this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2025
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[–] kbal@fedia.io 41 points 6 days ago

Recording and analyzing all the real-time video and audio feeds of their surroundings that everyone is required to provide while using the Internet, to ensure that no children are present when they use social media.

[–] chaosCruiser@futurology.today 33 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

When an AI company goes bankrupt, their hardware will be sold to anyone interested in it. My guess is, MS and Amazon will be buying a bunch of vacant datacenters within the next 10 years.

That’s enterprise hardware, so it’s not really compatible with your consumer grade gaming PC. If you’re interested in self hosting your own cloud photos and local LLMs, you might want to look into those auctions.

[–] yeeght@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago

This, but also I think the fallout of the AI bubble popping will be different than people are envisioning. After the dot com bubble collapsed a lot of the infrastructure was sold at surplus and repurposed, but some of the infrastructure was left unused and just sat around for a while.

It’s not completely equivalent, but imo a great example of this is fiber optic. Early on, companies and governments invested in fiber optic technology in their local area to get in on the bubble hype, but after the bubble burst most of it went unused or not fully utilized in the way it was intended until recently, when Google bought various fiber optic networks around the country for Google fiber. This is the reason why in the last 10 or so years you had certain states and cities getting access to fiber connections before others.

Obviously this isn’t exactly the same, but I’ll be curious what the “fiber” of the AI bubble will be (if anything). My guess would be changes and hopeful improvements to our energy infrastructure, but time will tell.

[–] UpperBroccoli@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 5 days ago

In capitalism, sustainability is not a goal.

It will be thrown in the trash, and the companies will reap big tax write-offs.

[–] ThatGuy46475@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Solving chess

[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 9 points 5 days ago

Palantir integrated police drone control network.

[–] EmilieEasie@lemmynsfw.com 20 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I listened to a YouTuber suggest that all these abandoned data centers would be great for the government to expand its mass surveillance programs so probably that

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

IDK, I think turning them into paintball arenas would be pretty sweet.

[–] EmilieEasie@lemmynsfw.com 7 points 6 days ago

hard agree, I hope there's as much money in paintball as there is in mass surveillance

[–] myfunnyaccountname@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 days ago
[–] ElectricFire@sh.itjust.works 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think hardware as a service will be their next thing, raise the cost of parts so people buy a cheap sub then increase the aubscription year by year.

[–] cymbal_king@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Agree. I think MS and Google selling more cheap "cloud laptops" could totally be a thing. The personal device would mostly be a screen and bare bones components

[–] ElectricFire@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I feel like it could even be chromecast like devices which just plug into a screen and connect to server, cheap hardware sold at a loss to rope you into a sub.

[–] cymbal_king@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

Google execs like

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago

The last boom/bust cycle resulted in a lot of high tech gear getting sold off at bargain basement prices.

Good for new businesses but bad for companies like Cisco trying to sell new gear in a market flooded with cheap used gear.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

A lot of that hardware is junk pretty soon anyway. Graphics cards run at full load 24/7 don’t last very long.

[–] SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

That's not really accurate at all. A GPU running at full load might wear out its fan, but if it's kept at a consistent temperature it's not going to shorten the life by much. The stress on a GPU generally comes from either being over bolted or from the thermal expansion and shrinkage from an inconsistent temp.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

This is kind of what I'm wondering about. Countless warehouses full of used half functional video cards.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago

I think a lot of them find their way onto eBay where they get sold to unwitting gamers.

[–] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Hilarious that you think they’re going to admit it. They’ll get bailed out and star over again with a brand new pitch.

[–] flock_of_nazguls@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

Crypto mining. And Im sure they're being built with this dual purpose in mind.

[–] Rhyfel@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Just take a look at what Israel is doing with it and you'll start to understand what really is going to happen here.

[–] INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

What are they doing with it?

[–] Rhyfel@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Using it to run the most resistrictive and devasting surveillance state in history

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Lol when the AI bubble pops it will be most likely destroyed to maintain artificially high hardware costs.

At least that's why China ending crypto mining didn't drastically reduce the price of graphics cards.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Graphics cards haven't been used in any significant quantity for cryptocurrency mining for a long time now.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

Like 5 years

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[–] Perspectivist@feddit.uk 8 points 6 days ago (3 children)

ChatGPT alone has 800 million weekly users of which the vast majority are normal people - not companies. The demand is there despite it not being able to increase company profit margins the way people expected. I don't see this computing infrastructure needing to run idle anytime soon.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 19 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (10 children)

Chatgpt is constantly losing money, public surface-level interest won't matter much when the capital runs out and they're still accruing significant debt without any revenue.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 5 points 6 days ago

A major problem faced by first-mover companies like OpenAI is that they spend an enormous amount of money on basic research and initial marketing and hardware purchases to set up in the first place. Those expenses become debts and have to be paid off by the business later. If they were to go bankrupt and sell off ChatGPT to some other company for pennies on the dollar that new owner would be in a much better position to be profitable.

There is clearly an enormous demand for AI services, despite all the "nobody wants this" griping you may hear in social media bubbles. That dermand's not going to disappear and the AIs themselves won't disappear. It's just a matter of finding the right price to balance things out.

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[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I think OP is talking about all of the future data centers that are allegedly being build despite nobody even knowing where. Nvidia has agreed to pay OpenAI $10B per gigawatt of datacenter for 10 gigawatts of datacenter build up over the next few years.

Unlikely that will fully materialize, but that's the current outlook.

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Theres a proposal for one in Scotland that will use up as much electricity as the whole country combined (Except during winter where peak load is a whopping 1/3 higher than the proposed data centre.

[–] mrmacduggan@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

They're trying to build several right now near my home in Southeast Michigan. So now you know where.

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

That sucks. Sorry about your luck.

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[–] Melobol@lemmy.ml 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The free plan of chatgtp is more than enough for most people. And when they decide to start charging for it, probably 30% of free users will switch to a different (mahbe even locally run) Ai.

[–] gressen@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

They're probably just gonna trash it and move to the next thing.

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I suspect Microsoft will use them for a videogame subscription streaming service

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

With the direction Microsoft has taken windows the past decade or so, a GPU farm in the back room will be needed to run windows 12. Maybe that's why everyone needs a Microsoft account to use windows these days - Microsoft is planning ahead.

[–] moondoggie@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

Companies will never admit it. They’ll drive this shit right into the ground and keep digging

[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

it'll flood the 2nd market, anything that can't be flipped past a certain point will be scrapped for recycling or just thrown away

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I hope some of it hits the used market, so tinkerers can play with them.

But yeah, knowing them, they will probably just throw the hardware away :(

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Have you seen Sears?

Personally I can't wait until Nvidia releases a new generation and they start shedding gpus. Helloooo secondary market!

[–] stsquad@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The demand for LLM inference will drop off when people finally realise it is not the road to AGI. However there is still plenty of things GPU compute can be applied to and maybe spot prices will come down again.

[–] BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago

It's more likely that the demand for LLM inference will drop off only once AGI exists.

There are billions of active users already having it do everything from coming up with ideas for Christmas presents, to helping them write e-mails to clients.

That isn't going anywhere until there's a better option on the table. People would have already got bored and moved on if it wasn't doing anything useful for them.

[–] Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 6 days ago

Auctioned off and used by startups and homelabs.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago

A write off.

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