@cstross
I know it makes for a not too satisfying story, but linear algebra is as linear algebra does.

General purpose CPU makers gave up, but the craving for parallel computation is still here...

@cstross that's an interesting theory and I expect some do that, but I don't assume that's the real driver for either. I can't back that up, but I'm skeptical of simple, what many would like to believe takes.

What I know is that outside the VC area more promising, ethically driven technology devt has been going on under the radar since before either and am hopeful one of these will start to come together soon. No GPU's needed, designed for simple legacy h/w and harness unused resources.

@cstross NN hardware reqs are way harder than crypto where they only need to communicate when someone finds a winning hash - training huge NNs needs a *ton *of communication bandwidth both amongst the GPUs and between the GPUs and storage, network/interconnect is as important as compute

The GPUs get fast enough they can't be fed training data or model updates fast enough to actually keep them busy and you can't really effectively use more/better GPUs til you upgrade the interconnects

@cstross I sometimes do reviews of research proposals.

I have not much liked having to determine if the proposed budgets for computing are reasonable or not because of cryptocurrency scammers running up the GPU prices or buying up entire production lines.

I will not like it if "AI" scammers do the same thing.

@cstross VCs have been investing in AI startups for years now - I know because I’ve worked at them for the past 5 years.

What you’re seeing is hype followers, grifters, and the VCs that fall into those first two categories glomming on to the next thing, which is just a questionable, exceptionally resource-hogging subset of AI, not AI as a whole.

@cstross I have a modestly different take on this: It's not that cryptocurrencies were the first such grift, it's that *every* wave of innovation in the last twenty years have a ... Festival.. of people hyping and puffing it.

The venture capital industry took a page from a dark version of Alan Kay's "to predict the future you must first invent it".

They have created a world where the first derivative of capital flows is truth, and that's how they invent.

@glindsey @cstross There are some interesting uses to cryptocurrencies.

The thing is, those uses are better served by other better & simpler designs (#GNUTaler > bitcoin for basically all purposes especially privacy), and don't lend themselves well to grifting. So you won't see them.

@jnavarra @cstross Charlie pointed out at 34C3 that capital-C Corporations *are* the paperclip AIs that AI ethicists have warned us about.

They have ostensible goals (provide services/products), proxy goals (shareholder value) and internal goals (whatever management currently chases), none of which neccesarily align with human values or even continued human existence. The internal workings are utterly incomprehensible. They're also playing the AI Box experiment (corporate laws) *and we lost*.

@suetanvil @cstross We've badly underestimated the sheer manipulativeness of Nvidia.

"Yes, Jim, I've read your confidential internal memo that says that cryptocurrency and AI are going to pretty much destroy civilization, and I can't argue with your conclusions. But I have to remind you that we have a fiduciary duty to our shareholders ..."

@suetanvil @cstross The abso-fucking-lutely depressing thing about this is that it is fucking obvious for anyone with a minimum of skepticism about the workings of investment fads* and it's not conspiracy theory territory because all of the regular vaporware suspects are not even covering their bullshit anymore.

*Bubbles