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Nvidia won, we all lost

(blog.sebin-nyshkim.net)
977 points todsacerdoti | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0.476s | source
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alganet ◴[] No.44468715[source]
Right now, all silicon talk is bullshit. It has been for a while.

It became obvious when old e-waste Xeons were turned into viable, usable machines, years ago.

Something is obviously wrong with this entire industry, and I cannot wait for it to pop. THIS will be the excitement everyone is looking for.

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gizajob ◴[] No.44468751[source]
Do you have a timeframe for the pop? I need some excitement.
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alganet ◴[] No.44468853[source]
More a sequence of potential events than a timeframe.

High-end GPUs are already useless for gaming (a low-end GPU is enough), their traditional source of demand. They're floating on artificial demand for a while now.

There are two markets that currently could use them: LLMs and Augmented Reality. Both of these are currently useless, and getting more useless by the day.

CPUs are just piggybacking on all of this.

So, lots of things hanging on unrealized promises. It will pop when there is no next use for super high-end GPUs.

War is a potential user of such devices, and I predict it could be the next thing after LLMs and AR. But then if war breaks out in such a scale to drive silicon prices up, lots of things are going to pop, and food and fuel will boom to such a magnitude that will make silicon look silly.

I think it will pop before it comes to the point of war driving it, and it will happen within our lifetimes (so, not a Nostradamus-style prediction that will only be realized long-after I'm dead).

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selfhoster11 ◴[] No.44469551[source]
Local LLMs are becoming more popular and easier to run, and Chinese corporations are releasing extremely good models of all sizes under MIT or similar terms in many cases. There amount of VRAM is the main limiter, and it would help with gaming too.
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alganet ◴[] No.44469608[source]
Gaming needs no additional VRAM.

From a market perspective, LLMs sell GPUs. Doesn't even matter if they work or not.

From the geopolitical tensions perspective, they're the perfect excuse to create infrastructure for a global analogue of the Great Firewall (something that the Chinese are pioneers of, and catching up to the plan).

From the software engineering perspective, LLMs are a nuissance, a distraction. They harm everyone.

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1. selfhoster11 ◴[] No.44469704[source]
> Gaming needs no additional VRAM.

Really? What about textures? Any ML that the new wave of games might use? For instance, while current LLMs powering NPC interactions would be pretty horrible, what about in 2 years time? You could have arbitrary dialogue trees AND dynamically voiced NPCs or PCs. This is categorically impossible without more VRAM.

> the perfect excuse to create infrastructure for a global analogue of the Great Firewall

Yes, let's have more censorship and kill the dream of the Internet even deader than it already is.

> From the software engineering perspective, LLMs are a nuissance, a distraction. They harm everyone.

You should be aware that reasonable minds can differ in this issue. I won't defend companies forcing the use of LLMs (it would be like forcing use of vim or any other tech you dislike), but I disagree about being a nuisance, distraction, or a universal harm. It's all down to choices and fit for use case.

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2. alganet ◴[] No.44472597[source]
How is any of that related to actual silicon sales strategies?

Do not mistake adjacent topics for the main thing I'm discussing. It only proves my point that right now, all silicon talk is bullshit.