With Bezos openly stating the goal to build 10 GW+ data-centers in space, it almost feels in question whether this is about ROI, or simply building the Neuromancer future where the ultra-rich can finally be free of their need for the rest of us. Not needing labor at all would be the final return on investment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45465480 https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/jeff-bezos-claims...

I'm not sure we should pay too much attention to what Bezos says now he's out of the day to day running of Amazon. It feels like a lot of his life choices now are more about being a megawealthy play boy than anything economically motivated

>With Bezos openly stating the goal to build 10 GW+ data-centers in space, it almost feels in question whether this is about ROI, or simply building the Neuromancer future where the ultra-rich can finally be free of their need for the rest of us. Not needing labor at all would be the final return on investment.

Why does "Not needing labor at all" need to be in space?

It's so the billions of disgruntled former workers can't storm the castle.

Still doesn't make sense. The PLA (largest army in the world) can't even capture Taiwan. If they wanted an impenetrable fortress a random island is all they need.

That's one of the most wrong statements I've seen on the internet today

The movie Elysium shows this ruling class in space, proletariat on Earth, scenario in very high fidelity. The movies itself is just OK, but the glimpse of this future is very well executed in the production design and special effects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)

It is folly to take these statements at their words.

Bezos is just saying shit to generate hype. All these executives are just saying shit. There is no plan. You must treat these people as morons who understand nothing.

Anyone who knows even the slightest details about datacenter design knows what moving heat is the biggest problem. This is the exact thing that being in space makes infinitely harder. "Datacenters in space" is an idea you come up with only if you are a moron who knows nothing about either datacenters or space.

If nothing else this is the singular reason you should treat AI as a bubble. All of the people at the helm of it have not a single fucking clue what they're talking about. They all keep running their mouth with utter nonsense like this.

Yes.

Billionaires are often being regarded as having extremely insightful ideas, in practice their fortunes was often built on a mix of luck, grits and competence in a few narrow fields, but their insights out of their domains tend to be average or worse.

Being too rich means you end up surrounded by sycophants.

>10 GW+ data-centers in space.

We are a long way from that. At least 10 years, probably never gonna happen.

> only mildly informative

I agree, but would like to maybe build out that theory. When we start talking about the mechanisms of the past we end up over-constricting the possibility space. There were a ton of different ways the dotcom bubble COULD have played out, and only one way it did. If we view the way it did as the only way it possibly could have, we'll almost certainly miss the way the next bubble will play out.

I’m concerned that the accounting differences mentioned between Lucent and Nvidia, Microsoft, OpenAI, Google just mean we have gotten much better at lying and misrepresenting things as true. Then the bubble pops and you get the real numbers and we are all like “yep it was the same thing all over again”.

Of course, CFOs are all very aware of what failed previously.

This time they have fiat money and government on their side. so that is also different.

It just means we're all going to be hurt by the collapse, not just investors. In line with socialized loses, privatized profits.

That is also true :)