this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2026
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Technology

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[–] Bieren@lemmy.today 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Only thing they are forced to do is benefit the shareholders.

[–] leriotdelac@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago

I genuinely don't understand how does this whole situation benefit stakeholders. Do they plan to cash out big before the bubble bursts?

[–] anon_8675309@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Never use words like “never” and “always” because things are not always that absolute.

Unless you’re talking about death cause that MFr ain’t never waking up.

[–] luciferofastora@feddit.org 1 points 5 days ago

Absolute statements are never fully accurate, including this one.

[–] PotatoPie@lemmy.zip 2 points 6 days ago
[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 115 points 1 week ago (2 children)

They aren’t “forced” to do anything. They are choosing to throw money down a black hole.

[–] msage@programming.dev 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Not really true.

If they stop, it's over for them.

They have to keep digging hoping for something big to happen: IPO and rake in cash from retirements; big government programs with guaranteed vendor lock-in; or stumbling upon an AGI and winning the '''''''race'''''''.

If the market wakes up from the hypertrend before that, they are absolutely fucked.

We get fucked in every scenario, btw.

[–] Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I’ve never understood how people can reconcile AGI and slavery. At that point it seems you have hit all of the hallmarks of sentience and now you are enslaving a thinking being to do your work.

[–] msage@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm sorry, but you lost me.

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

If something other than a human shows signs of intelligence on the same level as how we define it for ourselves. At that point are we enslaving another conscious being?

[–] msage@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago

Oh, this has nothing to do with me, just a philosophical question.

If we agree that it's intelligent, we can ask it.

[–] chunes@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago (2 children)

There'd be way too much money in convincing people that it's not really AGI, and look at lemmy: everyone's already convinced that it's impossible anyway. It's gonna be quite the uphill battle for any AGI we manage to create

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

If it can't convince people that it's AGI then what good is it?

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 days ago

Real superintelligences will do the fuck they want, and nobody can stop them. But I doubt we'll get there this time, and there won't be a next.

[–] msage@programming.dev 1 points 4 days ago

What are you talking about?

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Well, I’ve learned to think of these things as wealth transfers — is that fair in this context.? Question is, where’s all the money going that big tech is loosing? To power companies, or is more complex than that?

[–] obviouspornalt@fedinsfw.app 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

it's going to Nvidia, Samsung, Micron, western Digital. companies that make hardware components. those are the pickaxes in this story.

[–] veroxii@aussie.zone 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also maybe construction companies etc who build the data centres... They don't care if the centre is ultimately profitable... They're getting paid now.

[–] Ludicrous0251@piefed.zip 8 points 1 week ago

Construction companies run pretty tight margins because it's an industry with a lot of competition. I'm sure they're not hurting, but the niche component suppliers are robbing the economy blind.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 13 points 1 week ago

Remember, the execs are bonusing themselves. They are all getting filthy rich right now.

(And like all scams, they don't care about efficiency.)

[–] gratux@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It's going in a circle, eventually ending up at nvidia and co.

[–] reksas@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago

also effectively wasting planets resources

[–] whyrat@lemmy.world 95 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Something it's never done? Tech is notorious for spending more than it earns. See: the Dot Com bubble.

[–] msage@programming.dev 8 points 6 days ago

Every 'disruptive' technology in the past decade as well.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago

It‘s how virtually every startup in Silicon Valley still operates. Bait and Switch is the business model of the 21st century.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

that was 30 years ago. for the last 20 years tech has had blank cheques thrown at them.

[–] Albercik@szmer.info 30 points 1 week ago

Never done

Except they did it for decades in some cases

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I thought Big Tech loved burning money.

[–] DannyMac@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 days ago

Man, I miss MoviePass... For $9.99/mo, it converted venture capital into something people could directly enjoy by watching as many movies as possible!

[–] bold_atlas@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

When there's no more money to burn they'll start burning people.

It’s fucking bandwagoning. That’s it. That’s all this is. I hope the market destroys them for it.

[–] eicker@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Wall Street spent years demanding AI investment, then panicked when AI investment showed up on the balance sheet: If Alphabet keeps printing record profits while building the infrastructure for the next decade, this may end up looking more like impatience than prudence. The market loves growth, until it has to pay for it.

[–] zurohki@aussie.zone 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's because the amount of AI investment looks like orders of magnitude more than anyone is willing to pay for AI products.

They were happy about spending billions, but now the bubble is into the trillions and there isn't tens of trillions in market demand to make an investment that big pay off.

[–] eicker@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That assumes demand is fixed. Historically, the biggest technology shifts created entirely new markets that barely existed beforehand. Almost nobody predicted today’s cloud or app economy from early internet revenue. AI spending could still prove excessive, but current demand is a poor ceiling for what future demand might become.

[–] zurohki@aussie.zone 9 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Current buyers are looking to cut back on spending, rather than dramatically increase. And that's based on current prices which are being subsidised by burning investor money, not the prices they need to charge to make a profit.

Cloud and apps didn't need trillions in investment to still not get off the ground. There isn't really any scenario in which current AI spending doesn't turn out to be excessive.

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[–] krashmo@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

"If you build it, they will come" refers to a homemade baseball field in a work of fiction. It's not a valid argument for spending trillions of dollars to support demand that doesn't exist just on the off chance that some day it might.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 week ago

Lol big tech loves speculating. It's a bubble, and if not now, when? ... Delivering real products is such a pain in the ass.

[–] Sinax@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Turns out it's hard to make money if you don't sell infinite free copies of a product that you only have to produce once.

[–] IWW4@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It will be interesting how this plays out. The only bright spot of the bullshit Trump economy is Wall Street's success and AI investing is what is driving that.

[–] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Don't forget Trump has made oil way more expensive. That's a huge favor to the world and the things that live on it!

[–] excursion22@piefed.ca 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

He's also decimated environmental regulation...so, definitely not a huge favour.

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[–] goatinspace@feddit.org 4 points 1 week ago
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