AI is asbestos in the walls of our tech society, stuffed there by monopolists run amok. A serious fight against it must strike at its roots
Hopefully dirt cheap gpus and ram when the bubble bursts
AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage | Cory Doctorow
Submitted 3 weeks ago by HailSeitan@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jan/18/tech-ai-bubble-burst-reverse-centaur
Comments
the_trash_man@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Unfortunately most of the GPUs aren’t usable by gamers. We aren’t talking mining booms where miners buy up gaming GPU stock, then sell cheap when the bubble bursts.
We’re talking companies buying huge GPUs that don’t have video outputs and have an altered software stack to what’s used for gaming.
Granted, many 4090/5090s were also used, and those will be usable by gamers, but even with a significant price drop on those, only richer gamers will find that to be viable.
Somewhat similar story for memory - a lot of it is tied up in HBM, or as GDDR on enterprise graphics cards.
melfie@lemy.lol 2 weeks ago
I certainly wouldn’t let a cheap RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Server with 96GB of VRAM go to waste. I’d put it to good use with Blender rendering, running models I actually care about, and maybe some Games on Whales.
floppybiscuits@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I would pickup an inference GPU to run models locally. I can see a benefit in that especially if they’re on the cheap
barryamelton@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
don’t have video outputs and have an altered software stack to what’s used for gaming, missing all kinds of features and game specific patches.
True about thoae without video outputs. But in Linux, game specific patches are in Mesa and not in the graphics drivers for example.
Damage@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
And their energy usage must be outrageous
Zephorah@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
Wow. I feel like I just entered a Time Machine bank to the 90s and 00s. I didn’t realize Corey Doctorow was still writing blog stuff on other venues.
kalkulat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
He’s been writing a lot lately … ever since enshittification hit the fans
His blog: pluralistic.net
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Back in them boingboing days.
rbos@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I miss boibgboing. Never been able to get into it since they paywalled commenting.
termaxima@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
“Reverse centaur” is a super clunky term, I think we should say “Minotaur” instead.
A Centaur has the head of a person and the body of a beast, a Minotaur is the opposite.
kalkulat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Pretty sure a solid writer like Cory chose those words for a reason - to make it clear that a human is becoming a slave to a machine.
pepeSilvia@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
The term isn’t just about which half is human though, it’s about the dynamic flip in humans relationship with tooling.
The “tool” part of the centaur is the horse body. All of the hard to duplicate bits of a human (reasoning, processing, fine motor skills) with the strength and speed of a horse. A reverse centaur is when a complex system is designed that needs a “dumb human” to do the complex bits while the system uses humans as an appendage.
Reverse centaur may sound clunky but is a really elegant one liner for Doctorow’s thesis.
HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org 2 weeks ago
Minotaurs have some potential for badass imagery. Reverse Centaur sounds intentionally clunky.
Hadriscus@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
PC parts
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
most of these companies will probably fail. it’s expected. but the AI paradigm is not going anywhere
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ll salvage me a cheap PC upgrade once this stupid ship finally sinks.
Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Possibly, but components from AI centers cannot be reused easily (or at all) for consumer machines.
Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 2 weeks ago
Hopefully we have ways to recycle the old chips. Some of the GPU chips could maybe be put on consumer boards? I’ve already heard of memory chips being recycled, except HBM of course.
ATS1312@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I’m not a Leninist by any means. But on a mass scale, the need to grow for a Capitalist economy? Manifests itself in ways Lenin described as “Capitalist Imperialism”. If you only reach one chapter, the author says that’s Ch7, which becomes a short essay.
Lenin Argues against Carl Kautsky’s assertion that such a prospect looks like grabbing Land. Lenin argues that Capitalism needs no such political arm directly, only ownership of the economy by a foreign body. Eventually investment capital runs out of fertile ground at home and must find new markets to control.
As Russia’s economy stagnated, and the room for investment dried up, much of Putin’s moves were to open other countries to Russian Finance Capital. When that failed, taking new land became the fallback for having new oil and shipping investments. Not just land, but resources as Kautsky discussed.
And here Doctorow breaks down how that looks for single firms in monopoly or oligopoly, specifically in the tech sector, and its drive to constantly " invent new markets". A perfect compliment.
That’s what these data centers are - Empire. They will swallow your ability to compute. Moderate it. Control it. Direct it towards only their ends. Because at the end game, the most value extraction comes from not simply selling you a product, but selling you as a product to other businesses. Enshittification will continue until you can out-bid the corpos for your data sovereignty.
The need for control? Emerges organically from the consequences of noncompliance. In both the puppet-state in response to its international industrial overlords, or its alternative in direct management by a foreign state. The money must flow, the growth must happen, or the party is over for much broader than their own dinner table.
The growth must happen, or the very laws of a market crush the entire society down to well below this peak. No more growth stocks in growth industries, just cutthroat competition from the same corpos that keep out upstarts… Until some shock ruins somebody’s bag, and we get a chance at something interesting like the tech sector used to be.
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Great to see Lenin’s analyses being applied more often. His concept of imperialism is the single greatest contribution to capitalist analysis after Marx.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This man has really built a career and following off saying common sense things…
I don’t know why people keep eating it up or acting like he’s a genius, but at least this time he isn’t coining a new term to “explain” something that leads to everyone using it but not understanding what’s actually happening.
