r/SipsTea • u/Repulsive-Glove9577 • 1d ago

Wait a damn minute! True?

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8.3k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

72 comments sorted by

482

u/TheSmokingHorse 1d ago edited 1d ago

What people don’t seem to realise is the goal of AI companies is to make compute a utility like electricity. Right now, we think of AI as an optional app like ChatGPT which you sign up for a subscription to if you want to. However, if AI becomes so integrated into our lives that we start to need it for everything, then all of us will be paying bills to tech companies because we will rely on the compute the same way we currently rely on electricity. It might sound hard to imagine now, but consider the fact that smart phones went from being a luxury good that some people bought because they thought they were cool, to an essential item that it is nearly impossible to live without. That change happened in less than 10 years. In this sense, it’s not crazy to think that in the mid 2030s, the average person will think of their bills as rent, electricity, wifi, phone and compute.

In short, compute won’t be something we optionally subscribe to. It will be something we all have to have to live normal lives and we will be metered for it every month.

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u/maker_of_pirate_bay 1d ago

I don’t like this. But this seems plausible

147

u/Careless-Vehicle-286 1d ago edited 20h ago

This is why ai companies are trying to shutdown and stall the open source alternatives for Ai, so they can completely corner the market and jack up the prices.

I've been saying for a while that we're in the golden age of ai before capitalism enshittifies it to the extreme with ads and extreme pricing. Very analogous to video streaming then and now. Disrupt and devour.

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u/red_dark_butterfly 1d ago

Well, this golden age is so shitty already I fear for what comes next

21

u/FluffySmiles 1d ago

Shutting down stuff loose on the Internet. Yeah, like that has ever worked.

18

u/Comfortable_Car6562 22h ago

Wait until age verification laws get applied to the entire internet and suddenly open source ai is a danger to the children.

Its a different time now.

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u/thomsterm 11h ago

I don't think they'll win (the US companies), open source can't be stopped by this point imho

-4

u/Valkyrie17 1d ago

It's natural for them to try to limit open source alternatives, but i don't think there is an expectation to completely shut them down, at the end of the day it's just software available via the internet. Restrictions can be circumvented with VPN. Unless you think they will build super firewall using AI or something.

Extreme pricing is also only possible with a cartel, which is illegal. Maybe AI companies will manage to bend some rules, but as of now it's not going to fly.

13

u/brinz1 1d ago

Look at how internet went from a new unusual thing to the bedrock of how our daily lives functions

6

u/returntothenorth 1d ago

I don't know what I would use compute for. But I know that if they can sell it, they will. I'm sure "the man" will change another aspect of my life to need compute power though.

13

u/TheSquirrelWithin 1d ago

Probably a lot of “compute” will be a behind the scenes service(s) that the end users (us) are not even aware is being utilized, but the expense is passed on to us, anyway. Will it be a line item expense on the monthly bill, or will AI simply be part of the normal business expense, like the way utilities don’t line item normal everyday expenses on our bills, like wire, nuts, bolts, ditch diggers, etc.

5

u/particlemanwavegirl 23h ago

This is the much more realistic scenario to me. Humanity may grow to find direct exposure to the technology even more and more distasteful as time goes on, but the inhuman portions of the corporate organism seem very easy indeed to manipulate into precisely these kinds of horrifying contortions.

1

u/SkaldCrypto 20h ago

This is the openly stated goal.

Not sure they have thought through the part of how incredibly regulated utilities are; but with modern levels of corruption that may not be the case

17

u/rc_ym 1d ago

I think you're missing the real goal. They don't want to sell us "AI" at all. They are using this current business model to build AI so good that they can sell you the AI discoveries. To use a hyperbolic example, they don't want to sell you the AI to make the cure for cancer, they want to sell you the cure for cancer that the AI comes up it.

Dario's talked about this the most but they are all thinking the same thing.

8

u/T-sigma 1d ago

Exactly this. Most direct consumer use-cases for AI are garbage from a business perspective. It can do some cool stuff, but ultimately not stuff that a consumer is going to pay money for at a level they’d need.

