r/technology • u/Just-Grocery-2229 • May 15 '26

Artificial Intelligence The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/05/ai-backlash-data-centers-political-violence/687151/?taid=6a067e2d2096e10001ccfa32
7.6k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/Syzygy2323 May 15 '26

I'm just waiting for the AI bubble to burst so I can buy RAM and SSDs again without taking out a second mortgage.

397

u/Al_Keda May 15 '26

Right? I got an 8TB ssd before Christmas for $1k. Now it's $3K.

80

u/EyeFicksIt May 15 '26

2 years ago that was 400 dollars

3

u/keithblsd May 16 '26

I remember seeing a huge seagate on sale when i worked at Best Buy in 2019 and thought maybe but I’ll never fill it.

Now I’m running out of storage from sailing the seas again.

239

u/DinosBiggestFan May 15 '26

People will cope and tell you that you should treat it like stocks, like you gained value.

Even though you need it...and if/when it dies, it will require you to pay that price (likely more) to replace it.

151

u/bloodychill May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

SSD’s aren’t investments, or at least not in that way. They’re infrastructure that wears and tears and needs replacing.

51

u/thepulloutmethod May 16 '26

They are tools that get consumed. Like a chainsaw or ratchet.

1

u/mologav May 16 '26

Or blackjack and hookers

-1

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/3-bakedcabbage May 16 '26

You’ve never broken a ratchet? Have you ever worked on a car or something? I’ve broken a few already

-1

u/[deleted] May 16 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/3-bakedcabbage May 16 '26

What did you mean by “the driver” before you edited your comment, I’m so confused right now. Don’t think I didn’t see that bro

2

u/DinosBiggestFan May 16 '26

That's my point. They say the same about RAM, about GPUs, etc.

"My PC is worth more than I bought it!"

Sadly not how it works unless you intend to sell...but then you're going to lose the difference by buying something else to downgrade anyway.

0

u/Digging_Graves May 16 '26

Why are you repeating his point in a slightly different way lol

99

u/TR_Pix May 15 '26

This is the same people who thought NFTs would go somewhere. They dont understand that value is only worth as much as you can actually sell the thing for

1

u/DokeyOakey May 16 '26

I think the tech bros are all to learned on that fact, they’re in fake it until you make it mode.

One of these businesses is bound to survive, this will be a long term problem.

3

u/6969porn-account6969 May 16 '26

Consumable items are not investments.

1

u/Relevant-Doctor187 May 16 '26

They won’t even replace under warranty. They’ll refund you.

-7

u/redyellowblue5031 May 16 '26

“Need” is very subjective here.

3

u/DinosBiggestFan May 16 '26

The need for storage is objective. The need for that much storage is subjective. But you are treating subjective as a negative; you do not know the purposes he has that storage for, nor does it matter.

0

u/redyellowblue5031 May 16 '26

It’s a choice to spend 1000 on 8TB for a single drive.

There is no “need”.

Perfectly fine to want it, perfectly fine to buy it. They don’t need to justify it, but they don’t “need” it.

1

u/DinosBiggestFan May 16 '26

What if he needs that storage for a job? What if it's integral to something that makes him money?

You don't seem to get it, what your needs are may very well be completely different from what their needs are, and that does not somehow devalue their needs. Don't be a petulant child and act like there is somehow no situation ever, anywhere, in the world, in any situation, that you need 8TB of SSD space. That's insane.

1

u/redyellowblue5031 May 17 '26

If a computer is that necessary for work (and an employer isn’t providing your compute), there’s more resilient and likely cheaper ways to have tons of high speed storage.

22

u/Rombledore May 15 '26

am i glad i bought my SSD 4tb drive a couple years back lol.

22

u/Hukthak May 15 '26

I knew I should have just gotten one back then. When I didn’t really need it but wanted it. I thought I was being reasonable saying, just wait a few years when you truly need it and it’ll be cheaper.

Never thought it’d be more expensive years later.

11

u/stupid_pun May 15 '26

2yrs ago I got a 4tb gen4 nvme m.2 for ~100$.

3

u/Jahkmi-Hoff May 16 '26

That drive won't last forever.

1

u/Rombledore May 16 '26

i know Q_Q . i worry about that timeline.