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
He’s a good writer and leader on the technology front. He gets a bit repetitive but that’s because he is trying to get the word out.
protist@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
He’s actually built a career on being an author…
balsoft@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
I don’t think he’s necessarily a genius, but he is a force for good and a great writer. We do need someone to keep saying the truth, keep saying what’s right and what’s wrong, this is literally how we win the information war currently waged against us.
It’s the same of the genocide experts calling out genocide, or the eco-activists calling out climate change. It might be obvious common sense to you, but it might not be to other people, and this is precisely why it needs to be shouted from every rooftop we have available.
Oh, and also, if you actually read his works he clearly does more than just state the obvious and coin new terms (even though both of those are important too). He is deeply and intimately familiar with the technical and social structures of the modern internet, his analysis of various phenomena and trends is usually on-point and has some predictive power. Most importantly he offers solutions to the issues facing us, and practices what he preaches too.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
He is deeply and intimately familiar with the technical and social structures of the modern internet, his analysis of various phenomena and trends is usually on-point and has some predictive power
If you think he predicts anything, you’re streets behind
Most importantly he offers solutions to the issues facing us
He repeats what anyone could find in a five minute Google search from articles written by others.
I’ve never seen an original thought, he’s the Carlos Mencia of tech.
stealth_cookies@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
What you might think is “common sense” may not be for others. There is value in this being documented, otherwise the person without “common sense” may be influenced by someone with an agenda who does document their thoughts.
Same as when people make fun of “obvious” research, there is value in having it peer reviewed as a reference for future researchers.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There is value in this being documented, otherwise the person without “common sense” may be influenced by someone with an agenda who does document their thoughts.
Oh yeah, because no one has “documented” that AI is bullshit yet…
Only the brave Cory Doctrow could gather and disseminate this to the masses!
/s
ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Timing. Saying common sense stuff before others gives you an edge and being the first to say it with any eloquence, in a way people want to listen and are accepting of what’s being said. A lot of what Cory Doctorow says can be hard to hear or hard to deliver without sounding condescending like NDT. His talent is in the delivery.
protist@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
He also has a ton of experience in this space, he’s worked for the Electronic Frontier Foundation for almost 25 years. On top of that, he’s whip-smart and enjoyable to read or listen to
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Saying common sense stuff before others
Yeah bro…
No one else has point out AI will fail before 1/18/26…
On the great Cory Doctrine could identify something that no other human has ever even contemplated.
I heard next, he’s going to release a blog post that Nazis might not be nice people
Sunflier@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I wanted C3PO from the AI boon. Instead, I lost my job and was replaced by AI.
-Sci-fi nerds who were hopeful of tge future and AI
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hopefully some cheap hardware.
CriticalMiss@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Haven’t read the article yet but hopefully it’s cheap used drives
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Why do people keep listening to this guy?
kalkulat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Because he knows his shit.
edible_funk@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Sure but nobody important cares and he’s just repeating himself ad nauseum.
wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io 2 weeks ago
AI is in the hype section of the emerging technology curve. A lot of good will come out of AI once we calm down and stop losing our damn minds.
It won’t be just cheap GPUs either. It will be things like more accurate cancer diagnoses, as Cory says near the top.
What we need is for regulation to catch up and start incentivizing the right things…that is, the things that will benefit society as a whole, not just the oligarchs.
SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world 2 weeks ago
That won’t happen until the brick wall is not only hit, but completely demolished. While Democrats are significantly more rational than Republicans, they are still almost as much in the oligarchs’ collective pockets. Only the Progressives give me any hope, but there aren’t nearly enough of them in Congress to make shit happen yet.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It is already happening.
The distractions is that you only see the AI companies which have been blitz scaling, dumping unlimited amounts of money into orders and plans without any revenue plans for the other side. This move only pays off if they can essentially buy the entire market and lock out any competition (and then the rent-seeking enshittification will being). The long-term prospects of these companies is shaky at best, but that doesn’t matter to the people currently dumping funding into them… they’re going to sell everything at the IPO and leave some other suckers with the bag.
Because of this, there are many many times the amount of advertising and promotional hype than is justified by the actual progress in the field.
Everyone is familiar with this. If someone says AI, do you think of ChatGPT or an LLM? That’s because you’ve been affected by this hype wave that is being intentionally propagated in order to drive valuations for AI companies who are looking to hit an IPO so all of the early investors can get out quick before the bubble bursts (It’s like a crypto rugpull, except it is using the stock market instead of a meme coin).
‘Actual’ AI. By which I mean machine learning, including neural networks, has made huge progress in a lot of fields following the discovery of the Transformer model (the T in GPT). The, very real and impressive, improvements that have been gained are not flashy, they do not make for immediate next-quarter profits and are mostly public discoveries coming out of academia so they benefit everyone which makes them worthless to the people trying to horde emerging technology in order to push this bubble/rugpull.
Your life will be WAY more affected by the slow and incremental work being done in the field of robotics than having a slightly more personable chatbot. Your life or the lives of people you love will be saved by the advances in protein folding which allow rapid development of new treatments which can be customized to the individual. Cancer therapies that are optimized for the exact mutations in the patient’s cancer cells or customized medicine aimed at reducing side effects or harmful interactions.
RedstoneValley@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Most of the hype isn’t about machine learning stuff for cancer diagnoses though. When the average C-level guy talks about AI they mean almost exclusively LLMs. Fancy autocomplete is their solution to everything, from summarizing an email to agentic OSes. And that’s just not going to happen.