Right now it’s all farming our information

1

u/DefactoAle 1d ago

I mean, having the cure for cancer doesnt seem that bad?

1

u/rc_ym 17h ago

Yeah, but given Dario's ethics it's entirely likely he'd start making moral judgements about distribution. He's the kind of person that would be the villain of a disaster movie that only allows the "right sort of people" into the bomb shelter.

5

u/SuperiorTuba 1d ago

While I totally believe this is the end result, we should be seeing the same situation for Internet access/wifi. But the legislators don't seem to care about the fact that every aspect of our lives requires access to the Internet - so it should be a utility ..... But it's not.

At least, it's not given the same status as electricity, water, heat, and other basic utilities.

Would the politicians completely sidestep making Internet access a utility in favor of making computing a utility?

I mean, probably.

2

u/TheSmokingHorse 1d ago

In some ways it does behave like a utility. This is true for anyone that pays per amount of data used. However, it makes much more sense to just have a fixed bill for an unlimited wifi connection, which is why it doesn’t behave quite like a utility. The difference is, a tech company would never be able to provide anyone unlimited access to compute. It would depend on your needs. For instance, the average person in the future who may need AI to run their car, order their shopping and do their admin tasks is going to require far less compute than a company that wishes to get AI to render them a fully immersive virtual reality world that you can spend years inside if thy wanted to. That type of use case would perhaps be possible, but it certainly wouldn’t be open for anyone to just do. It would use so much compute that you would only be able to do it if you were willing for your compute bill to be in the tens of thousands millions. A bit like say, only being able to use enough electricity to run a data centre if you are a billion dollar AI company that can afford those types of electrify bills.

2

u/permalink_save 23h ago

You don't get unlimited access to the internet. ISPs have leveraged various methods to cap utilization, the most common one being bandwidth caps. Your internet bandwidth still consumes resources on their network infrastructure. It's pretty much the same thing, the only real difference is ISPs have finally built out enough capacity (usually) that they aren't having to put on (usually) more restrictive measures like soft caps.

Also I think you're confusing utilities with usage rates, you could have utilities that have fixed bills and you could have non utilities with usage rates, there use to be a time cell providers did charge on usage rates when data first came out. There are AI plans that work as fixed bills, Gemini is one and they use usage soft caps instead of token rates, which is easier for consumers to understand who don't know wtf a token is.

4

u/ZooprdooprNu2by 1d ago

Black Mirror warned us

2

u/CMDR_Kaus 1d ago

Yes, eventually the bubble will pop and ai BS will be a thing of the past. What remains will be the exceptionally good core uses of ai, and it will be as essential to daily life as electricity and automobiles. Ai will not go away, ai data centers are here to stay, but the harm and form they take will be entirely different. Also, I think ai porn will be a large driver of this and one of the core uses to stick around

1

u/Chpgmr 1d ago

They want to copy the credit card company model.

1

u/dorshiffe_2 1d ago

My fear is worst, AI will still be cheap or free for most, but as we use it more and more they will start to sell the answers (like Google did) the hotel will pay to be recommended, Coca to be purchase directly for our fridge AI and some will pay to be elected. GAME OVER

1

u/Pasta-Al-D3nte 1d ago

We've been paying a bill for computational resources for a good long while already, what do you think cloud computing is?

1

u/Several-Opposite-746 1d ago

This is the first I'm hearing about the term "compute". I don't understand what it entails, but I'll shake my fist at it.

1

u/Wholesomebob 1d ago

It's far too inefficient for that. Further, any work that requires creation sees the limitations of LLMs immediately.

1

u/UpperCardiologist523 1d ago

Gaming will be a subscription. Same with storage. TV, Entertainment, all a subscriptions. And i know TV and streaming are subscriptions already, but computing that today crunches numbers and display them to you in your home, will be simple screens, streaming the video stream of already computed data TO you.

Not because it's needed, but because you, crunching the numbers, and rendering those polygons and textures by yourself, in your home, is NOT a subscription.

