this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2026
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If we didn't have RAM in our phones and PC's, how would we use the data centers?
It's almost as if Sam Altman is a moron.
Also a lot of the hardware for data centers is just laying around unused, because the data centers aren't even built.
He’s referring specifically to local RAM used to run local AI models, whichl he argues is unused most of time. Say if you use your local AI for 4 hours a day, it’s idle for 20. Where the same model in a cloud might serve users across time zones 24/7.
It’s a similar argument about private car ownership, where a car might be used 5% of the day for a lot of people while 95% of the time it requires storage space, aka a parking spot somewhere.
The argument makes sebse for some things but not for others.
Take water bottles. Or mugs. Having 15 of them collecting dust in a drawer is suboptimal. Therefore no one should own one and rent it from a muglord.
There's a balance to be found, and I'd say RAM is more of a commodity than cars are. The fact it's not 99.999% utilized, unlike a certain someone's wishes is a feature of life and not a bug of capitalism not yet being post late stage.