Canals were at least solving a problem that actually existed and needed solving at the time when they were started. AI data centres are being built in anticipation of future demand, for use cases that haven't been developed yet.

[–] poopsmith@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

That’s not accurate from my understanding. I quit my SDE job in December, but my former coworkers say they use AI pretty much all day and find it useful. Ofc, the company’s systems were an indecipherable mess, mostly because of rushed choices those same people made everyday, but neither here nor there. This is why tech companies are cutting jobs.

Whether any of this is sustainable remains to be seen, but there are current use cases and real demand for “AI” data centers.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 3 points 52 minutes ago (1 children)

I believe that they use it all day. I believe that they say they find it useful.

I also believe that their bosses gave them a productivity slot machine and told them if they don’t play it they’re fired.

So some of them like it for bad reasons, and some of them have to pretend to like it.

[–] locuester@lemmy.zip 2 points 47 minutes ago

I’m a self employed old-timer engineer. I love the magic pattern machine box. Wish I had this back in the y2k bug fixing days.

I pay for it myself, as a business owner.

I pay for it because it solves real problems I have, and improves my quality of life.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 19 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Current tech layoffs are mostly a result of over hiring during the pandemic. Blaming AI is just the sales pitch to investors try to prove that the AI spending was worth it.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 points 27 minutes ago (1 children)

I find this hard to believe, since I remember those pandemic layoffs already happening around 2023.

[–] sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 1 points 13 minutes ago* (last edited 13 minutes ago)

Wasn't this more related to the Trump era H1B limitations expiring under Biden around 2022? I may be misremembering the timeline since time after 2020 is fucked, but I swear I remember a greater uptick of H1B hires in tech around this time, as well as outsourcing teams to India.

[–] epyon22@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

A few years ago with ARM arriving at the data centers I envisioned there would be a day that density would go up and new data centers would be less in demand. I'm either too early or wrong.

[–] Flower@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago

In economics, the Jevons paradox, or Jevons effect, is said to occur when technological improvements that increase the efficiency of a resource's use lead to a rise, rather than a fall, in total consumption of that resource.

Unfortunately using less of a good thing isn't how we do things.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 hours ago

I'm thinking you might have been wrong. Even without AI, I don't foresee demand for compute going down. Even if everything went over to ARM, I think that would have just slowed the rate of new builds.