If we didn’t have RAM in our phones and PC’s, how would we use the data centers?
It’s almost as if Sam Altman is a moron.
Also a lot of the hardware for data centers is just laying around unused, because the data centers aren’t even built.He’s referring specifically to local RAM used to run local AI models, whichl he argues is unused most of time. Say if you use your local AI for 4 hours a day, it’s idle for 20. Where the same model in a cloud might serve users across time zones 24/7.
It’s a similar argument about private car ownership, where a car might be used 5% of the day for a lot of people while 95% of the time it requires storage space, aka a parking spot somewhere.
The argument makes sebse for some things but not for others.
Take water bottles. Or mugs. Having 15 of them collecting dust in a drawer is suboptimal. Therefore no one should own one and rent it from a muglord.
There’s a balance to be found, and I’d say RAM is more of a commodity than cars are. The fact it’s not 99.999% utilized, unlike a certain someone’s wishes is a feature of life and not a bug of capitalism not yet being post late stage.
You can’t just have RAM sitting idle in your PC, you peasant. You use it, when you’re done with your pc, you take that RAM and give it to Sam. Next time you go buy another RAM and turn on your pc. Rinse and repeat. That didn’t make sense? Yeah, that’s how Sam’s argument sounded to me.
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The RAM on your computer or phone has a limited number of cycles in its life. No one would want their car be driven while they aren’t using it, or strangers in their home while they are away. So Sam Altman can fuck off if he thinks he is entitled to use the processing in my phone or computer while I’m not using them
Um, I would absolutely let people drive my car if it was guaranteed to be back before I needed it? What?
The difference is that OpenAI isn’t offering a benevolent cooperative where they share the value evenly, they’re trying to corner the market to extract maximum profit.
That argument does make some sense but of course he’s making it purely out of self-interest. It would be interesting to have some kind of open-source distributed system where you can share your compute when you’re not using it. But that’s not what he’s proposing.
OK thanks for the explanation. Still having it not used at all, because the data center isn’t build yet is worse. Also calling it “everybody” is weird. Unless he means phone and PC, and the very specialized AI run on such systems do not require extra RAM.
So he remains a selfish moron.
Companies running their own decentralized AI models on their own servers are the competition. Whining about the competition is also moronic.Yes, memory prices are affecting a lot more than people who want to run local models on high-memory desktops. That’s a small minority compared to all computer uses affected by the memory prices.
You don’t use local LLMs the whole time your computer is on. Still, there is no such thing as “wasted RAM”. The RAM programs aren’t “using” is used by the OS as cache.
MacOS RAM utilization though
Almost?
Yes, it’s meant as sarcasm, because he is obviously a moron.
Sarcasm?
Hey, how are they going to guarantee a natural gas crisis and ramp up of demand (aka, profit for the oil Barrons) without this demand bubble making it to all the political donor classes assets?
I think this argument would make more sense if data centers were nationalized. Not saying thats a good idea either, but the me vs you argument is much less powerful than me vs us.
“Don’t think too hard. Give me all the money, all the GPUs, all the RAM. Or else, you risk angering all-powerful AI.” Everytime, I think I have failed in life, I just think about the tech-bros CEOs and I get a semblence of peace that I maybe a failure, but in the current tech world, this is what success is like, being in a cult, all mental faculties turned off.
It’s also a shame that he gets some of the air we all need, but here we are.
Oh fuck you buddy
Internet CEO Me says its “terrible to have datacenters have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM” instead of shoving it all to everybody
He might have something resembling a point if he were running a nonprofit.
Maybe if it was a publicly owned utility then sure. I wouldn’t even trust a non profit here.
Seize the RAM of production?
As Cory Doctorow says: we must seize the means of computation.
Is this because he’s one of those techno cult weirdos that thinks it’s ethically wrong to do anything to impede ai progress because it’ll anger the future omnipotent/omniscient general ai entity we create and they’ll destroy us?
It’s probably just because “we want all the money, you shouldn’t have any”. But even if it’s the first thing it’s mighty convenient that that view benefits him financially
I don’t think Saltman has any moral beliefs that persist from one conversation to the next. He’s like an LLM himself in that way.
Consistent with his anti-open weight model stance
