Original Reddit post

The amount of money being spent on AI is insane. Most people are dimly aware of this, but I think very few of us actually appreciate the scale: This year alone the top six US spenders are spending more on AI than the Russian government, governing 11 time zones and 143 million people, fighting a war on which the fate of its regime depends, spends in a year. Hyperscalers are spending $785-820bn this year, about 2.4% of US gdp. Only 11 governments on earth spend more than that. Next year they are projected to spend 1.3tn dollars. Google and Amazon are each spending about 0.6% of US GDP this year. The Manhattan project and apologies programme each accounted for about 0.4% of US GDP in their peak years. Both of these companies have announced their intention to spend even more next year. This money is paying for thousands of data centres, the largest of which consume as much electricity as major cities and cover thousands of acres. Gas piplines are being re routed, nuclear plants (including three mile island) are being reopened and newly built. They already consume as much energy as Britain. The increase in power demand for data centres from 2023 to 2030 will be the same as adding a top ten power consuming country. Clearly the decision makers behind this really really believe the singularity is near. To recoup their spend AI will have to generate far more in revenues than it currently does so it will have to get a lot better, and it will have to happen soon. They’ve bet their companies futures on this. They obviously believe they are onto something. So what do we think? A bubble? The singularity is near? Both? submitted by /u/Unfair-Journalist-66

Originally posted by u/Unfair-Journalist-66 on r/ArtificialInteligence