> Sam Altman's argument about RAM utilization is reasonable on a first pass
How so? It's obviously self-serving.
How so? It's obviously self-serving.
From a pure efficiency point of view it makes sense to have all our resources pooled and used by whoever needs them at the time. So long as there is always enough to go around, and all the benefits of local computing are kept (though how that works practically if your internet goes offline I don't know) then theoretically, home computers are suboptimal.
But that argument isn't really based on reality. Privacy, offline access, access when you need it, cost... the list goes on. There's many reasons he's wrong, but the core point that it is technically more efficient in the perfect world seems sound.
It's not "sound", because when do we ever have the perfect world? Instead we have a world controlled by self-serving billionaires like Altman. The perfect world is a red herring.
If you're ever tempted to grant the benefit of the doubt to our tech overlords, please read "Careless People" for example.
I find it odd that you're going out of your way to defend an argument as "reasonable" that by your own admission "isn't really based on reality." I think it's actually more charitable to Altman's intelligence to interpret his argument as self-serving than to interpret his argument as somehow just ignorant.
Will that world ever exist? Probably not due to human nature. Still an interesting thought, even if Altman wants to control said compute or not.
Just to be super clear so you understand my comment: I do NOT agree that Altman should have any control over compute and storage. And neither should it be the only way to use compute and storage.
No? Please explain, step by step, how my logic leads to that conclusion.
We obviously need highways, in an imperfect world, regardless of leadership. We don't obviously need to give our RAM to AI vendors. I don't even want to use AI at all, so that would be of no benefit whatsoever to me. And I think that AI is just dumbing down the public. Altman is pretending it's for the public benefit. That's the tall tale told by all the tech overlords. Yesterday John Ternus said "everything we do at Apple is for our users" while crowing about record revenue to stock market analysts. 48% company gross margin!
I don't find issues with your logic from my attempted position of objectivity as a third-party observer.
> Just to be super clear so you understand my comment: I do NOT agree that Altman should have any control over compute and storage. And neither should it be the only way to use compute and storage.
Yet you reply with:
> We don't obviously need to give our RAM to AI vendors.
I don't see the point in continuing this discussion. At least you've proved that you're a human, the LLMs today are better at following a conversation.
What you don't appear to understand is that I was pointing out a disanalogy between the RAM argument and the highways argument, to show that the absurd conclusion you claimed follows from my logic does not actually follow from my logic. When I said, "We don't obviously need to give our RAM to AI vendors," the purpose was not to suggest that you believe we do but rather to contrast with "We obviously need highways."
Let me put it another way: a lot of people think we should build highways, not just Hitler. ;-) In contrast, Sam Altman is the only person who thinks we should dedicate our RAM to data centers. That's why Altman's financial conflict of interest is crucial here. We shouldn't give Altman or Hitler the benefit of the doubt, but we don't even need Hitler to convince people to build highways. Whereas the only reason people are even debating this stupid RAM idea is because Altman suggested it.
You're right that there's no point in continuing this conversation, because you've already violated the HN guidelines and insulted my intelligence, with no justification. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Then you don't understand the point of OP. You're arguing with a straw man.
> you've already violated the HN guidelines and insulted my intelligence
No, your attention span, Make an effort to understand what I'm saying instead of starting a flame-war, also against the guidelines.
But if a blowhard wealthy silicon valley techno-autist does it its just the way of the world. "Don't hate the player, hate the game"