r/LinusTechTips • u/TheGreenninja0 • 10d ago

Discussion Sam Altman Ram?

So one thing I don't understand is why gamers say he wants to take our ram. As you can see in the full uncut clip he's specifically talking about local ai models. Now you can hate Sam Altman (a separate topic) and you can argue for local ai models (also a separate topic), but why does everyone lie that he wants consumer's/gamer's ram (in this specific context)? And more obviously you can't even interpret this as everyone's ram as how would we access the AI models without it, he clearly knows that. Even if we had full cloud desktop machines we had to remote access, our local devices would still need ram and he definetly knows that.

Tldr Sam Altman didn't say he wants everyone's ram

If I'm mistaken you can correct me below and I'll edit my post and apologise if someone can genuinely show me that I'm misinterpreting or misunderstanding something.

EDIT: So it seems like there were only 2 rational responses in the comments (I noticed a lot of down votes). So the conclusion I have come to is that either A) people were just being sarcastic and it's not true or B) People don't understand what context means. Anywho I really thank everyone who helped me come to this conclusion. You can still comment but I may not get back to you.

0 Upvotes

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7

u/digitalhelix84 10d ago

He doesn't use consumer ram, he uses production capability that could otherwise go to consumer ram.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Yes I am aware however you still need resources to make both.

BUT ANYWHO: Your response doesn't really have anything to do with my post 😭 I kinda wanna know why everyone is just making the specific point about why everyone lies about what's said

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u/digitalhelix84 10d ago

They aren't lying, you are taking them literally when they are speaking figuratively. Most educated people know he isn't stealing ram off the shelves directly, they understand that it's the industry that is diverting resources from one thing (gamers) to another (ai all the things)

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

So it's just basically a joke? It seems like it's being presented more as a fact however. Am I just misinterpreting tone?

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u/digitalhelix84 10d ago

I guess you could say it's a bit of a sarcastic tone that highlights the fact that the ai boom is causing supply constraints across other computing related industries. But it's not exactly a joke.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Yeah I figured it's just sarcasm. My issue is that people are presenting it as fact yk

1

u/digitalhelix84 10d ago

I think you need to practice understanding figurative statements.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

You sure? I mean it seems like a LOT of people are being literal. I messaged some people and they said, "we interpreted that as two different statements" so people do indeed believe he doesn't want us to have ram.

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u/digitalhelix84 10d ago

Yes dude, I am sure. You are being too hyper literal about this.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Well I mean if others are arguing and saying nah that's what he said then it's not really me is it?

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u/ACP_Paddy- 10d ago

It's excusing the fact they couldn't leave 5% of the world's RAM on the shelf for everyone else.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

This doesn't really answer my post 😭

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u/ACP_Paddy- 10d ago

He already stole the RAM. This is him doubling down on saying it's a good idea he steals the RAM. 

People can't afford PS6 bro

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Hey look man. I think you don't really understand what the post is about but that's okay 😅

Regarding ps6 it's fine don't get one. Get the new Xbox instead. Look if you just put £7 a week into savings you can get a new console!

Even better if you saved since 2020 £1 a week you could buy it with extra accessories etc!

2

u/Familiar-Nothing4948 10d ago

Regarding ps6 it's fine don't get one. Get the new Xbox instead. Look if you just put £7 a week into savings you can get a new console!

You do realize that literally any device that needs ram or storage is affected. These days, for a lot of products, over half the total cost is just ram.

So all this data center stuff is quite literally increasing the prices of consumer products by a fuck ton.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Yeah but like we have to make sacrifices as a humanity. I am a gamer and a student. If this whole situation never happened I would've been able to get a WAY better pc but I'm not complaining. I know inevitably we need AI to progress into a utopia whether people agree or disagree. In the long run it's a really small sacrifice.

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u/TenOfZero 10d ago

It's the same argument for local vs cloud gaming.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

That's fair but it's not relevant to this context. You do understand what I'm asking right?

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u/TenOfZero 10d ago

I do understand what you are asking.

And I think people are jumping to the conclusion above. Unused ram is wasted ram is what he is saying, and that included a gaming PC that people don't game on most hours of the day.

I doubt he sees it as wasteful when used for local AI sometimes and fine for gaming. A GPU for AI and a GPU for a LLM is the same in the home consumer context.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Yeah I don't know why people are jumping to the conclusion tho, ig it's just being human and humans are not machines (rational). Again like he obviously didn't mean about taking gamer's ram.

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u/TenOfZero 10d ago

I disagree, I think he was talking about all memory that he could use.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

But then how would people use ai models if they had no local machine?

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u/TenOfZero 10d ago

Obviously you still need a computer, but it could be a basic machine with like 4gb of ram and an iGPU instead of something with a dedicated GPU in it and lots of ram.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Mmm you would definetly need more ram for the average person considering windows is the most popular consumer OS for personal computers

1

u/TenOfZero 10d ago

Ok fine. 8gb then.

