The end of owned hardware. In the glorious future, you will rent your hardware and you will like it.

That makes sense, most LLMs are rented out, software could be next if RAM prices keep increasing 2x every 8 months

We're already in a shortage (of RAM). Price increases should be a motivator to increase production. This is the system working.

Will there be increase in production if the 3 companies that make the RAM decide they can profit more by keeping production mostly the same and flogging it for 10x the price of a couple of years ago to a few AI companies happy to burn cash?

The only hope is China spoils the party.

China spoiling the party is still the system working though. The price of ram is so high that it makes sense for new producers to start to exist. The fact that all the ram in the world comes from 3 suppliers is a big problem, and the high prices are a forcing function for solving that problem

> This is the system working.

Something one could say about a high fever being a sign of the immune system working. There are obvious temporary and permanent risks to how the system works, and there are limits beyond which everything simply breaks down. It's best not to have a fever at all.

> It's best not to have a fever at all.

Well put. Indeed non-free market solutions typically rely on some impossible conditions, in your comparison that would be "just don't get sick". But people will get sick. You can't just "not have a fever at all".

> "just don't get sick". But people will get sick. You can't just "not have a fever at all".

PPE, quarantining and other containment measures exist to broadly prevent sickness, but I imagine not in a universe that is about the free market at all costs, to strain the allegory further. If people keep getting sick with a recognizable pattern, someone ought to look into that, and prevent future outbreaks.

> PPE, quarantining and other containment measures exist to broadly prevent sickness

But people won't wear PPE and quarantine and do other containment measures (and not because of free market). Also PPE, quarantining and other containment measures are not perfect and probably will never be. So yeah, again naive, idealistic view that perfectly fits naive anti-free market narratives that require impossible conditions to work.

More like a global economic depression

We're in a pretty big bubble predicated on the idea that AI is going to have a lot more value than it actually will. Not that it's not going to be useful, it just isn't going to be the incredible force multiplier the market thinks it is. This speculation, gas prices, tariffs, etc. are going to result in a 2009-ish bubble pop I'm guessing which will be triggered by particularly bad private credit default news (perhaps a sizable bank failing?) and or some major news triggering the reevaluation of the AI hype poking at some systemic banking issue or another.

I'm not saying your wrong, and I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but when I read your comment, I uncontrollably began imagining I was reading one of those reader-submitted comments in a newspaper about the internet in the 90s. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, but I was somehow teleported to a future in which AI is ever-present in the same way the net is now and trying to reconcile your viewpoint, which was impossible.

Of course, my hallucination does not dismiss the possibility that we are in a bubble. Wasn't CSCO something like 200x PE during the dot com bubble? People see immense potential in an idea but don't know how to properly price it, and so we get what is seen as essentially infinite expected growth priced into companies and their products.

My $3k laptop has nearly the best components on the market right now. The problem is that it has a poor build (MSI) and is falling apart in a way that's not repairable. I looked into purchasing an equivalent-or-better laptop, and I couldn't find anything under $6 for essentially the same specs, and over $10k for a significant upgrade. Though I need my laptop for work, I decided just to ride it out till it's death.