Big Tech keeps spending billions on AI. There’s no end in sight.

[cpvr]

The biggest tech companies in the world have spent billions of dollars on the artificial intelligence revolution. Now they’re planning to spend tens of billions more, pushing up demand for computer chips and potentially adding new strain to the U.S. electrical grid.

In quarterly earnings calls this week, Google, Microsoft and Meta all underlined just how big their investments in AI are. On Wednesday, Meta raised its predictions for how much it would spend this year by up to $10 billion.Google plans to spend around $12 billion or more each quarter this year on capital expenditures, much of which will be for new data centers, Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat said Thursday. Microsoft spent $14 billion in the most recent quarter and expects that to keep increasing “materially,” Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said.

Overall, the investments in AI represent some of the largest infusions of cash in a specific technology in Silicon Valley history — and they could serve to further entrench the biggest tech firms at the center of the U.S. economy as other companies, governments and individual consumers turn to these companies for AI tools and software.

The biggest tech companies had already been spending steadily on AI research and development before OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022. But the chatbot’s instant success triggered the big companies to suddenly ramp up their spending. Venture capitalists poured money into the space, too, and start-ups with just a handful of employees were raising hundreds of millions to build out their own AI tools.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...ft-google-ai-investment-profit-facebook-meta/

It looks like AI isn’t going anywhere anytime soon as the big time tech time companies continue to invest money into it. What do ya’ll think? Do you think AI’s technology will be around for another 5-10 years or will it only be around 2-4 years? Are you a fan of AI related tech or not really?

 

[zappaDPJ]

Gordon Moore predicted in the 60's that the number of transistors on a microchip would double every two years. He was right. To put that in perspective if you place a grain of rice on the first square of a chess board, double it on the second square and keep on doubling the rice on every square, how many grains of rice would you have on the 64th and final square?

The answer is 18,446,744,073,709,551,615 or eighteen quintillion, four hundred forty-six quadrillion, seven hundred forty-four trillion, seventy-three billion, seven hundred nine million, five hundred fifty-one thousand, six hundred and fifteen.

AI's computational power doubles not every two years but approximately every six months. The exponential growth of AI is so fast it's expected that emergent behaviour, the ability to learn beyond programming will result in AI that is more intelligent than all of humanity sometime in 2026.

That's why so much money is being invested into it and that's why it will probably still be around long after we are gone.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I suppose at this point we should get used to seeing AI on the internet, since it's not going anywhere. Like any tool it can be used for good and bad purposes. I don't see it going away any time soon, especially if all the big tech giants are continuing to invest in AI.

 

[KensonPlays]

Yea, I only use it at the absolute minimum. Getting video/article ideas, since gemini can google search topics. But I do the actual content myself.

 

[Soulwatcher]

I think AI is a great thing as long as it is used to help humanity. I know it is causing job losses for people but it is also creating new jobs as well.