1133
days of future past
(thelemmy.club)
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
So AI data centers will be replaced by an even more polluting alternative? Don't get me wrong, I love trains but they are more polluting then a mule drawn barge on a canal. And the pattern continues with trains being replaced by even more carbon intensive cars and planes.
Idk what the message is supposed to be here, should we enjoy the good times when we only have to deal with these milder data centers? Or should we stop them now so we don't develop the next generation of data centers, ie. Sabotage the canals so we don't get trains?
Did you know that when you make an analogy of Thing X to Thing Y, not every aspect of Thing X can be identical to that of Thing Y, otherwise it stops being an analogy and becomes just describing the same thing
Right now, data centers are in a boom phase. Everyone wants in, everyone wants to make a buck.
There's a good chance a massive scale back, much like that of the dot com bubble, will leave many holding the bag and a lot of unfinished or unused data centers
It's not a 1:1 with canals, but moreover the dot com era imo, but it works.
Trains as electric and extremely efficient at moving people and cargo.
The message seems to be that there are going to be a ton of half-finished data centers when the next big thing comes along.
Hopefully that means a flash sale on large warehouse buildings in the future
I wish they'd be turned into skate parks and paintball arenas.
They'll probably be turned into concentration camps.
Free housing for the homeless.
...or concentrate camps
A roller rink but like 5 times the size would be awesome!
Trains? What are you talking about. Country is full of rarely-stopped-at train stations. Cars are the future!
The message is that AI will last only for as long as it takes for rich idiots to find a new fad.
Yeah, every bubble will be followed by adjustments. In my case, the town west of me has three rarely used village train stops. There’s a proposal to close them all in favor of a large park and ride at the edge of my town. That’ll make three heavily used stops for us and that other town can go fck itself (wealthy town, no highways, no buses, don’t use trains, no affordable housing)
When the datacenters go bust, we do t have much land so it’ll be bulldozed for office buildings
I wouldn't call canals or railroads fads though. Canals were the main route of inland transportation for a half century and railroads were for a century.
They were transformative infrastructure that laid the groundwork for later forms of infrastructure. Either AI isn't that and this analogy falls apart or AI is that and we should be worried about whatever it's laying the groundwork for.