Is there any evidence that we're short on compute for the AI demand? My impression was that many data centers were being planned to serve hypothetical future demand (with the assumptions that it'll multiply many more times while also not becoming much more efficient) and to facilitate model training, neither of which has much to do with the argument you're making.

For my part, I’m not looking to run models locally. I just want the price of ereaders not to double overnight.

So then set up a factory? Weird to say "everyone else should stop using X because I want it to be cheaper".

What a strange thing to say when the bulk of consumers are frustrated by a monopsonistic situation.

It’s not quite that simple. A few small companies are speculatively buying up all the production capacity going on into the future. At the same time they aren’t actually using it all; a bunch is juat sitting in warehouses not doing anybody any good. And there are real questions about whether this represents any sort of consumer demand, or if it’s primarily fueled by billionaires’ desire to lay off all their workers and replace them with chatbots.

So we’ve got rent seeking behavior squeezing everyday people on both sides, and if anyone says, “hey, I don’t like how this is going”, your answer is to say, “So then set up a factory?”

That’s so tone deaf it makes “let them eat cake” sound downright empathetic by comparison.

> At the same time they aren’t actually using it all; a bunch is juat sitting in warehouses not doing anybody any good

Is there any source for this beyond online clickbait? I find it hard to believe that RAM is piling up in warehouses while simultaneously every AI company and every consumer is desperate for it.

That desperation narrative is illusory. Consumer demand is low and has been ever since this stuff stopped being a free fun novelty. And the only people who seem to be claiming AI demand is through the roof are the datacenter operators and frontier model vendors. But claiming high demand for your own products has been a standard part of the pitchman’s playbook for so long that we now have a term for people who will readily believe that sort of thing: “easy mark.”

So let’s not be easy marks. Let’s be a bit skeptical and look for some corroborating evidence. One obvious place is to check whether the AI market actually behaves like what we expect to see when demand outstrips supply. First and foremost, we would expect to see rapidly rising prices and very high profits for suppliers.

But we don’t see that. Anthropic and OpenAI are very much competing on price. Which, funny, is the opposite of what you would expect of companies that are supposedly struggling to keep up with demand. And apparently razor thin if not negative profit margins, too. Why is that? If demand is so high, then why are they keeping their prices so low it hurts? They aren’t running a charity here.

How about you set up factories to cover the demand for your hobby, and stop draining the economy when people are already struggling?