Sam Altman:

A lot of people want local inference, and somehow they assume that the problem is solved now because we have open-source models, we’re going to be able to run them on our computers, and so we’re not going to need all the stuff in the data center.

But from a global allocation perspective, actually it’s quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM sitting in their own computer and being used five percent of the time.

Like you want maximum utilisation in the cloud if you’re trying to deal with this very supply-constrained environment,

And somehow many people’s intuition is the opposite of that

TL;DR Guy selling product: “Here’s why owning your own product instead of renting it from me is a terrible idea”

  • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    letting sam altman (or billionaires for that matter) have all the money from our work is a poor allocation of resources.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Sam Altman is an example of a terrible allocation of resources. Think of how much oxygen and dihydrogen monoxide he consumes? And for what? He just needlessly produces carbon dioxide in record amounts. The elementary particles that make up the sack of biotic matter that calls itself Samuel would be better suited for other applications. Agriculture comes to mind.

  • SparroHawc@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    And who made those resources scarce, Sam? WHO MADE THEM SCARCE???

    also screw you for trying to make the answer to ‘How should those resources be allocated?’ be ‘In the way that best enriches me personally’.

      • joeshmoe@infosec.pub
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        2 days ago

        I think it has to be with the way all the media channels ( controlled by the rich in power) essential brainwash people into not acting. Money and capitalism slowly corrupted the process of democracy and will see after Nov 3 if there is away to hold the rich in check.

  • weps@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    It’s true what he says and not just about RAM but about anything you own.

    My car isn’t driving most of the time. My drill isn’t drilling most of the time and my oven is off most of the time.

    That’s a huge waste of resources in a macro economic kind of way.

    You can’t argue with the correctness of his statement. You need other arguments. These arguments exist.

    • MoffKalast@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      See, the thing is though, all of these things are designed with some kind of running hours in mind. If a car is used more, it’ll wear our faster so it’s either using it a lot in a short time or less in a long time, its utility ends up being the same so there’s no direct gain from not letting it sit idle. That’s why passive robotaxis are a pretty dumb idea.

      But yes there are things that really only wear out from time spent existing. A pencil’s lifespan is purely defined from its use, a cast iron pan can pretty much be used indefinitely. Cars and drills are more like pencils imo. RAM might be more like a cast iron pan though, although trace erosion is still a thing.

      • weps@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        server hardware is definitely different from consumer hardware. same natural resources probably but built different.

      • weps@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I like the idea of collectively owning the computing power!

        Would be nice to be able to buy part of a datacenter instead of renting it.

        • Matty Roses@lemmy.librarysocialism.social
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          6 hours ago

          heh actually working on some stuff to support that as an offshoot of our Neighborgoods project - calling it Neighborcloud, with the idea that people can check out and use capacity like a library item. Including, hopefully, some AI model use.

          • weps@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            was talking to someone today about putting your idle computer up for “cloud inference” but he was thinking about how he doesn’t want to run his GPU too much because of wear and tear and ability to replace it

            expensive hardware is a problem in any case

    • sartalon@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Defending that an argument CAN be true in an extremely narrow subset is an example of a really stupid argument, and only highlights the stupidity of the original argument.

      • weps@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I didn’t mean to imply a narrow subset. Pretty much everything I own is idle and unused most of the time.

        I don’t think I understand what you’re saying, sorry.

    • Saledovil@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      You can’t argue with the correctness of his statement. You need other arguments. These arguments exist.

      Here’s a counterargument: The resources wouldn’t be scarce if his company didn’t buy all of it for exetremely questionable gain. (Three years into the bubble, and AI compute is still being sold at a subsidized rate. You’d think if enough genuine demand existed to justify the buildout, you’d have to pay dearly for any AI use.

  • iocase@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    Please don’t run AI for free on your own workstation 😭 it’s a very bad use of your computer 😥

  • melfie@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    McDonald’s can probably make hamburgers more efficiently than everyone can at home, but I’m not eating that shit any more than I’m giving Sam Altman my money or data.

    • TeaWithDani@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      McDonald’s does but its still more expensive than making hamburgers at home, why?

      Because profit motive is an inefficiency.

      Profit motive is also a misallocation of limited resources. Regular soup kitchens can feed hundreds of people at the cost of only a few dollars per portion. The only advantage they have is buying wholesale. Imagine spawning out of thin air a nonprofit with the vertical integration and logistics of McDonalds. How many people could it feed for next to nothing?

  • aramis87@fedia.io
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    3 days ago

    Funny how there weren’t any systemic supply issues until someone decided to buy up all the RAM …

  • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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    3 days ago

    Sam Altman is a terrible utilization of scarce resources.

    I want to use ram for things unrelated to AI you fucking prick.

  • The Bard in Green@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz
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    3 days ago

    A lot of people want to be billionaires, and somehow they assume the problem is solved because we have unfettered predatory late stage capitalism and oligarchy in America, we’re going to be able to amass as much money as we want in our bank accounts, and so we’re all going to be rich without oversight, accountability or government interference.

    But from a global allocation perspective, actually it’s quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world’s wealth sitting in a few private bank accounts and being used .05% of the time.

    Like you want maximum circulation of currency if you’re trying to reduce inequality in this artificial scarcity environment,

    And somehow, Americans’ intuitions are the opposite of that.

    FTFY Sam.

      • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
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        3 days ago

        Except that most of their “money” is parts of the company, it “works”. It only gets dangerous, if the economy is bad and people keep their (real) money, accelerating it further.

    • Glide@piefed.ca
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      3 days ago

      I was just going to leave it at “funny, I’d say the same thing about billionaires,” but this is more through.

    • degen@midwest.social
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      2 days ago

      Fighting so hard not to make an edit about raping sisters, but that might be too degenerate for me

  • bthest@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    “Raping your own siblings at home is terribly inefficient when we have private islands where we can keep and rape other people’s siblings.”

    • mefisdo_dot_info@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      “OpenRape automates your raping needs in efficient and industrialized format. Our rapecenters will be built around the country to support the growing number of rape requests. We train our rape agents on real life input (wars etc.). You can be sure they never go rogue (unless we prompt them to).”