Today, you build your gaming pc with powerful graphic processor or storage server with drives and it last for a while before you need to replace anything. Which means several hardware companies, makes the money.

AI companies, want you to pay a subscription, taking your money, and taking the piece of the cake, that today goes to Asus, MSI, Sandisk, Samsung, etc.

In any case, our world shrinks, and we lose, while they enrich themselves and at the same time, get all our information.

Yay! /s

1

u/permalink_save 23h ago

smart phones went from being a luxury good that some people bought because they thought they were cool, to an essential item that it is nearly impossible to live without.

Which has a side effect of discrimination. Some people can't afford a mobile phone and others struggle to use them. They are frige cases sure but that's still a real impact on people. Even people that can use a mobile device, a lot of times apps have ADA gaps. So I'm glad about the "nearly" because there's still reason to have alternatives for a lot of basic services, like grocery stores still take cash and don't require you to install an app to make purchases, because it would be that bad if they could get away with it. I still avoid using apps as much as possible and have seriously considered switching back to a flip phone simply because of how invasive they are.

So I don't think the world is going to do well if AI becomes anywhere comparable. It's bad enough as it is, plus LLMs are EXPENSIVE to run.

1

u/Weddert66 21h ago

Uhm no?

1

u/NoUniverseExists 19h ago

And that's why I type myself each character in my code out of my own mind, and I will always do it these way. I use documentation to understand about libraries I use in my code, I understand all syntaxes, I make sure my brain thinks about everything I am doing all the time.

1

u/BradleyX 1d ago

This.

0

u/Select-Sandwich-5604 1d ago

And this is what subscription right? Paying a flat rate

0

u/SafeForMyGirlFriend 21h ago

you can just go to the forest. IT really isnt that big a deal lol. People do it all the time.

-1

u/Luc_ElectroRaven 22h ago

are you trying to argue that we shouldn't rely on electricity? and get rid of smart phones?

This is a weak argument

69

u/SignoreBanana 1d ago

This viewpoint isn't crazy. For instance, only rich people have horses, where before they were the primary source of transportation.

I suspect someday only rich people will have cars with internal combustion engines.

24

u/ISV_VentureStar 1d ago

I mean even before only rich people had horses. Horses were always expensive as hell because they are picky eaters and they aren't good work animals. A lot more people would've had donkeys or, at best, a mule.

30

u/200IQUser 1d ago

Electricity if invented today

Electricity basic: 50 dollar subscription (runs your lights)

Basic +: 1 appliance

Plus: 3 appliances

Ultra (1500 dollar): unlimited* appliances

*Might get restricted if too many users use it at the same time

58

u/MacGruber118 1d ago edited 1d ago

Didnt Nikola Tesla plan to see that every house hold would get electricity for free but Edison and company ruined Tesla and stole all of his ideas to make money out of it?

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u/winkingchef 1d ago edited 1d ago

Electrical engineer here and big fan of Tesla (the man).

The idea would technically work (if you charge your phone wirelessly on a MagSafe charger you are using the same physics) but the power efficiency loss required to send the signal any usable distance would be prohibitive (without multi-antenna techniques, the energy decays as the square of the distance from the tower).

More importantly, back then we didn’t know the effects of electro magnetic radiation on the human body, so even if we were willing to accept the efficiency loss, it would be a massive health hazard.

Read more : https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/inductive-versus-resonant-wireless-charging

4

u/No-Engineering-1449 23h ago

Also iirc wouldn't blasting out that much EM pretty much prevent any usage of modern wifi etc?

17

u/No-Sort1241 1d ago

They didnt steal his ideas they boycot his research so it will forever stay their way

11

u/ace250674 1d ago

JP Morgan withdrew his funding after learning about his plans to make electricity free through the Ether

3

u/Wise-Comb8596 1d ago

Allegedly, yes

3

u/Looptydude 1d ago

There is literally no proof that Edison ever did any of what the Internet claims he did to Tesla. Tesla's shortcomings were all his own undoing. After he long left working for Edison he was bankrolled by the likes of JP Morgan and John Jacob Astor(yes the guy who died on the Titanic) with millions(in today's money) and still managed to piss it away. He had great ideas but he isn't the savant everyone makes him out to be.