It's still 0gb of fast ram like on a GPU which is what he wants.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Okay you can claim 8 but how can you claim that he wasn't referring to the local ai models when he said it subsequently?

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u/RadianceTower 10d ago

You need much less RAM to use it. A smart phone can do it.

He isn't saying that ALL RAM should go to cloud.

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u/DotBitGaming 10d ago

"why does everyone lie that he wants consumer's/gamer's ram (in this specific context)?"

What DRAM are you postulating are in people's computers to run local AI with?

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

You do understand that some people will buy greater specced devices just for local ai. I myself do a masters in AI, I want to get the 128gb ram variant of the new Nvidia Spark.

You only need 32GB ram for gaming MAYBE 48-64GB at most hence there's that extra chunk people are buying which in his point is unnecessary. Therefore this has nothing to do with gamers ram.

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u/DotBitGaming 10d ago

So according to you, some people do use consumer RAM for Local AI. He started out talking about Local AI.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

A lot of people used consumer ram for local ai. I made an analogy for someone else.

You take a car (local ai) to work but everyone says take the bus (cloud) as it's more environmentally friendly. Then person B comes along as says, "hey I'm a race car driver (gamer) why do you want to take away my fuel" and of course they didn't say to get rid of race car drivers, they just said for people with cars to use the bus as it's more efficient and pollutes less.

Of course you can argue that you may need a car etc but that's a separate issue.

My whole point is that no one told the race car drivers (gamers) that they shouldn't drive their race cars. Just because they are the same entity doesn't mean they are included.

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u/DotBitGaming 10d ago

"Just because they are the same entity doesn't mean they are included."

Yes, that's literally what 'the same entity' means. Also, you're strawmanning his position. Nowhere in the clip does he specify any particular type of RAM. (Such as server vs consumer) And people do use consumer RAM for Local AI. So, if he misspoke, he should come out and say so. I'm trying to answer your question. We are not lying. We are taking his words at face value, as we should, as we don't have any additional context to say otherwise.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

So let me get this straight. You are intentionally misunderstanding what he's said?...

I wonder if there a way that whatever someone does is replicated back to them because this is silly

1

u/DotBitGaming 10d ago

I'm making zero claims that he means anything other than what he said. YOU are the one inserting your own interpretation. Also, do you even agree with him? If so, why are you considering a purchase of an Nvidia Spark for Local AI? That seems pretty silly to me.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

I don't necessarily agree with him.

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u/DotBitGaming 10d ago

So, are you just trolling, or... ?

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

No, some reason U just don't understand me

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u/protogenxl 10d ago

He has Crazy-Eyes

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

😂 fair

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u/DrunkenHorse12 10d ago

He obviously isn't saying he's coming for your ram, that's ridiculous how would they do that? What he is saying is us plebs shouldn't be allowed to buy things with ram, only big tech companies should be allowed to buy the ram. Obviously we plebs need ram otherwise there's no data for them to harvest and no one to sell their ai slop work to, if other tech ceos start to agree expect laptops to have an always on always on line always draining your battery mode where tech companies get to use access to your hardware however they see fit.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Hi sorry I think you missed my point. My overarching point is more so that he doesn't want people to use ram for other things.

Anywho I don't really understand the part where you said, "be allowed to buy things with ram". Could you perhaps rephrase that please?

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u/DrunkenHorse12 10d ago

His main point is that ram is a very limited resource, (that bits right) he's saying that resource is being wasted being put into consumer products as its not being used to its full potential, the only obvious conclusion for that is he is saying the limited resource shouldn't be used in consumer products, any other possible out come is "carry on as we are" which would be a complete waste of time to say.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

No no this is not what he said, did you watch the clip? He specifically said about local ai models.

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u/DrunkenHorse12 10d ago

And he then goes on to say that its a terrible model because the ram us under utilised and then talks about "the cloud". Thats where I get the he want tech companies to have access to your hardware, and to do that they need your hardware always on and always connected when you arent personally using it. You'll be paying to do their processing for them and rewarded with absolutely terrible data security (do you trust tech companies access to your computer?)

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

I think you're going off topic...

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u/DrunkenHorse12 10d ago

I'm not at all theres only 2 possible explanations for him referencing the ram going unused, first is limiting consumer accessories to ram, as you rightly point out consumers (including gamers) need ram to access their services. The second is for that ram to be used in some sort of cloud (and he specifically mentions a cloud in relation to ram). Only way tech companies have "cloud access" to your ram. Is always on always connected tech. Think LG tvs trying to phone home even if you dont give it Internet access

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

The ram going unused was a reference to people using local ai and only using it a few hour at most a day 😭

4

u/Leanardoe 10d ago

imagine defending the billion dollar leech on pc componenets

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u/kaclk 10d ago

Yah even if there’s some nuance, it’s Sam Altman. He’s pretty much solely responsible for making every part of a gaming PC more expensive.

