Yeah that's my first reaction to. 1.2% doesn't sound much. It's just people making headlines out of thin air. If it lists the water and energy consumption I might be more concerned.

Slightly off-topic, but ~9% of GDP is generated by "financial services" in the US. Personally I think it's a more alarming data point.

As a % of GDP it doesn’t seem very large, but that’s because our GDP is so massive. This is still an entire Norway’s worth of GDP.

Like 1.2% isn’t a big percentage, but neither is 3.4% - our total military expenditures this year.

You're looking at dots on a graph when you should be looking at lines and curves (and slopes of curves). The author makes this argument:

* Movement of capital from other fields to "AI". * Duration of asset value (eg, AI in months/years vs railroad in decades/centuries). * "Without AI datacenter investment, Q1 GDP contraction could have been closer to –2.1%".

We are only 2 years in! 1.2% of GDP is enormous! The fact that we can even make any of these comparisons is stunning.

The crux of the article is asking whether such a large investment is justified; downplaying the article saying it's only X% of the GDP compared to Y doesn't address the issue.

Total global military expenditure as a percent of global GDP is about 2.5%.

> WW2 defense: 40%

Do you think WW3 defense should be on the charts yet?

Those were all mega events though.

1/100th of the US economy sounds massive to me.

But it's not about "wow, how much!", it's about "wow, it even registers!"

Covid stimulus isn't directly comparable to the other three programs you listed. It was more like tax legislation than an industry.

All your other examples were over a period ranging from 3 years to more than a decade.

> Apollo program: 4%

More than a decade long. The technology and industry here was broadly shared. They did things like highjacked bra manufacturers to make space suits.

> Railroads: 6% (mentioned by the author)

We're still using this investment today.

> Covid stimulus: 27%

The virus that was killing us the fizzled is probably not the best example... Only arguments will ensue if I even attempt to point thing out in this one.

> WW2 defense: 40%

I mean Russia made its last lend lease payment in 2006. It lead to America dominance of the globe. It looks like an investment that paid it self off.

How much of the hardware spend on AI is going to be usable in 5years?

There are some deep fundamental questions one should be asking if they pay attention to the hardware space. Who is going to solve the power density problem? Does their solution mean we're moving to exotic cooling (hint: yes)? Have we hit another Moores law style wall (IPC is flat and we dont have a lot of growth left in clock, back to that pesky power and cooling problem). If a lot of it is usable in 5 years thats great, but then the industry isnt going to get any help from the hardware side and thats a bad omen for "scaling".

Meanwhile capex does not include power, data, constables or people. It may include training, but we know that can't be amortized. (how long does a trained system last before you need another, or before you need a continuation/update).

Everyone is going after AI under the assumption that they can market capture, or build some sort of moat, or... The problem is that no one has come up with the killer app where the tech will pay for itself. And many in the industry are smart enough not to try to build their product on someone else's platform (cause rug pulls are a thing).

"AI" could go the way of 3d tv's, VR, metaverse, where the hype never meets up with hope. That doesn't mean we wont get a bunch of great tooling out of it. It is going to need less academics and more engineering (and for that hardware costs have to drop...)

- The birth of the space age, and more realistically the birth of the ICBM and satellite age. Both key to national security, and in the context of a cold war.

- 40% of long-distance ton miles travel by rail in the US. This represents a VAST part of the economic activity within the country.

- A literal plague, and the cessation of much economic activity, with the goal of avoiding a total collapse.

- ...Come on.

So we're comparing these earth-shaking changes and reactions to crisis with "AI"? Other than the people selling pickaxes and hookers to the prospectors, who is getting rich here exactly? What essential economic activity is AI crucial to? What war is it fighting? It mostly seems to be a toy that costs FAR more than it could ever hope to make, subsidized by some obscenely wealthy speculators, executives fantasizing about savings that don't materialize, and a product looking for a purpose commensurate to the resources it eats.

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