Nvidia will prioritize AI and more than likely know when to bail before the bubble bursts. They will have made boatloads for shareholders while leaving so many others in financial ruin. Whether those caught in the bubble burst should have known better… I guess it’s a case by case basis.
Part of what ruins games for me are the massive publishers behind them. EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar.
The games may be great. The developers may be great. The studios (by and large) interfere in the process of development, the monetization, the end-of-life plan…
For me, when I have the chance to play games, I’ve found myself opting for smaller studios or indie games.
Also I want to shout out Ross Scott of Accursed Farms. He covers so many cool and obscure games. He has worked incredibly hard towards enacting pro-consumer business practices in the gaming world. He’s a very smart and pragmatic guy. I would highly recommend anyone who’s into gaming to check out his site and content.
To me, he’s been an inspiration in his uphill battle of the Stop Killing Games initiative. He’s been working through the apathy, the negativity, the doubt. It’s actually incredible what he’s achieved. A man with passion and a plan, who happens to also make some damn good game related videos.
Ok I realize this just turned into a love letter for Ross Scott. I’m okay with that.
Self-hosted is a great way to go for those who can afford the initial cost and can get the setup done. I’d love to see more of it but I also know that most people won’t do that, and I get it because if I asked my mom to self-host right now I think her brain would explode.
Second best we can do is start using and promoting alternatives. Us nerds tend to be some of the earlier adopters. If enough users flock to the right platform, and if the platform is easy for non-nerds to sign up, then the shift may happen. Now is a climate where the desire for change is higher than normal.
No company is too big to dominate the landscape, the momentum and desire just needs to grow. And we should be careful of jumping from one pirate ship to another pirate ship. TikTok to Reels, Twitter/X to Threads, these are not the kind of changes we need to encourage.
But I’m not one for social media overall, so I can’t do much except inform my family and friends in a way that doesn’t drive them crazy. To anyone reading: don’t be that guy either, because if you pester too hard you’re likely to breed resentment and cause people to become further entrenched in their current habits.
When it comes to LLM AI usage, there’s definitely a few things you can consider.
I’ll reference OpenAI as you mentioned but it can apply to others as well to varying degrees
First is that the OpenAI has the goal of making a profit, but the market is getting more saturated, the costs to run data centres increases with model complexity and user base increases.
Funding is being pumped into them by investors, government in the US and other non-AI companies are banking on AI to bolster the economy and profits respectively. For things like ChatGPT they offer paid plans for consumers but this is a small fraction of their revenue.
The stats show they are losing money quickly. Investors want profits, the company wants dominance, the government seems to be approaching it from a “too big to fail approach”.
So we’re slowly seeing shifts; in the US, ads are being experimented with in ChatGPT, models are being chosen that use less tokens and less computing power, etc.
There have also been studies showing the diminishing returns of the thinking that “a bigger model is better”.
There’s also the question of how much they care about correct answers. They are surely aware that most don’t understand how an LLM AI works, that most will not do much research to fact-check answers, that most will consider convenience to be king.
Their token system is a huge balancing act and I’m not fully convinced they know what works and what doesn’t.
AI is being propped up, it shows signs of a bubble. Not to say AI is going anywhere, but when the pop inevitably happens, the LLM AI landscape will leave behind a lot of failure and monetary loss, and a few winners. Think dot com bubble for reference but in a whole new era of computing.
The circular economy going on and the investment from private and US government entities can only keep this train on the tracks for so long.
If I were to subjectively answer your question in a phrase: I don’t think they really do care too much at the moment.
Data sovereignty and social media sovereignty is something I’d love to see worked on more. I mean, the shift is already happening to a larger degree as you know if you’re reading this comment.
It’s a sad state of affairs when the average Joe needs to consider these things - or maybe it’s a wake up call to our relative complacency over the past decades?
I prefer to keep my data outside of the US. Canada for some, specific EU countries for others. But bills like Chat Control are even threatening other nations’ long-standing privacy norms. The burn-out will be real for some, those who didn’t care may not until it directly affects them. Others will hopefully find a balance they believe suits them.
The floor is lava! Have to keep jumping around!
Microsoft has really messed up quite spectacularly. 5 years ago I would never have even considered switching to another OS (especially for a daily driver).
Yet here I am, using LINUX! My experience with Linux has gone from the perception of it as a scary figure, a ghost looming around me that I was trying to ignore. But now, I’m realizing that Linux is more like Casper. Linux is a friendly ghost. So while I still may not know how to totally deal with cohabitating with a ghost, at least it’s friendly, in theory.
But in less obtuse terms: my experience with Linux has definitely had it’s terminal moments and learning to de-Windowsify my tasking, but it’s come to the point where the cons of Windows make it a non-starter.
Maybe it’s not the year of the Linux desktop, but the years of the Linux desktop. Reaching a wider audience and finding a way to make choosing a distro is going to be a task.
I will say that while I’ve never bought one of their systems, System76 is a company I regularly check up on because I think it’s very cool that they’re PC building from the ground up with Linux (and their own Linux distro as well). It’s a trend in the right direction, at least.
It’s always a concern when travelling to another country. There’s the decision between biometrics, passcode and/or burner. When travelling, always keep in mind that legality varies, and a country’s compliance with their laws varies as well…
Prepare ahead of time, always.