What an absurd amount of money - if only this was invested in energy sector scientific research and development, or healthcare or anything else practical.
I really hoped to see compact molten salt nuclear reactors in operation before 2030.
Love this for them.
- Softbank's motto
Haven’t you heard? AGI is going to solve every problem for us!!!
I don't understand how this is the top comment. LLMs have unlocked a lot of value for me personally, and arguably for the society as a whole. They are also one of the coolest technologies I've tried in years. As a technologist, I'm really glad that money is pouring in and allowing us to find its limits.
I know it's unrealistic, but imagine you took $30b and just started ploughing into a random city. Real estate, development grants, EV charging infra, renewable projects, transit. Just boring existing technology, but concentrated investment to make the other investments more valuable. You could turn that $30b into $60b in a few years while changing the lives of an entire city.
But American capital says no, and gambles it, because it's just a game to the people in charge.
Money is responsibility. While I pinch my pennies and show up to my day job, the people with the keys throw billions on an oil fire hoping it magically turns into gold.
The second part doesn't follow from the first which, in turn, is irrelevant here because we aren't talking about any value for society, we're trying to figure out if that value is greater than its opportunity cost.
The "AI" has been with us for several years now but it hasn't improved overall productivity in any meaningful way and while it's use is already plateauing it keeps sucking in capital like a giant black hole.
> As a technologist, I'm really glad that money is pouring in and allowing us to find its limits.
That's not a good thing when it happens at the expense of the rest of society.
It's only natural that workers at NVIDIA and other suppliers of AI-related products would like the gravy train to travel their way in perpetuity, but they are literally wasting capital, which isn't theirs, for their own enrichment, while creating inflation, shortages and misallocations on a grand scale.
Given their competition consists of the largest tech companies in the world, several of which are vertically-integrated, have advanced AI research programs, and own the last hardware mile to the customer...
OpenAI better hope it can maintain a performance lead, while being able to run inference cheaper than its competitors, while also launching a must-have device it controls (AR/audio glasses?).
Incidentally that’s how much SoftBank lost on WeWork.
Imagine doing what was effectively fraud, building a cult around you, everything going completely to the fan, and then the team you defrauded turns around and gives you a billion dollars.
And then, you get Marc Andreesen to write you a $350 million check not too long after.
xAI already brings gas turbines on-site, and i think the trend of on-site energy generation will grow, which will open opportunity (by providing well finaned demand) for compact/mobile/safer nuclear, and BigTech companies are among the best for any new tech development. I expect nuclear engineer positions get opened with Google and the likes :)
Provided they keep cost growth slower than revenue and don't get disrupted by another model provider/commodification etc.
I hope that’s “real” revenue and not the cyclic quid pro quo that seems to be propping the whole thing up.
For average people the global competitors are putting up near identical services at 1/10th the cost. Anthropic and Google and OpenAI may have a corporate sales advantage about their security and domestic alignment, or being 5% better at some specific task but the populace at large isn't going to cough up $25 for that difference. Beyond the first month or two of the novelty phase it's not apparent the average person is willing to pay for AI services at all.
You can squeeze 25 USD/month of all US people on average, and claim the US government gives you "free AI".
And Ethiopia couldn't get US$5 billion loan for a dam to service 60 million people.
The world is sick.
I suggest you stop viewing the actions of multi billion dollar multinational corporations as anything similar to individual action.
https://www.reuters.com/business/softbanks-wework-once-most-...
https://companiesmarketcap.com/softbank/earnings/
Either way, seems like enough of their bets work out, so far.
https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/09/19/softbanks-alibaba-al...
We should all care how resources are used, even if don't own them. That investment is going to make things more expensive for everyone. See RAM, SSD, and GPU prices.