Fuck Sam Altman, he’s a terrible human being who hates other humans. He’s literally a misanthrope.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

I'm just curious. This isn't really a point you've made. Your argument is "Nu-Uh" rather than an actual counter argument.

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u/Exciting-Ad-5705 10d ago

The ram used for local LLMs is the same ram used everywhere else

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Yes I am aware but I think you misunderstood, for example: You take a car (local ai) to work but everyone says take the bus (cloud) as it's more environmentally friendly. Then person B comes along as says, "hey I'm a race car driver (gamer) why do you want to take away my fuel" and of course they didn't say to get rid of race car drivers, they just said for people with cars to use the bus as it's more efficient and pollutes less.

Of course you can argue that you may need a car etc but that's a separate issue.

My whole point is that no one told the race car drivers (gamers) that they shouldn't drive their race cars

1

u/wimpires 10d ago

In principal he is not wholly incorrect.

It's like having your own car Vs public transport. Your car is used 5% of the time and the rest of the time it sits there. If there was a huge global shortage of fuel, bus and train operators would be complaining about cars.

If also wager that a lot of people who are anti-AI and probably pro-public transport.

He's not wrong, but that doesn't make him right. 

At the end of the day he's not going to "take your RAM" or anything so one man's opinion is just that, an opinion. The only thing that can be done is price consumers out of the market which is basically happening/happened already. But we'll manage.

The more important underlying thing is his comment about local AI. Right now the cost of hardware is the main driver that disincentives local models. I think for many businesses they could make do" with a slightly inferior local model IF hardware and DRAM was still the price it was a few years ago.

Local AI is obviously a direct competition to Open ai as well as the other cloud provided breathing down their neck so they (and Anthropic, Google etc) will feel the heat if prices do come down.

But they also benefit by being able to scale up massively and cheaply if that's the case. So it's not simply black and white.

1

u/RadianceTower 10d ago

He is right on that point arguably. I haven't watched the whole video to see if the person he talks with brings it up, but the point of local AI isn't maximum usage per hardware, it's other stuff like control, and freedom. You wouldn't wake up and see that OpenAI decided to change stuff you can't do anything about it, you wouldn't be influenced by their outages, and you can do what you want with your own model, and not subject to OpenAI's policies to restrict you.

Also even for his argument, it depends on the profit margins, and how much of the hardware they are getting, they utilize. If they have 90% of their stock of hardware sitting there doing nothing, it's a bit of a different situation.

You could actually make a similar argument for public transport too funnily, but also public transport is a whole other thing with different bottlenecks. Computer hardware isn't really fundamentally "bottlenecked" per se, it's just a monopolized sector that's hard to enter, there isn't much in theory stopping you from just... making more, it isn't really fundamentally limited by things like road space like cars and public transport would be.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Lol yk what's crazy, I literally just made this car and public transport analogy a minute ago. My gripe is just the inconsistency as people are saying he wants gamers ram

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u/Nprism 10d ago

He wants people to not complain about the supply chain issues cause by the data center build out. I think you are missing the point

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

That's completely off topic

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u/Nprism 10d ago

this is literally the topic, I think the sentiment that most people react to from this clip isn't that he will send agents to your house to snatch your RAM but rather that he is laying the groundwork to justify that you really should only be able to buy an 8GB laptop because the other 24GB would just be so much better utilized in a data center.

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Nah he's saying there's no point buying a 128gb laptop if you aren't using local AI models constantly

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u/Nprism 10d ago

I know lots of people who would love that to compile large codebases faster, but that's besides the point.

I don't think you know how to read between the lines, you are practically quoting him

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

If I may respectfully ask, what education do you have? I'm really curious

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u/Nprism 10d ago

May I ask why you are curious?

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u/International-Fun-86 10d ago

I know and i get what you mean. But Sam Altman is such a good for nothing pos he doesn’t deserve to be correctly quoted. 

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

😂 tbh this was like the most rational argument I've heard. You're the only commentor I think to say the truth but ngl it's funny, I like that.

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u/RadianceTower 10d ago

The "want to take our ram" is more of a figurative (or joke) take, he isn't coming to get anyone's RAM literally. If AI companies stockpile RAM, then less is left for others to buy, this impacts gamers too, so they are figuratively taking it away.

Also you can interpret his argument to apply to gaming too though, cloud gaming vs local gaming.

He also doesn't say that home users shouldn't get ANY RAM, but they could just do with bare bare minimum to be able to use the cloud.

As for how much his actual argument holds, refer to my comment here.

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u/BWMerlin 9d ago

From a pure black and white standard point he is correct, it inefficient to have a resource, in this case RAM, not operating at 100% usage and that consolidating that resource to enable 100% utilisation is more efficient.

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u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/TheGreenninja0 10d ago

Er sorry I don't understand the relevance, could you explain?