[jsnell]

It is basically impossible for AI software improvements to devalue the AI compute investments.

It's the other way around, software improvements make the hardware more valuable. Let's say that one unit of compute can generate one unit of value. As the software improves on any of the principal axes (cheaper cost for same quality, or new capabilities that you could previously not get for any price), that same unit of compute will produce more value.

What would threaten those compute investments? Basically order of magnitude improvements in the hardware, but that kind of thing will take longer to happen than the projected lifetime of the hardware. (Or the demand for AI evaporating, but that tends to be an issue of faith that is hard to have a useful discussion on.)

[Yizahi]

That's assuming all existing LLM investments divided by the all existing LLM usage is net valuable as baseline. But if that is not yet like that, then software improvements may or may not bring those investments over the valuable threshold.

[jopsen]

That's an interesting take.

It does assume that more intelligence is both possible and useful -- that's probably not unlikely.