Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.
For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community
At the Financial Times Future of AI Summit, the AI vendors were shocked that nobody likes them. They don’t really understand the objections — one CEO compared data center protestors to protests against masks for COVID.
Utterly ridiculous people who are now getting the wake up to reality they deserve
I wonder since when do tech CEOs of all people think antimasking was a problem.
Or are they running out of republicans to fool so they need to get people closer to the other end of the spectrum on board?
I think the tech sector in general was always pro-masking, and pro-lockdown/isolation because it was an enormous boost to their entire sector to have everyone shut indoors and reliant on their products to work from home and do other normal stuff.
Tech people I know who are big AI fanboys were anti mask and anti vaccine for vaguely libertarian reasons.
Those sectors did make money, but they spent a lot of time where everyone was shut indoors going on podcasts and talking about how their audience is shut indoors because the nanny state doesn't want you to feel proud to be an American or whatever.
I recall the Zoom guy, at least, wanting everyone back at the office. For reasons, no doubt.
Idk, the rightwing types seem quite present in the tech ceo roster, and a bunch of tech companies deal with surveillance - and their direct interest is masking not being seen as something normal people do, but reserved exclusively for criminals.
Since when do the mostly-republican leaning tech CEOs feel antimasking was a problem?
They're mostly-money leaning. Republicans were more lenient on the tech sector for the last few years and have friendlier tax policies for rich people always. There have been times when they were trying to strangle both tech companies and the Internet in general, back then tech companies supported dems more.
a much better comparason would be to those that objected to the industrial revolution, in that they had a point but we are probably going to ignore it and make it irrelevant.
How does someone object to ‘the industrial revolution’? Do they just sort of shake their fist vaguely at society as a whole?
Thats part of the myth around the luddites, even if they in reality was more like a preunion work force bloc
you should try again with this comment
I look forward to it, the inflated hardware prices and anti-competitive practices have become insane.
yep. I'm wondering - after they're cut off from their best friends, what's going to become of the ai delusional types? oof...
There are models now available for 1/20 of the price of GPT and Claude top end models that are much stronger than GPT and Claude were when the AI waifus started becoming a thing. Nobody's going to be cut off from anything if the bubble deflates
lol no you don’t use any of the horrid local models
all the services and infrastructure and apps and interfaces and hardware, and the labor to maintain and update all of the above, depend, right now, on the bubble not just persisting but continuing to inflate to infinity. so yes, everyone absolutely can and will be cut off from AI services
Big if true. I'm still waiting to see which stocks get under their 2025 hyperinflated valuations
Don't care about that, I'm waiting for SSD-prices to crash...
Even if the buble pops hard today it propably will take months to years until the prices are back to "normal"
Don't hold your breath
ZOOBA ZOOBA!
Rumors were circulating on Thursday that someone was dumping $500 million of data center loans. That turned out to be Dutch bank ING, which has put the loans up for auction
I’m not saying there isn’t a problem with data centers but once again, this is a normal part of commercial real estate. This happens to loans of every type including fast food, Hollywood studios, malls, airports, hotels, apartments, warehouses, industrial/manufacturing, office buildings, everything.
I am a Senior Loan Analyst who works on Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities.
Selling loans is incredibly normal, especially for smaller and mid sized banks that can’t afford to keep them on the books long term but it’s also very common for large banks.
EDIT: Not saying Data Centers aren’t in trouble. I personally think it’s a risky investment. I just wanted to provide a little industry context.
Presumably you still need to believe that these are the specific loans that you are least likely to see a return on though, otherwise why get rid of them?
The way the bubble pops will probably be a bunch of normal things happening, except cumulatively they cause investors to shy away from further bankrolling this mess and someone important won't have enough money at some crucial point. It certainly won't be sam altman laughing maniacally and dissolving into a mound of scurrying cockroaches.
otherwise why get rid of them?
It's a Dutch bank, the Dutch pension scheme is in the process of moving from a benefits defined pension scheme (payment known upfront) to a contribution based pension scheme (payment being based on returns). Hence their pension funds have primarily held bonds, that's changing as historical returns on stonks have been higher.
Whether ING has any pension related holdings, no clue. But that right here could very well be the reason. It's also the single biggest factor for why the bond rates are rising globally. It's estimated to impact about 3TN € worth of capital on the European bonds market, once the transition is in full effect next year
That's interesting, thanks! Not exactly sure where the dc loans fit in the benefits vs contributions scheme, but I guess it's important context to keep in mind if reading further into this.
The primary difference between a bond and a loan, are the installments. A loan will gradually be paid off, whilst a bond will pay interest yearly and then one installment upon expiration.
So from a return perspective, they're both having a fixed return and therfore fits defined contribution schemes nicely. As they can sort of guarantee they'll have the money they've promised the pension holder 10 or 30 years down the line
To be fair, I don’t work with this specific bank so I can’t say their reasoning but I will say banks that originate a loan don’t really keep it in their books.
Also, commercial real estate frequently gets sold off and bundled into portfolios. These portfolios have a mixture of asset types. Investors buy percentage of the return from those portfolios.
The idea is that if one asset or asset type fails, it doesn’t tank the whole investment. It’s a safer way to invest. Many retirement accounts have similar investments for that exact reason.
They pretty much all rebounded today didn’t they?
not really
Could be many things, I wonder if the big insitutions want to avoid circuit breakers, while also doing a bit of short squeezing on everyone betting on the market going down further. A crash can play out over weeks. Or it's retail becoming exit liquidity, or dead cat bounce, or... or maybe this isn't the bubble pop we've been waiting for and I'm just projecting my hopes of big tech crashing into the numbers.
They're still in hot water with all those data centre restrictions becoming popular