AnimalMuppet

Or, more generally, embedded systems - though that isn't always simple compared to "real" software engineering.

Yeah, this. "Terrible" implies a framework of better and worse, and his axes don't align with everyone else's.

And even in economic terms... the way free markets work is that we let dollars decide which resources go where. That's the "optimal" distribution of scarce resources - they go wherever most values them. So his distribution is in fact economically sub-optimal. I value having some RAM more than he values having one more increment of RAM, so I get some and he doesn't.

He doesn't like it? Not my problem. Not economic theory's problem, either.

Yeah. Well, forgive us for failing to make that our priority.

OK, but Altman is complaining about individual users. Nobody said that maxing out my PC for gaming purposes or just to keep Windows from getting sluggish was a waste, pretty much ever.

And, "waste" has an overtone of moral wrong, of "you shouldn't". When before did anyone say that I shouldn't get a nice PC? Never.

So, yeah, moralizing to individual users that they shouldn't buy DRAM so someone else can have it is new.

Therefore... what? The universe is a black hole? (If so, what if anything does that change? Is there a singularity that we hit within a finite proper time?)

Or the universe is not a black hole? If that's the case, why isn't it?

A bit off-topic, but: How often do they re-train models on current events? Every month? Every day? Every hour?

Given how AIs work, if they weren't trained with last night's sports news, you can't get an accurate answer this morning. All you can get is a hallucination.

There was a time when people were running less-capable minicomputers, but the future was mainframes.

There was a time when people were running microcomputers, but they were just toys; the future was mainframes and minis to do real work.

The way tech goes is that the "toys" become real. They become where the action is. The bigger stuff doesn't go away - there are still mainframes, even today - but the action moved on to microcomputers, and then to phones.

There will still be "big" models, but don't dismiss models on a chip because they are "toys".

Note well: I do not claim that models on a chip will certainly follow that trajectory. All I'm saying is that, given the trends in tech over the last several decades, don't dismiss them just because they are toys.

Sure. We're still waiting to hear how that translated into depositors taking losses and shareholders getting bailed out, though.

I mean, look, you can point to some losses by depositors - those over the FDIC limit, and when two money market funds broke the buck. You can also point to some instances where the rescues helped stockholders, at least compared to what their losses would have been. But the general trend was that shareholders took a bath, and depositors did not.

They're just satisfying demand? Then let the demand pay for them paying for the memory, at whatever the price has to be for them to get enough of it.

What Altman is doing is claiming that his company should satisfy demand, even at the expense of any competing demand. No, it doesn't work like that. You get what you can pay for, which depends on what your customers are willing to pay you for.

Perhaps he does. But why should I care what Sam Altman thinks?

See, in a free economy, we allocate scarce goods by who's willing to pay for them. If I'm willing to pay more per gig than Altman is, why shouldn't I get that gig?

You want it, Altman? So do we. You're going to have to pay more than any of us can afford in order for you to get it all. You don't want to (or can't) pay that much? Then you don't get it all.

Altman (and those like him) have already made RAM unaffordable for quite a few of us. If that's not good enough for him, frankly, not many of us care.

Where did depositors almost get wiped out in 2008?

At NetBank? Only if they were over the FDIC limit. Stockholders got destroyed, though.

At Bear Stearns? No, depositors got protected in a convoluted deal. The shareholders got very close to nothing.

At Lehman Brothers? They did "break the buck" on money market funds for a bit, but weren't depositors made whole? And weren't stock owners wiped out in the bankruptcy?

Washington Mutual? Depositors were covered by the FDIC.

Where were depositors "almost wiped out"? Where specifically? Where were stockholders bailed out?

Hmm. Look at blood chemistry, sleep patterns, and pollution exposure when planning a course of psychiatric treatment? That seems reasonable. Those things can definitely have an effect.

I actually liked the approach that happened with several large companies in 2008 - the stockholders get wiped out, the senior management is gone, but the depositors get protected.

There are almost certainly bank execs who are looking at Anthropic's IPO and thinking "if it crashes, we'll get bailed out". Saying "no you won't" now, before the IPO, when it has a chance to affect peoples' behavior, is a worthwhile thing to do.

Yes, it can tell you. How perfectly, though? Perfectly enough to bet 60 lives on?

When Google Maps gets wrong what lane I'm in, nobody dies. It can be right 99% of the time, that's good enough. It's not good enough for a train system, though - at least, I suspect it's not. I'd want a lot more than "it works in my car" before I trusted it.