The anti-AI thread

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marees

marees

Platinum Member
Apr 28, 2024
2,212
2,857
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the Gospel According To Jensen ??

The AI era is one of mythology, where billions in GPUs are bought to create supply for imaginary demand, where software is sold based on things it cannot reliably do, where companies that burn billions of dollars are rewarded with glitzy headlines and not an ounce of cynicism, and where those that have pushed back against it have been treated with more skepticism and ire than those who would benefit the most from the propagation of propaganda and outright lies.​
​
So today I'm giving you Mythbusters — AI Edition. This is the spiritual successor to How To Argue With An AI Booster, where I address the technical, financial and philosophical myths that underpin the endless sales of GPUs and ever-increasing valuation of OpenAI.​

 
dullard

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
26,189
4,855
126
marees said:
the current wave of AI hype doesn't seem likely it will die down any time soon. Once any existing consumer tech supplies dwindle for any manufacturer, products like Xbox and PlayStation consoles, television sets, laptops, and more, could start to see serious price increases over time. The volatility between AI demand and tariffs is why we didn't get the Xbox Ally prices until the very last minute, and why we still don't have the Steam Machine prices either.

OpenAI and others are being given massive loans and subsidies (often paid for by taxpayers) and require absolutely enormous quantities of electricity, processing, and also memory capacity. Backed by nation states and the full force of Wall Street hype, manufacturers of consumer-grade goods like laptops, video game consoles, and TVs typically already endure thin margins — they cannot outbid the likes of OpenAI on data center component purchasing.
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And that has started to happen. Memory prices are roughly double to triple what they were when you posted this. CPUs are selling like mad--every one that is made is gobbled up. Computer manufacturers are announcing major price hikes. https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/is-the-cost-of-ram-going-up-everywhere.2632528/post-41545942

If anyone here needs a computer, or is even considering one, you better act fast.
 
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Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
71,164
14,017
126
www.anyf.ca
Ram and hard drive prices are insane right now. I'm glad I am not really planing to build. Been kinda looking at it but nothing really planned.

Just glad I did my Proxmox upgrade when I did. I'm set for a while now.

I could really use more disk space though, but these prices are just crazy. I had setup a spreadsheet of various listings so I can compare price per TB and when I revisit the links they all went up in price.
 
dullard

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
26,189
4,855
126
nakedfrog said:
I don't need quite that much, fortunately, the outgoing one had 16GB and I'm stepping up to 32GB. If that ends up not being enough for a project I probably need to slap myself in the face and ask me just what it is I think I'm doing.
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Yea, not many people need 128 GB of laptop RAM. Desktop I could see occasionally. But laptop?

I bought my wife a desktop with 32 GB this week and she had her mother buy the same thing (both a little overkill for memory but with no chance for upgrades any time soon, just took the plunge). Both computers were over a dozen years old. So who knows how much longer they'd limp along. I wanted to wait for new CPUs announced in a few weeks. But, not with prices like this. We grabbed them right before they skyrocket in price.
 
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dullard

dullard

Elite Member
May 21, 2001
26,189
4,855
126
Kaido said:
Man have you opened Chrome lately tho :p
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True, Chrome is a memory hog. Roughly 300 MB per tab. But, I've learned to use Chrome's Grouped History to instantly take me to any previous tab grouping -- no need to keep more than a few tabs open at a time.
 
allisolm

allisolm

Elite Member
Administrator
Jan 2, 2001
25,362
5,064
136
Am currently reading Michael Connelly's The Proving GroundL: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel published in October 2025 in which Haller brings a civil suit against an AI company which created an AI chatbot which allegedly encouraged a young teenager to murder his ex-girlfriend. Haller has been hired by the parents of the dead girl to sue because they want the company to take responsibility, apologize, and take steps to fix it so that never happens again. Connelly delves into the ethics and possible dangers of unregulated artificial intelligence.

Haven't finished it yet so I don't know the outcome, but am glad someone is putting the ideas and possible solutions out there in a different, non techy way that more of us can understand.
 
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mikeymikec

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
21,470
16,699
136
Kaido said:
Spot the AI:

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The swooping visual effects every other second bugged me; it made it difficult to look at each scene in detail, but the first scene at the airport, his suitcase had a stronk, his closed hand is glowing like he has superpowers, and the folds near his trouser pocket were strange. His hand gesture while looking the other way wasn't natural IMO, I haven't given this much consideration but I'd say that if someone is having a conversation and they make a gesture to express their feelings, the hand making the gesture is in their field of view.

The lady in the coffee shop - what's with her earring? The dried flowers look a bit strange and her typing is not natural, but overall I think there's a few tricks going on to mask AI: The fast scene changes and the blurring of a lot of the view, for example. It's too tedious to go through all the depicted scenes, and there's times when say I can't see the builder's thumb and I'm thinking could that be because it's simply out of shot, or those clothes wrinkles don't look right, then I'm thinking that the amount of weird shit you see in the real world that you don't question because you know it is real... when was the last time you scrutinised all kinds of trouser wrinkles in all leg configurations?
 
Red Squirrel

Red Squirrel

No Lifer
May 24, 2003
71,164
14,017
126
www.anyf.ca
Was curious to see what DDR4 prices were like here in Canada and wow it's really bad.

Screenshot from 2025-12-21 06-22-23.png

Almost exactly a year ago I bought 4 x 32GB sticks of DDR4 on Ebay for my Proxmox cluster upgrade and the total was $185 with shipping, tax and everything.
 
Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
52,214
7,550
136

Both the auction prices and the lawsuit reflect a growing dynamic in the region, which is home to the world’s largest cluster of data centers — in Virginia — and more being added in other states including Ohio and Maryland. Data centers are consuming far more power than currently exists on the grid, driving prices higher amid a scramble to own the rights to future power.

“I expect the supply scarcity will last a few more years and that most of the 65 million people in the region will be paying higher bills for that long,” said Rob Gramlich, CEO of consulting firm Grid Strategies LLC. “It is a shame that states and PJM failed to insulate consumers from volatile power markets.”

PJM acknowledged the drastic imbalance between electricity supply and demand. Already in the past two years, prices have jumped more than 1,000%.

“This auction leaves no doubt that data centers’ demand for electricity continues to far outstrip new supply,” Stu Bresler, PJM’s incoming chief operating officer, said in a statement, adding that “the solution will require concerted action involving PJM, its stakeholders, state and federal partners, and the data center industry itself.”
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1766426644444.png
 
biostud

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
20,140
7,256
136

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Kaido

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
52,214
7,550
136
nakedfrog said:
Wow, this seems like a shockingly low visit count for that level of payout in 2025.
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I can't imagine that's correct. That'd be like $30,000 for a million page visits. Even top food blogger sites with branded partnerships don't usually get that much (several publish their numbers in detail for transparency). Youtube's average payout is ~$5k per million views.

It's a chicken-and-egg problem:

1. AI can now create real-looking videos
2. Everyone on the planet now has low-cost access to these tools, regardless of region, age, home computing horsepower, and skill
3. There are essentially zero consequences for fooling people online

Domains are $10 a year. You can press a button to make a Wordpress multi-site with hundreds of sites. Social media manager software suites let you run a zillion accounts. This is the next generation of AI slop, trust erosion, and dead Internet theory. As the article mentions, companies like Pinterest aren't highly motivated to fight it because they're in the "endless scrolling for ads" business.

Yuck.
 
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