High RAM prices are our fault

[Sami13496]

I think you could argue that high RAM prices are partly our own fault because of the massive demand for AI. We keep using AI chatbots, image generators, coding assistants, recommendation systems, and other AI services, and all of that requires huge amounts of powerful hardware running in data centers. Those systems need enormous amounts of memory, which increases demand across the entire memory industry.

The more we use AI, the more companies invest in building larger AI data centers. Tech companies are buying huge quantities of high-performance memory for AI servers, sometimes competing for the same manufacturing capacity that could otherwise be used for other types of memory. This can put pressure on supply and contribute to higher prices for consumers.

In that sense, you could say that our growing obsession with AI is contributing to expensive RAM. We demand faster, smarter, and more powerful AI, but then complain when the hardware needed to support the AI boom becomes more expensive.

Of course, consumers are not entirely responsible. Memory manufacturers and large technology companies make their own decisions about production, supply, and pricing. But if there were no massive demand for AI services, there would likely be less pressure on the memory market. So the argument is that high RAM prices are, at least partly, the result of our own demand for AI.

 

[drrich2]

Who's 'we?'

Society? 1st world societies? Consumers? Industry?

If you mean mainstream home users of computing platforms (e.g.: Macs, PCs, smart phones, tablets), while there is some use, how much of the 'demand' is from them vs. more industrial users like coders, businesses, etc.?

A.I. is in effect an investment with huge costs and hopes of huger returns.

 

[Apple_Robert]

You can keep the we on your shoulders.

 

[mw360]

I think you could argue that high RAM prices are partly our own fault because of the massive demand for AI. We keep using AI chatbots, image generators, coding assistants, recommendation systems, and other AI services, and all of that requires huge amounts of powerful hardware running in data centers. Those systems need enormous amounts of memory, which increases demand across the entire memory industry.

The more we use AI, the more companies invest in building larger AI data centers. Tech companies are buying huge quantities of high-performance memory for AI servers, sometimes competing for the same manufacturing capacity that could otherwise be used for other types of memory. This can put pressure on supply and contribute to higher prices for consumers.

In that sense, you could say that our growing obsession with AI is contributing to expensive RAM. We demand faster, smarter, and more powerful AI, but then complain when the hardware needed to support the AI boom becomes more expensive.

Of course, consumers are not entirely responsible. Memory manufacturers and large technology companies make their own decisions about production, supply, and pricing. But if there were no massive demand for AI services, there would likely be less pressure on the memory market. So the argument is that high RAM prices are, at least partly, the result of our own demand for AI.

Maybe, but all the evidence points to us not using it enough to justify the expenditure, therefore the 'blame' lies with what the AI companies thinks future us will do, not what we're actually doing.

Don't get me wrong though, enough of us will all act in their own immediate interest and not for the collective good, and they'll be proud of it. We'll use AI to compete with each other and in that process AI will win everything. As AI becomes more and more productive, human labour will fall so far behind in productivity contributions that most of us simply won't be able to afford RAM.

The idea of owning AI hardware will be as nonsensical as the idea we could currently own a Harvard graduate who goes into the office on our behalf and brings home a 300K salary. That economic imbalance makes no sense at all, yet that's effectively what people are naively walking into. There's a bubble about to burst, bit it might not be overvalued AI, it might be overvalued people.

There you go. Sorry, when I enabled dark mode on my browser I thought it would just change the colours. 😱

 

[derekheeps]

I think you could argue that high RAM prices are partly our own fault because of the massive demand for AI. We keep using AI chatbots, image generators, coding assistants, recommendation systems, and other AI services, and all of that requires huge amounts of powerful hardware running in data centers. Those systems need enormous amounts of memory, which increases demand across the entire memory industry.

The more we use AI, the more companies invest in building larger AI data centers. Tech companies are buying huge quantities of high-performance memory for AI servers, sometimes competing for the same manufacturing capacity that could otherwise be used for other types of memory. This can put pressure on supply and contribute to higher prices for consumers.

In that sense, you could say that our growing obsession with AI is contributing to expensive RAM. We demand faster, smarter, and more powerful AI, but then complain when the hardware needed to support the AI boom becomes more expensive.

Of course, consumers are not entirely responsible. Memory manufacturers and large technology companies make their own decisions about production, supply, and pricing. But if there were no massive demand for AI services, there would likely be less pressure on the memory market. So the argument is that high RAM prices are, at least partly, the result of our own demand for AI.

I don't use AI at all and avoid it like the plague .

 

[drrich2]

Maybe, but all the evidence points to us not using it enough to justify the expenditure, therefore the 'blame' lies with what the AI companies thinks future us will do, not what we're actually doing.

That's not always a bad bet. IIRC, Amazon was an online bookstore losing money for years before it morphed into the economic juggernaut we know today.

We keep using AI chatbots, image generators, coding assistants, recommendation systems, and other AI services, and all of that requires huge amounts of powerful hardware running in data centers.

I don't use AI at all and avoid it like the plague .

It's getting harder not to use A.I. Seems like lately every Google Search I perform has an A.I.-generated result at the top, and it's often quite useful. I get on Amazon and some sort of what I think is an A.I.-generated summary sums up user reviews at the top of the reviews.