[scroot]

As an elder millennial, I just don't know what to say. That a once in a generation allocation of capital should go towards...whatever this all will be, is certainly tragic given current state of the world and its problems. Can't help but see it as the latest in a lifelong series of baffling high stakes decisions of dubious social benefit that have necessarily global consequences.

[ayaros]

I'm a younger millennial. I'm always seeing homeless people in my city and it's an issue that I think about on a daily basis. Couldn't we have spent the money on homeless shelters and food and other things? So many people are in poverty, they can't afford basic necessities. The world is shitty.

Yes, I know it's all capital from VC firms and investment firms and other private sources, but it's still capital. It should be spent on meeting people's basic human needs, not GPU power.

Yeah, the world is shitty, and resources aren't allocated ideally. Must it be so?

[ericmcer]

The last 10 years has seen CA spend more on homelessness than ever before, and more than any other state by a huge margin. The result of that giant expenditure is the problem is worse than ever.

I don't want to get deep in the philosophical weeds around human behavior, techno-optimism, etc., but it is a bit reductive to say "why don't we just give homeless people money".

[SequoiaHope]

The Sikhs in India run multiple facilities across the country that each can serve 50,000-100,000 free meals a day. It doesn’t even take much in the form of resources, and we could do this in every major city in the US yet we still don’t do it. It’s quite disheartening.

https://youtu.be/5FWWe2U41N8

[amluto]

From what I’ve read, addressing homelessness effectively requires competence more than it requires vast sums of money. Here’s one article:

https://calmatters.org/housing/2023/06/california-homeless-t...

Note that Houston’s approach seems to be largely working. It’s not exactly cheap, but the costs are not even in the same ballpark as AI capital expenses. Also, upzoning doesn’t require public funding at all.

[IAmGraydon]

The older I get, the more I realize that our choices in life come down to two options: benefit me or benefit others. The first one leads to nearly every trouble we have in the world. The second nearly always leads to happiness, whether directly or indirectly. Our bias as humans has always been toward the first, but our evolution is and will continue to slowly bring us toward the second option. Beyond simple reproduction, this realization is our purpose, in my opinion.

[GaryBluto]

> Yes, I know it's all capital from VC firms and investment firms and other private sources, but it's still capital. It should be spent on meeting people's basic human needs, not GPU power.

It's capital that belongs to people and those people can do what they like with the money they earned.

So many great scientific breakthroughs that saved tens of millions of lives would never have happened if you had your way.

[AstroBen]

> Couldn't we have spent the money on homeless shelters and food and other things

I suspect this is a much more complicated issue than just giving them food and shelter. Can money even solve it?

How would you allocate money to end obesity, for instance? It's primarily a behavioral issue, a cultural issue

[dkural]

[ This comment I'm making is USA centric. ]. I agree with the idea of making our society better and more equitable - reducing homelessness, hunger, poverty, especially for our children. However, I think redirecting this to AI datacenter spending is a red-herring, here's why I think this: As a society we give a significant portion of our surplus to government. We then vote on what the government should spend this on. AI datacenter spending is massive, but if you add it all up, it doesn't cover half of a years worth of government spending. We need to change our politics to redirect taxation and spending to achieve a better society. Having a private healthcare system that spends twice the amount for the poorest results in the developed world is a policy choice. Spending more than the rest of the world combined on the military is a policy choice. Not increasing minimum wage so at least everyone with a full time job can afford a home is a policy job (google "working homelessness). VC is a teeny tiny part of the economy. All of tech is only about 6% of the global economy.

[GolfPopper]

The current pattern of resource allocation is a necessary requirement for the existence of the billionaire-class, who put significant effort into making sure it continues.

[nine_zeros]

> but it's still capital. It should be spent on meeting people's basic human needs, not GPU power.

What you have just described is people wanting investment in common society - you see the return on this investment but ultra-capitalistic individuals don't see any returns on this investment because it doesn't benefit them.

In other words, you just asked for higher taxes on the rich that your elected officials could use for your desired investment. And the rich don't want that which is why they spend on lobbying.

