[heylook]

> I think their point is the billions in private investment which preceded those millions.

But the "billions" didn't precede the "millions". They're just completely incorrect, and anyone that knows even a tiny amount about the actual history can see it immediately. That's why these comment sections are so polarized. It's a bunch of people vibe commenting vs people that have spent even like an hour researching the industry.

The history of semiconductor enterprise in the US is just a bunch of private companies lobbying the government for contracts, grants, and legal/trade protections. All of them would've folded at several different points without military contracts or government research grants. Read Chip War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_War:_The_Fight_for_the_Wo...

[absolutelastone]

You seem to be arguing that the second government touches anything then everything it does gets credited to the government funding column. Seems simplistic to me, but you can believe what you like. Go back far enough and there was only private industry, and no government funding until the space race basically.

Either way the fact remains that the billions spent developing GPU's preceded the millions spent to use those GPUs for AI. Not sure what it has to do with polarization of the comment section. I assume it's just people seeking an opportunity to heap abuse on anything close to a representative of the evil "other side".

[regularization]

> Go back far enough and there was only private industry, and no government funding until the space race basically.

How do you think the railroads were built in the US? The bonds of the Pacific Railroad Acts date back to the 1860s. Pretty easy to build a railway line when government foots the bill.

[camdenreslink]

Many industries are uninvestable in their early days. How many get to the point where private funding makes sense without initial government funding for fundamental science and research? Where will we be in 15 years if the government starts pulling funding like the NSF? We might find the private money at that time is funding those future industries in other countries instead.

[heylook]

> You seem to be arguing that the second government touches anything then everything it does gets credited to the government funding column.

Absolutely not. This is an obvious bad faith interpretation of my comment.

> Either way the fact remains that the billions spent developing GPU's preceded the millions spent to use those GPUs for AI.

Again, you're just obviously completely factually wrong to anyone who has even a modicum of casual interest in the history of these technologies.

> Not sure what it has to do with polarization of the comment section. I assume it's just people seeking an opportunity to heap abuse on anything close to a representative of the evil "other side".

And one more time for the people in the back. Anyone with any amount of actual knowledge on the topic at hand can immediately dismiss your entire argument because it isn't based in anything resembling fact. It's just you wishing or hoping that it might be somewhere close to true. This is just that scene from Billy Madison: "Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."