[Mo3]

> I doubt we will see unused GPU capacity

I'd argue we very certainly will. Companies are gobbling up GPUs like there's no tomorrow, assuming demand will remain stable and continue growing indefinitely. Meanwhile LLM fatigue has started to set in, models are getting smaller and smaller and consumer hardware is getting better and better. There's no way this won't end up with a lot of idle GPUs.

[Workaccount2]

>Meanwhile LLM fatigue has started to set in

Has it?

I think there is this compulsion to think that LLMs are made for senior devs, and if devs are getting wary of LLMs, the experiment is over.

I'm not a programmer, my day job isn't tech, and the only people I know who express discontent with LLMs are a few of programmer friends I have. Which I get, but everyone else is using them gleefully for all manner of stuff. And now I am seeing the very first inklings of completely non-technical people making bespoke applets for themselves.

From OpenAI, programming is ~4% of chatGPTs usage. That's 96% being used for other stuff.

I don't see any realistic or grounded forecast that includes a diminishing demand for compute. We're still at the tip of adoption...

[Mistletoe]

You should get on Reddit, people hate AI with a passion there. People I meet in real life hate it also. I think the public actually hates AI more than it should now.

[Workaccount2]

I spent 13 years chronically on reddit before stumbling into a exit hatch of the bubble chamber.

Those people (well really it's teens and college kids) live on reddit, they are so far from an accurate representation of reality its insane.

[transcriptase]

Worse when you find out there’s a couple dozen of the same moderators running nearly all the top 500 subreddits.

[jjoe]

So they own the media...

[hnhg]

That makes some sense. Are they paid for this?

[GauntletWizard]

By reddit? No. By the users? No.

But they are paid.

[1oooqooq]

"i quit reddit but I'm 100% bullish in llms that just distil reddit posts to me"

oh you

[Aerbil313]

Everyone should learn the concept of a Skinner Box. [1]

Reddit is a Skinner Box. HN is too, though to a much lesser extent [2]. Every Skinner Box has one dominant opinion on every matter, which means, by simply using the product, your beliefs on any matter will shift towards the dominant opinion of the platform.

I was a chronically online Reddit user once. I can spot any chronically online Reddit user in just a few minutes in any social event by their mannerisms and the way they talk. I’ll ask and without fail indeed they are a daily Reddit user. It’s even more obvious in writing where you can spot them in just a few always-grammatically-correct text messages flavored with reddit-funny remarks and snarks and jokes.

Same goes for chronic X users. Their signature behavior is talking about social/political issues unprompted. It’s even easier to spot them.

I think the main reason behind platforms shaping user behavior is this: The most upvoted content will always surface to the top, where it will be seen by most users, meaning, its belief-shaping impact is exponential instead of linear. In the same manner unpopular opinions will be pushed to the bottom, and will have exponentially small impact. Some opinions will even be banned or shadowbanned, which means they are beyond the Overton Window of the specific platform.

This way, the platform both nudges you towards the dominant opinion and limits the range of possible opinions you will be exposed to. Over time, this affects your personality and character.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

2: The HN moderators and the algorithm both actively resist the effect and try to increase diversification.

[arkmm]

The irony of this is so much of Reddit comments these days are AI generated.

[chii]

It's a pretty biased sample. Not to mention that people who are neutral and is just using AI won't be bothered to comment. So you only ever see one extreme or another.

[Sammi]

I had to quit Reddit after a decade of heavy use because of the doomerism. It's a place you go if you want to kill your spirit. It's just not healthy.

[Fuzzwah]

The view I have is that people hate having AI slop spewed at them, but will find value in asking an LLM about things they're interested in / help with things.

[pessimizer]

> From OpenAI, programming is ~4% of chatGPTs usage. That's 96% being used for other stuff.

I think it's important to remember that a good bunch of this is going to be people using it as an artificial friend, which is not really productive. Really that's destructive, because in that time you could be creating a relationship with an actual person instead of a context soon to be deleted.

But on the other hand, some people are using it as an artificial smart friend, asking it questions that they would be embarrassed to ask to other people, and learning. That could be a very good thing, but it's only as good as the people who own and tune the LLMs are. Sadly, they seem to be a bunch of oligarchs who are half sociopaths and half holy warriors.

As for compute, people using it as an artificial friend are either going to have a low price ceiling, or in an even worse case scenario they are not and it's going to be like gambling addiction.

[baq]

Productive or destructive, demand is there, so it isn’t late bubble. It’s still early. (Which is scary, I’ll readily admit.)

[pessimizer]

But demand isn't there (or rather, proven to be there.) Demand is measured in dollars, and right now VC is paying. This is peak bubble - farthest distance from valuation and income.

[baq]

Microsoft and meta are not VCs and they’re spending money on data centers like there’s no tomorrow, doesn’t seem very low demand.

[yeasku]

Even if its there, will it be in 10 years?

[xadhominemx]

Test time compute has made consumption highly elastic. More compute = better results. Marginal cost of running these GPUs when they would otherwise be idle is relatively very low. It will be utilized.

[delusional]

> There's no way this won't end up with a lot of idle GPUs.

Nvidia is betting the farm on reinventing GPU compute every 2 years. The GPUs wont end up idle, because they will end up in landfills.

Do I believe that's likely, no, but it is what I believe Nvidia is aiming for.

[goalieca]

What’s the lifetime of these things once they’ve been running hot for 2-3 years

[brazukadev]

This. I just found out that for my MCP needs, Qwen3 4B running local is good enough! So I just stopped using Gemini API.

[idiotsecant]

Your bet is that people will simply use less compute, for the first time in the history of the human race?

[Mo3]

No, mostly less external compute

[mg]

Look at the human body.

2% of it is dedicated to thinking.

My guess is that as a species, we will turn a similar percentage of our environment into thinking matter.

If there are a billion houses on planet earth, 2% of it are 20 million datacenters we still have to build.

[wussboy]

An analogy is not proof. It is not even evidence.