Data centers' 'oh s–t' moment

JohnMakin•22 minutes ago

It's been amazing to watch how tone-deaf these AI "thought leaders" and CEO's have been during this hype cycle.

"look, we made this thing that's going to put everyone out of work, or destroy 99% of the planet except those of us who have built bunkers, leveraged a massive bet on the entire economy over it, if we're wrong we get bailed out by YOU, and guess what, it's coming to a neighborhood near you!"

and they are surprised at the backlash or that people are tossing molotovs at them? It's just crazy to me the kind of bubble one must live in to not see this coming from a mile away.

skybrian•about 1 hour ago

Carbon taxes are a tough sell, but I bet a carbon tax specifically on data centers would pass.

xg15•about 1 hour ago

> Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is positioning himself as a positive voice on AI

Given Meta's (and also Mark's) reputation, I wonder how much that is helping the cause and how much its opponents...

panny•about 2 hours ago

In every good market crash, there's a flash point. In 2008, it was the Lehman Bros collapse and congress refusing the initial bailout. This might be the flashpoint, 75 data centers blocked this year and a supermajority of Americans against their construction.

skybrian•about 1 hour ago

If stopped before construction, the organizations funding the data centers still have the investment funds and can build in a different location or, worst case, give the money back to investors.

Assuming demand keeps up, owners of already-existing data centers continue to get windfall profits.

It would be like what happens when housing prices go up due to lack of supply.

tencentshill•27 minutes ago

People don't want them stopped entirely, they just want some kind of reasonable tradeoff or restrictions. The current government just doesn't care or listen at all. Just say "we hear you, here's what we are doing about your concerns" instead of silence or "fuck you, deal with it".

0cf8612b2e1e•36 minutes ago

Stopped in an election year. I suspect some politicians may change their minds come December.

theandrewbailey•about 1 hour ago

Here I was thinking it will be somewhere between next-generation Nvidia chips, and inability to get ROI before the end of relatively quick GPU depreciation schedules.

jdm2212•about 1 hour ago

Why would this cause a market crash? A supply crunch in AI will push prices up.

forshaper•about 1 hour ago

Curiously, Richard Fuld, who was the CEO/chairman of Lehman Brothers, now invests in datacenters.

jdm2212•about 1 hour ago

Him and literally everyone else with investable money.

digdugdirk•about 1 hour ago

So much of the current bubble is predicated on the hype train continuing on its current trajectory. If anything lags behind, the bubble deflates.

For one potential path - Less datacenter construction means less GPUs, so less $$$ for Nvidia, which means less for them to spread around to prop up the LLM industrial complex, which means lower valuations, which means OpenAI and Anthropic can't get their trillion dollar valuations, which means VC's race for the exit to cash out, etc, etc.

jdm2212•about 1 hour ago

What specifically is the bubble you're talking about? Like which asset is seeing a runaway increase in valuation detached from fundamental value?

Data centers' 'oh s–t' moment

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