[UtopiaPunk]

I don't think it is a coincidence that the areas with the wealhiest people/corporations are the same areas with the most extreme poverty. The details are, of course, complicated, but zooming way way out, the rich literally drain wealth from those around them.

[newfriend]

Technological advancement is what has pulled billions of people out of poverty.

Giving handouts to layabouts isn't an ideal allocation of resources if we want to progress as a civilization.

[reactordev]

I threw in the towel in April.

It's clear we are Wile E. Coyote running in the air already past the cliff and we haven't fallen yet.

[saulpw]

What does it mean to throw in the towel, in your case? Divesting from the stock market? Moving to a hobby farm? Giving up on humanity?

[jstummbillig]

I don't know what to do with this take.

We need an order of magnitude more clean productivity in the world so that everyone can live a life that is at least as good as what fairly normal people in the west currently enjoy.

Anyone who think this can be fixed with current Musk money is simply not getting it: If we liquidated all of that, that would buy a dinner for everyone in the world (and then, of course, that would be it, because the companies that he owns would stop functioning).

We are simply, obviously, not good enough at producing stuff in a sustainable way (or: at all) and we owe it to every human being alive to take every chance to make this happen QUICKLY, because we are paying with extremely shitty humans years, and they are not ours.

Bring on the AI, and let's make it work for everyone – and, believe me, if this is not to be to the benefit of roughly everyone, I am ready to fuck shit up. But if the past is any indication, we are okay at improving the lives of everyone when productivity increases. I don't know why this time would be any different.

If the way to make good lives for all 8 billions of us must lead to more Musks because, apparently, we are too dumb to do collectivization in any sensible way, I really don't care.

[randomNumber7]

> I don't know why this time would be any different.

This time there is the potential to replace human workers. In the past it only made them more productive.

[PrairieFire]

agree the capital could be put to better use, however I believe the alternative is this capital wouldn't have otherwise been put to work in ways that allow it to leak to the populace at large. for some of the big investors in AI infrastructure, this is cash that was previously and likely would have otherwise been put toward stock buybacks. for many of the big investors pumping cash in, these are funds deploying the wealth of the mega rich, that again, otherwise would have been deployed in other ways that wouldn't leach down to the many that are yielding it via this AI infrastructure boom (datacenter materials, land acquisition, energy infrastructure, building trades, etc, etc)

[amanaplanacanal]

It could have, though. Higher taxes on the rich, spend it on social programs.

[Atheros]

> likely would have otherwise been put toward stock buybacks

Stock buybacks from who? When stock gets bought the money doesn't disappear into thin air; the same cash is now in someone else's hands. Those people would then want to invest it in something and then we're back to square one.

You assert that if not for AI, wealth wouldn't have been spent on materials, land, trades, ect. But I don't think you have any reason to think this. Money is just an abstraction. People would have necessarily done something with their land, labor, and skills. It isn't like there isn't unmet demand for things like houses or train tunnels or new-fangled types of aircraft or countless other things. Instead it's being spent on GPUs.

[slashdave]

Well, at least this doesn't involve death and suffering, like the old-fashioned way to jump-start an economy by starting a global war.

[7222aafdcf68cfe]

when the US sells out Europe to Russia, do you think the Russians will stop? That global war might be with us within a decade.

[brokenmachine]

...yet

[skippyboxedhero]

Can you imagine if the US wasn't so unbelievably far ahead of everyone else?

I am sure the goat herders in rural regions of Pakistan will think themselves lucky when they see the terrible sight of shareholder value being wantonly destroyed by speculative investments that enhance the long-term capital base of the US economy. What an uncivilized society.

[anthomtb]

As a fellow elder millennial I agree with your sentiment.

But I don't see the mechanics of how it would work. Rewind to October 2022. How, exactly, does the money* invested in AI since that time get redirected towards whatever issues you find more pressing?

*I have some doubts about the headline numbers

[arisAlexis]

Yes this capital allocation is a once in a lifetime opportunity to crate AGI that will solve diseases and poverty.

[edhelas]

</sarcasm>

[brokenmachine]

We have 8.3 billion examples of general intelligence alive on the planet right now.

Surely an artificial one in a data center, costing trillions and beholden to shareholders, will solve all society's issues!