Remote

arrbee

@rogerb@mastodon.scot

mastodon 4.7.2

Retired after 45 years writing code, some of which worked.

7 Followers

17 Following

28 Posts

Joined April 23, 2023

arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@KatCopseyGreens@mastodon.social Recent estimate (from the NVIDIA boss) for the cost of a 1GW AI datacentre is now USD 100 billion. More than half of this is for computer hardware which has a lifetime of about 3 years. In the US datacentre builders sign up large customers and then get finance for the 2 to 3 year build based on these contracts. 90% of the total capacity will end up being used by OpenAI or Anthropic, neither of which have any path to profitability. Its a land grab.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 8mo ago

Boosted by @cstross@wandering.shop

Replying to

@angusm@mastodon.social @cstross@wandering.shop I suspect the real real Brexiters won't be happy until the UK is a vassal state of the USA - although I suspect we would end up with the same status as Puerto Rico.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 3mo ago

@StevenLawsonPhotography@mastoart.social
90% of the total market for AI data centres is limited to 2 companies, OpenAI and Anthropic, neither of which show sign of ever generating a return on the 100s of billions invested in these centres. A rough cost estimate is £40 million per MWh of power consumption, with 3/4 of this spent on computer hardware that lasts about 3 years.
It is likely that most of the centres now being built in the US will never recover their up-front costs.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 2mo ago

I just came across something I didn't know ( I don't follow the financial press so must have missed the announcement ).
The US Mastercard corporation owns the company that operates much of the UK’s core payments infrastructure, including Bacs, Faster Payments and LINK.
So much for digital sovereignty.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@StevenLawsonPhotography@mastoart.social Indeed, but I think it is also important to demand that should this go ahead then any agreement must guarantee that the land will be returned to previous ownership period if the data centre has not been fully commisioned and gone live within a fixed period. As mentioned by someone above, we must ensure this is not an attempt to grab valuable land using "AI" as the lure. More on data centre glut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II_vVX7brD0

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@aram@aoir.social So which of these groups is most responsible for all the school shootings ?

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@GeofCox See also Vienna cafe society at the end of the 19th century

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@alicemcalicepants I'm "RAD50 is a neat way to get 3 characters into a 16-bit word" old. ( 3 chars is plenty for a file type )

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@davidgerard@circumstances.run Assuming he got a fixed price as part of the deal... he can now sell them on and make a tidy profit, hence boosting OpenAI's numbers for the next investment round and/or going public.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@GetCarter@mastodonapp.uk On the other hand we may copy the US and get Recidivist instead.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@nanook @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Date source, as shown, is HadCRUT 5.1

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@ross Sort of large lather machines ?

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@cstross@wandering.shop Russia or the authoritarian billionnaire class ?

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 16mo ago

Replying to

@janl@narrativ.es Its a classic sign of a Business Idiot... https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/

wheresyoured.at

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 17mo ago

Replying to

@piegames On the plus side, each use of ChatGPT costs OpenAI money ( even if you pay for a subscription )

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Daojoan In general I agree, not least because VC fund returns have been falling over the last few years. Not a material change, but I do think it would be more realistic to double the estimate for staff costs to allow for the inevitable correction to AI tool costs - those companies will have to start making some kind of profit soon.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@randahl Not forgetting that Iran was a democracy once, until the US organised a coup to install a dictator. IIRC the trigger was the democratic government planning to nationalise a UK oil company ( not a precedent the US wanted to see ), which is why the UK is also regarded as a historical villain over there.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@nixCraft The payoff for the LLM product companies comes as they ramp up their charges and their enterprise customers realise that not only are they locked in to using LLM-AI, but they are locked in to the specific product they have chosen to roll out across their employees.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@kludgekml @maco @VileLasagna @Gargron I think are quite a few such translations ( even Clive James had a go ! ), but afaik none that attempt to replicate the same rhyming scheme Dante used - which may well be impossible in English.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@raymaccarthy @ccferrie @MrLee It is odd for the map to depict Britain when the report is specifically restricted to England - this rather undermines the message it is trying to convey.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@evacide@hachyderm.io So if this passes then the simplest and safest solution for companies is to not use LLM-based "AI" on the internet.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 3mo ago

Replying to

@troed@masto.sangberg.se @barubary@infosec.exchange @maxleibman@beige.party Indeed many companies are looking to offload at least some of their LLM tasks to much cheaper local models. Of course this undermines the future revenues of the big LLM platforms and all those AI data centres, which may explain the current rush to IPO ( SpaceX is also primarily an LLM platform, going by its financials ).

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 4mo ago

Replying to

@gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green So approx $400 billion at today's prices for initial construction over, say, 18 years. Assuming it is brought online in 1GB chunks, double that to cover the cost of replacing the used GPUs over that period (they run hot). Add running costs such as power. Context: no 1GB AI datacentre has yet been completed, and the cost of building the datacentres already "committed" will need to generate $1 trillion of new business to break even. And locally run models are improving fast.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@naefool@mastodon.scot The ratio of pro to anti independence MSPs is approx 55 to 45, which seems strangely familiar.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Pettet8@mastodon.social @randahl@mastodon.social My impression was that, for the moment, China are still shipping oil from the region. Also the Iranian foreign minister has said the same would apply to other countries who paid for their purchases in chinese yuan...

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@Richard_Littler@mastodon.social Imagine you and your partner are in dead end jobs which you hate but which just pay enough to cover the rent, bills, food etc. No way to save for an emergency, so you live with background dread. You feel guilty about not being able to give your kids what you had at their age, which makes you angry and resentful of others you see in the streets. Voting has never improved your life one bit, politicians dont care at all. So if a new party says it wants to tear up the rules ?

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@ShadSterling@mastodon.social @WiteWulf@cyberplace.social @brucelawson@social.vivaldi.net Because its much more difficult to defend against "conspiring" rather than "doing" - it effectively reverses the burden of proof.

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arrbee @rogerb@mastodon.scot

· 10mo ago

Replying to

@dahukanna@mastodon.social @ngaylinn@tech.lgbt Back in the day the phrase was "misery loves company".

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