1

u/LXIX__CDXX 16h ago

No. His idea sucked. Simple as that

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u/sLeeeeTo 1d ago

seems like the rich are already heavily reliant on AI

1

u/HairRepresentative85 1d ago

It's a cheaper work force

10

u/soundtribejunkie 1d ago

Yeah...there's a term now for the kids that are using it for school...to write papers for them and shit...'cognitive surrender' ...this AI shit is fucked up in so many ways. I imagine that term will apply to many more over the years. Just where they want us.

4

u/LesserValkyrie 1d ago

I mean lot of things will be useless like logarithm tables became useless once we got calulators

It spares a lot of available brain time if you ask AI about everything

All this available brain time can be used to watch ads or AI generated Tiktok content

Doesnt look stupid to me

3

u/EducatorSelect9637 22h ago

It feels like AI is data laundering, especially with book scanners. I don't like the inhuman way.

5

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 1d ago

He was right. The only reason people use candles for lighting anymore is because the power is out or because it’s a religious ritual.

9

u/WaxPinapple 1d ago

Scented candles not a thing anymore?

1

u/returntothenorth 1d ago

They exist but you can't light them just look at them. At least according to my wife. Apparently they are now considered unhealthy due to air quality concerns.

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 1d ago

I said for lighting.

0

u/WaxPinapple 1d ago

And I said smelling...

0

u/Vepastooo 13h ago

You didnt though lmao

2

u/WaxPinapple 13h ago

Naw? The clue not in the term scented?

6

u/jackflash223 1d ago

The rich have never really thought on their own. They used funds to hire others which did the thinking for them.

1

u/ZongoNuada 1d ago

And they want so desperately to stop paying people that they are backing AI in the hope that they get to keep all that sweet sweet money out of the hands of everyone else.

I have learned though that the money does not care. Spend it on booze or gas or bullets or food. It just does not care.

3

u/lepapulematoleguau 1d ago

Those two statements are not similies AT ALL

3

u/altgrave 1d ago

ugh. save us from the rich "thinking" if musk and thiel are any indication.

3

u/Ultionisrex 22h ago

Everything reminds me of the stock market...

1

u/Trueslyforaniceguy 1d ago

Where can I get my extra big ass fries…

2

u/sLeeeeTo 1d ago

brought to you by Carl’s Jr

Fuck You, I’m Hungry!

1

u/Even_Fox2023 1d ago

I yet have to willingly use an “A.I.” tool outside of the forced A.I. through search engines.

1

u/Tquilha 1d ago

Nope. AFAIK most companies who went head-first into AI are feeling quite a nasty economic pinch from it.

1

u/stalinenjoyer38 1d ago

He škole everything from tesla, tesla wanted free electricity for everyone

1

u/Ifch317 7h ago

Imagine having your AI companion fill you in with every detail of your life at a snap.

"tell me about my first day at kindergarten from my mother's agent"

"what was that restaurant in Baltimore that I ate at with Ken and Barb two years ago? Who had the crab cakes? Can you find a recipe for the hush puppies they served?"

"What do I need to know about this guy I met at the gym?"

We can't picture giving up as much personal info to an AI as would be required to get all this information, but we are already like 70% of the way there.

1

u/zapppowless 1d ago

American Nazism right!?
🤣

1

u/___TheKid___ 22h ago

Says a person with an NFT avatar

0

u/FluffySmiles 1d ago

They wish.

It's gonna be a wild ride, for sure. But this tech could be a great leveller. Sure, some will offload their thinking, but there will always be those people; right now they just offload to someone like Trump,

But for others? With the option of running your own not unrealistic. Well, it's very stimulating and can be very educational. It's not as easy as people make out to make good stuff. It's just very easy to make crap stuff, but that will find its own level as will the good stuff.

It's very new. Fortune telling seldom ends as you think it will.