Canals were at least solving a problem that actually existed and needed solving at the time when they were started. AI data centres are being built in anticipation of future demand, for use cases that haven’t been developed yet.
That’s not accurate from my understanding. I quit my SDE job in December, but my former coworkers say they use AI pretty much all day and find it useful. Ofc, the company’s systems were an indecipherable mess, mostly because of rushed choices those same people made everyday, but neither here nor there. This is why tech companies are cutting jobs.
Whether any of this is sustainable remains to be seen, but there are current use cases and real demand for “AI” data centers.
Current tech layoffs are mostly a result of over hiring during the pandemic. Blaming AI is just the sales pitch to investors try to prove that the AI spending was worth it.
Maybe. There were rounds of layoffs a couple years ago where companies used COVID over employment as the rationale. I think four years removed that rationale is a bit of a stretch.
I think it’s also possible that the looming recession is a cause, but they can’t say that out loud for fear of offending the Crybaby in Chief.
And if AI is working properly these “innovative” tech companies shouldn’t really need to fire anyone, right? All their bright employees should just be able to use AI to generate value for their respective companies.
Idk the answer, but I can say that I personally know high-performing engineers who swear by it. I mostly found it useful as a rubber duck, or to quickly tear down some code in a language with which I’m not acquainted.
I actively try to avoid AI for moral reasons, but I have found it useful for certain tasks. It’s not a panacea, but it’s also not useless.
A few years ago with ARM arriving at the data centers I envisioned there would be a day that density would go up and new data centers would be less in demand. I’m either too early or wrong.
In economics, the Jevons paradox, or Jevons effect, is said to occur when technological improvements that increase the efficiency of a resource’s use lead to a rise, rather than a fall, in total consumption of that resource.
Unfortunately using less of a good thing isn’t how we do things.
I’m thinking you might have been wrong. Even without AI, I don’t foresee demand for compute going down. Even if everything went over to ARM, I think that would have just slowed the rate of new builds.
Canals were at least solving a problem that actually existed and needed solving at the time when they were started. AI data centres are being built in anticipation of future demand, for use cases that haven’t been developed yet.
That’s not accurate from my understanding. I quit my SDE job in December, but my former coworkers say they use AI pretty much all day and find it useful. Ofc, the company’s systems were an indecipherable mess, mostly because of rushed choices those same people made everyday, but neither here nor there. This is why tech companies are cutting jobs.
Whether any of this is sustainable remains to be seen, but there are current use cases and real demand for “AI” data centers.
Current tech layoffs are mostly a result of over hiring during the pandemic. Blaming AI is just the sales pitch to investors try to prove that the AI spending was worth it.
Maybe. There were rounds of layoffs a couple years ago where companies used COVID over employment as the rationale. I think four years removed that rationale is a bit of a stretch.
I think it’s also possible that the looming recession is a cause, but they can’t say that out loud for fear of offending the Crybaby in Chief.
And if AI is working properly these “innovative” tech companies shouldn’t really need to fire anyone, right? All their bright employees should just be able to use AI to generate value for their respective companies.
Idk the answer, but I can say that I personally know high-performing engineers who swear by it. I mostly found it useful as a rubber duck, or to quickly tear down some code in a language with which I’m not acquainted.
I actively try to avoid AI for moral reasons, but I have found it useful for certain tasks. It’s not a panacea, but it’s also not useless.
I believe that they use it all day. I believe that they say they find it useful.
I also believe that their bosses gave them a productivity slot machine and told them if they don’t play it they’re fired.
So some of them like it for bad reasons, and some of them have to pretend to like it.
A few years ago with ARM arriving at the data centers I envisioned there would be a day that density would go up and new data centers would be less in demand. I’m either too early or wrong.
Unfortunately using less of a good thing isn’t how we do things.
I’m thinking you might have been wrong. Even without AI, I don’t foresee demand for compute going down. Even if everything went over to ARM, I think that would have just slowed the rate of new builds.
We will never need less processing though even if AI goes away.