 4 per year (end of January, April, July and October). ALL patches were late.
You think/Are you saying they’re late because of the layoffs? Or is that the norm for Oracle?
It’s a trend. Years ago there were no patches finished after the main document. Then, it started appearing, to the point that they created a section warning about late patches. It was ok, because probably 99% of their clients must be on top of Linux x86-64. So, these patches were always available in time. This time, not even this patch was available. It was delivered a day later. Others, are scheduled for a week later, and sometimes, they reschedule.
I don’t have inside information. I only see the trend.
Years ago, patching a database was a big task, basically having to rebuild the dictionary. Then, they automated and changed stuff and things got super simple. Suddenly everything went downhill, to the point that last time I had to patch the patch.
I thought they were doing this on purpose to push us to their cloud service, but layoffs are a much simpler explanation. Occam’s Razor.
Fire Larry and sell his stock and his yachts and you’ll be in the black again.
You’re missing the point here…
Why does Larry Ellison give me such crazy uncanny valley vibes?! Is his head too long? Moustache too narrow? Generally too smooth? It has fucked me up all day scrolling past this image.
Plastic surgery and fillers are supposed to give him a youthful appearance. Instead it makes him look like a fucking blow up sex doll.
I think his gotee and hair just look like absolute shit. Further proof nobody cares about him.
First time I saw him I thoughr he looked like John McAfee.
New incredibly niche conspiracy theory just dropped
