TWiT 1086: The Great Beagle Migration

TWiT Shows This Week In Tech
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This Week in Tech #1086 - “The Great Beagle Migration”

This Week in Tech episode #1086 is now available.

  • SpaceX and the Space Force’s new sensor-to-shooter targeting network, plus a dramatic rocket explosion in Florida
  • Google’s search overhaul and AI Overview memes, Apple’s Siri redesign plans, and the Pope’s encyclical on AI
  • Ferrari’s first electric vehicle design collaboration with Jony Ive and expanding robotaxi rollout across the US
  • Wikipedia editor strikes, Peter Thiel’s relocation to Argentina, and viral tech culture moments including a fake Bitcoin EULA
  • The growing backlash against autonomous vehicle deployment in major cities

#TWiT #ThisWeekInTech #SpaceX #AI #ElectricVehicles #RoboTaxis #Tesla #Google

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Regarding tech and data centers:

I’ve felt for a long time corporate America has a major issue with restraint and long term planning. The ethos in most board rooms seems to be “make as much money as possible, as fast as possible, and damn the consequences!” The AI frenzy is kind of a perfect example of that. After 4 years or so of LLMs being the new hot thing, we’ve seen some major improvements in their capabilities and their utility is growing. I’ve managed to complete a few vibe coded projects that I use for some of my own stuff (an LCARS themed CSV importer for my SQL-based pilot logbook, a docker container proving a web interface to print raw text to a dot matrix printer, etc). Its been pretty neat!

However, I do NOT think its worth killing the entire PC DIY industry for those tools, or making GPUs, storage and RAM unaffordable. Its definitely not worth polluting municipal water supplies or gobbling up our power supply.

Whats at issue for the me is the pace at which this revolution is being pushed. It just doesn’t make sense, and some of the tech CEOs seem like they’re almost in a panic over getting ahead in AI development. Moreover, I dont think the general public is seeing much benefit from the big AI push. Most people experience AI as a clunky chat agent that gets things wrong, or a Siri that still cant accurately schedule an appointment.

And to run those flawed or limited usefulness models, they’re seeing their jobs vanish and bills escalate. The value proposition for the average person isn’t there - all they see is valuable resources going to rich people for their playthings instead of improving their communities and lives.

This is where the restraint idea comes in. Nvidia, for example, is basically ditching the PC market and is all in on datacenters. Why not do both? Invest in datacenter development but keep making consumer cards (and FFS make them cheaper). The Big 3 memory manufacturers didn’t need to sell out their stocks - they could have reserved some for the consumer market.

It just speaks to short term thinking at the expense of the future, and its just the default mindset in tons of boardrooms now.

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Yes, but profit… If nVidia kept making consumer cards, the AI companies would gobble them up as quickly as they roll off the production line, because they are great at AI, but cost less than data centre specific systems. That is why we have the current problem, the nVidia chips were so good at processing AI loads fast, if not efficiently, that the AI companies grabbed up everything they could, because there was nothing else.

nVidia then switched from charging an arm and a leg for their graphics cards, to labelling the kit as AI hardware and asking for 2 kidneys, a liver and a spleen for good measure, on top of the arm and a leg.

The stock exchange has essentially been turned into a sort of pyramid scheme, companies are pretty much forced to abandon long term planning and deliver as much growth in the current quarter as they can (not necessarily financial growth, either), and hope they can come up with some way to do the same next quarter, trying to get more and more people to invest in them, to keep them going. Everybody is clinging on for dear life, as the whole market spins faster and faster, hoping that the whole thing doesn’t collapse.

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Did anyone find the discussion on Pope Leo’s encyclical to be almost non-existent? It was like they mentioned it, had some fun with Pope Leo vs. host Leo, and then left it at that? I was hoping for some more substantive dialog and it’s like it was just glossed over in favor of other stuff.

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I assume they had a whole discussion on it on Intelligent Machines this week with Padre.

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I guess I’m curious why management doesn’t feel like they can tell investors “no, we’re going to prioritize long term planning and sustainable income over squeezing every drop of dollar juice from this money lemon.”

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Probably because their bonuses and stock options also rely on the stock price going up and up and up and up…

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They probably did, and they referenced it, but since it was on the episode image and 2nd in the run down, I had thought it would get more attention that it ended up getting.

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absolutely correct - after all, that’s business!!:grinning_face:

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May also be that the stock market is driven by quarterly reports - to continue getting investment, boards have to promise (and deliver) that each quarter will be significantly better than the last. Short-termism rules. Just my opinion.

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Regarding the segment on AI and data centers, I was reminded of “The Life of Brian” when they ask the question, “What have the Romans ever done for us?” Leo and crew believe that AI is an unquestionable good, and cannot understand why there would be a backlash against data centers. Well, except for increased RAM and GPU prices, increased utility rates, water utilization, no jobs after the data center opens, Tech Bro’s telling everyone that AI will take their jobs, AI being forced into every product you use. BUT OTHER THAN THAT, why would people be mad at data centers? During the remainder of the show, I believe the term “dystopia” was used several times. Lets face it, there has been zero marketing for these data centers, just everyone trying to predict when the “AI build out” bubble will pop.

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You do realize you’re using a data center right now, right? And in a few years the demand for AI will be considerably greater than it is already. (I know, I’m a believer.) How would people react if, when they went to their favorite web site, it didn’t load because there was insufficient capacity? AI brownouts are happening already. The demand is there, the capacity isn’t.

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I have said for years, the bot problem should be solved, centrally. There should be a single bot/spider that goes out and indexes the web and all the search providers and AI companies should tap into that.

Instead every one does their own thing and sends out their own bots/spiders to scrape the site yeat again. This causes unnecessary network traffic for the website, driving up their costs, it clogs up the Internet itself.

I remember you had a guest on IM a few months back that was doing something like this, but it is a shame that the big players don’t get on board. It would drive down costs for the site owners and make the browsing experience better, because the site’s servers aren’t clogged up processing unnecessary bots.

As to data centres, AI is moving too fast and the technology improving so quickly that it just doesn’t make sense to roll out the data centres now, the hardware side of the investment will need to be replaced in a very short timescale and the next generation will either use much less power, or will do more for the same power.

And the greed of the power companies doesn’t help, either. With the Nevada/Utah situation, for example, where one community has been told they have to find a new energy provider, because they have pre-sold their capacity for next year to an AI company that is building a data centre.

Here, the law protects the citizens, they have to be served first, then industry, if there is a shortfall. Power and water are considered basic necessities for a humane country and their availability is ensured through law - heck, if somebody doesn’t pay their bill, the electricity company can’t just cut off the supply, they have to go through the courts, get a baliff to try and recover the money, only after that can they get a court order to allow them to cut the power. It is the same with rental propertiess, the landlord can’t just throw them out for one missed payment, they have to take the tenant to court and get a court order to evict them, and a baliff is assigned to recover the court costs and back rent from the tenant.

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Actually, I think they could have a hybrid model. Have a massive central data store, which is just [simplified] URL and [simplified] content and timestamp. They could still “pretend” to spider, but have a way just to get the timestamps of what they want. Then they can get anything new, and store it in the central data store, and get anything old FROM the central data store. This would amortize the spidering/updating cost, and make them see how much it costs to get the content from the central data store, which the maintainer of the data store can bill to recoup.

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“You do realize you’re using a data center right now, right?”

Come on Leo, you know the data center hosting this is not equivalent to an AI data center. We aren’t building out capacity to host discussion boards.

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