The big LLM corporations are spreading a lot of misinformation regarding the upcoming end of the world. If you are old like me, this isn’t the first time you’ve lived through the end of the world and I assure you this isn’t the last. Former “scientists” claiming that they worked for “xcorpo” and that their sentient machines are planning our doom.
No. No they aren’t.
So lets talk about all the issues at once and try to shut this conversation down before we start having to deal with unnecessary regulation that halts any real progress by “the little guys.” Because, and lets be real, that’s what the real issue is. Opensource and independent developers pose a threat to corporations and their potential profits.
The conversation hides a few other issues that I’ll get to in a bit. Big LLM wants you to believe that they are proceeding at alarming rates. That regulation is needed to prevent an event that could cause sentient computers to ravage all life as we know it. Have you used their LLMs? We are in more danger of having your toaster decide to turn your breakfast into a projectile weapon of crumb destruction. Yes, that’s right. Your toaster is more of a threat and I don’t see mass panic to rid every home of it.
What do I mean ? LLMs use prompts to converse turn based. Think like an old RPG where you have to wait your turn. There are ways to circumvent this limit using interrupts or adding a script that makes an LLM appear as though it’s “alive” when in reality it’s being prompted behind the scenes. We can use scripts to combine vision, audio, system, etc, data together to make an LLM seem human, but in reality it’s a lot less complex than that. Looking at the alarmists who are claiming their LLM is alive and sentient. No. It’s not… there’s nothing out there that matches a brain and that’s not a dis to LLMs, but more of a limitation of hardware and the knowledge of how sentience even works.
As far as a rouge AI killing all humans within the next “6 months” as some of the fringe “scientists” claim.. no. Just no. What is really happening is that certain groups are looking to limit newcomers into the field by using political connections to create regulations that aren’t necessary. They will not feel the regulation as much as a new project. Opensource projects and individual groups with their own idea of how to make what may one day become an AI are at risk of being regulated out of existence. That means the big LLM groups win by default and we are all the losers.
While this is all happening there is another set of issues that are all correlated to some extent. The resource battle.
I’ll start with water and datacenters. These groups want us to believe that their large water needs are more important than the needs of the people. Draining potable water to use for cooling whether it’s evaporative or closed loop. Thing is there’s a lot of these centers and every day it seems like another is being planned. DURING A CLEAN WATER CRISIS IN THE UNITED STATES. Unless we collectively agree to stop drinking, eating and existing, we should be prioritizing alternative cooling methods. You might be thinking “but heat is the enemy of machines” and yes that is true.. but we’ve had other cooling methods and brilliant engineers figure this out long ago. Water is just cheaper and easier to plan out. . . short term. Water will become expensive. Especially as more oligarchs push the narrative of “potable water is not a right.”
So how do I cool a system without water? With this handy fluid we call AIR. I know it’s strange as we got so accustomed to benchmarks that don’t show real world scenarios… but that radiator on your AIO still has to exchange heat with air… all we are suggesting is that we skip that step and plan AC/Exhaust route a bit smarter…
Speaking of being smart and resources, the RAM crisis… Lets say the largest chip market gets two new supply chains that not only handles their market, but offsets 10% of a neighboring country. Now lets say that those two suppliers just knocked 25% of the demand off the market indefinitely. You’d think the components that relied on said chips would go down in cost right? Yeah, I made that bad assumption too.
Despite the cost of manufacturing going down, the available chips becoming more readily available, the biggest producer of GPUs for gaming, AI, and workstation use has only increased their prices. For example the RTX5090 had an MSRP of almost $1,200, but is currently selling for $6,000-12,000 as of writing this. Meanwhile their profitability has increased leaving those of us who paid attention scratching their heads as to why.
Components that aren’t affected by the RAM crisis has also tripled while manufacturers claim “it’s because of the shortage.” I’m sorry, but tripling the cost of a PC or Server case has nothing to do with RAM cost. Surprisingly the only component that hasn’t lost it’s mind, is CPU pricing. During my Nova upgrade, I was expecting to be absolutely destroyed by the cost of a new CPU only to see that I’ve actually paid less than my old CPU. I’d be happy about that, however everything else including decent fans have more than doubled since my last build. Not forgetting DDR5 which has added a decimal point since the last time I purchased it.
It reminds me of when a certain oligarch said we would all be renting computers in the near future and nobody would bother buying them… yeah, because you and the other big groups are intentionally pricing everyone else out. Not because the market wants it.
I know I said a lot, but here’s the short recap. No AI is not the issue. It’s four guys pretending that their product is the end all be all and that they deserve all the resources to sell back to you as a subscription.
So what should you the consumer/ AI enthusiast/ PC Gamer should do?
- Well for one try not to buy that high end GPU if you can avoid it. Especially not from a scalper. RAM as well..
- Look into alternate cooling solutions and come up with your own best setup.
- Get your own solar panels and offset your power usage. This matters a lot more than either side of the political spectrum will say. Even if you don’t care about the planet electricity is only going to get more expensive and our grid in the US is not as good as your representative wants you to believe it is. In my area where we are considered to have one of the better grids, most of the components haven’t been replaced since the 1970s. We rely heavily on UPC units to prevent brownouts from the constant fluctuations that our local power company assures us is “not their responsibility.”
- Contact your reps to try and block or put a moratorium on data centers. Also remind them that regulating something due to a theoretical impossibility is.. dangerously underinformed and stops competition in a free market.
- Sit tight… this bubble has to pop and it’s going to hurt.