this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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That makes sense. I'm not at liberty to change the OS on my work PC, I'm already on Linux on my home laptop. How about the absolute deluge of AI slop? Do you anticipate that as those companies/platforms go under (or there aren't the data centres to run the compute) that it will ameliorate in any way?
The AI slop is here to stay unfortunately. The bubble will pop and like 99% of AI companies will die, but LLMs are actually very easy to run locally AND at least one of the big AI companies will "win" and capture most of the AI traffic, kind of like how Google "won" search. As models get more efficient all those data centers are gonna be unnecessary, but they'll only become unnecessary because it's easy to run frontier models on your own phone or whatever. AI slop will never disappear, that's a Pandora's box that cannot be closed.
Understood.
I've read commentary here that the excess compute will go towards AI analysis for surveillance (to a greater degree than it already is), but I'm guessing there will be many un- and under-utilised data centres. Maybe we can turn them into ice skating rinks, indoor ski slopes and swimming centres after the revolution.
I think the reason all the AI companies want intelligence & defense contracts is a) they can claim they're essential, and should get preferential bailouts, and b) surveillance/intelligence is basically an infinite market for the excess capacity they'll be left with after the crash.
I would argue that cloud computing is a viable model, and it would be comparatively easy to flip an AI data center for other uses.
It's actually fairly hard because the infrastructure is quite different. These new buildings or repurposed ones from Bitcoin mining are more of a supercomputer than a data center. Usually facilities like this are for storage and connection, so they are built close together and have massive input output lines.
In contrast, the new ones are put wherever there's least resistance, in the middle of nowhere, ideally a place with cheap electricity or few neighbors to run generators 24/7.
I think the only viable usage would be renting out the cards to users, replacing home usage of models. Then again, they won't actually be able to put up very many of these regardless, so there isn't too much loss as long as the bubble pops soonish like 2027.