• queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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    16 hours ago

    The most optimistic take I’ve seen: AI is a drain on the entire economy that sucks up all investment and this is why the rest of the economy is basically in a recession. Once the bubble pops, investors will flood back into the real economy and correct the problem.

    I’m not optimistic.

    • jabberwock@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 hours ago

      I’ll play devil’s advocate here: agreed that the rest of the (US) economy seems to be slowing or shrinking but remains buoyed by AI / Mag 7 stocks. That said, a lot of the investment reflected above is in data centers and hardware (Nvidia, Coreweave, Oracle, Microsoft).

      The bubble pop will hinge on whether there is value in this data center buildup beyond AI. Unless everyone starts paying fistfulls of cash for AI chat, these companies may be able to find another use for all that compute and avoid a total crash. That could be a target for all that investment you mention.

      • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        The hardware is specialized for chatbots, it’s not just something they can plug-and-play for other use cases. That means using it for other computing tasks is even less efficient per kWh and per litre of water, which will make it hard to justify the resource requirements.

        Surely some of this hardware can find new life, but assets will be stranded.

      • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        The way to make a big dent in that is to tax unused housing, with peogressivwly increasing amounts as they continue unoccupied. And limit or outright deny ownership by companies and investment firms.

        We have more than enough housing for everyone, but a large portion of it sits unused. In many cases only because no one will/can pay what some of these companies are demanding monthly for them.