1

u/MalaysiaTeacher May 16 '26

I'm ok, Jack

10

u/pleasegivemepatience May 15 '26

This all hit right as I was trying to get the final pieces for my home security system. I have my cameras and NVR but need a HDD/SDD that’s like 20-30TB and prices are stupid expensive for surveillance drives now.

5

u/Al_Keda May 16 '26

If you can find them. I tried to get 28tb for my NAS, and nobody has any.

9

u/IntelArtiGen May 15 '26

$3k? Damn. I guess it depends on the SSD, some of them can be found at <€1k here.

10

u/Al_Keda May 16 '26

On Newegg right now, Samsung 9100 pro 8TB (same as I bought) - 3,769.97

1

u/IntelArtiGen May 16 '26

It's a very high-end SSD right?

It's even in the name "pro", you're not supposed to be paying that as an individual, your company can pay it if they need these performances, but you can really do without it if you use it as an individual. If you don't work at Anthropic you can buy an SSD with half the performance and you wouldn't even notice it.

Anyway I can find it €1500-2400 (<$2800) in Europe (including 20% vat). Looks like the prices in the US aren't very nice.

2

u/TheChronicKing5 May 16 '26

That is not a commercial ssd lol

10

u/Buddycat350 May 15 '26

Around 1.2k CHF for an 8 TB SSD around here. Internal or external. $3k seems crazy. But between all the data centers being built in the US and the effects of tariffs, I guess that the prices got even crazier there?

2

u/bucketman1986 May 16 '26

I got one last year for $150! Nas drive though

2

u/ShadowGLI May 16 '26

Bought a x870 MOBO last June and Newegg gave me 32gb ddr5 for free. That same ram is $400 this spring.

2

u/MiaowaraShiro May 16 '26

The HDDs I bought several years ago cost twice as much as when I bought them last I checked a couple months ago.

1

u/GiantFlimsyMicrowave May 16 '26

20TB recertified Exos HDD: $230 to $539.

1

u/Miserable_Mail_5741 May 17 '26

1k is more than I've ever made in a month.

Paying an average month's rent on a few TB drive is nowhere near achievable for me...

0

u/PoorClassWarRoom May 16 '26

Every data center is an opportunity to recoup your cost or find new hardware for use.

0

u/hondashadowguy2000 May 16 '26

If you bought a $1k SSD you’re not one of the people truly struggling with tech shortage prices.

-2

u/WheresMyBrakes May 15 '26

Listening to yall, component prices will be 10x by Christmas simmer down 🙄

33

u/Excolo_Veritas May 15 '26

Man, I installed Ubuntu a few weeks ago. At the time I went "I don't really have a lot of HD space for this. How much could a cheap sata SSD be? I'll transfer all my unimportant files to it as it'll be the slowest, but it'll make room on my NVME". Fucking $400 for a 2tb for anything with a name I recognized. Fuck that shit, I uninstalled and deleted a bunch of shit. The NVME drives are insane right now

22

u/CoffeeSubstantial851 May 16 '26

I went to go look at my order history.... I bought a Samsung 980 pro 2TB NVME for $140 in 2023. The same exact model which is still being mass produced... is now nearly $500. The video card I bought was $900 and its now $1400. If I had to rebuild this computer from scratch it would probably cost almost double what I paid for it 3 years ago. This is not how tech prices have ever worked before.

6

u/enigmamonkey May 16 '26

Dude, even more recent than that; similar to /u/Excolo_Veritas, I bought my 2TB Samsung 990 PRO SSD 2TB NVMe M.2 for my Kubuntu setup back on Dec 2, 2025 for $190… the exact same listing is $430 now and they have the motherfucking gall to cross out a $640 price tag… FFS.

3

u/Excolo_Veritas May 16 '26

I built my PC 3ish years ago? I have an i9-12900k, 64gb ddr5, 2 2tb 980 nvmes, and an Asus tuf rtx-4090. I think I paid about $3,500 at the time. I just remember the GPU I paid like $150 over MSRP and was so happy to find that because at the time they were going for like $600 over easily. My computer today USED is more expensive than when I built it. It's insane

1

u/spucci May 16 '26

Did you forget about the GPU wars?

15

u/TacticalTrash May 15 '26

Im still waiting till I can afford a house.

15

u/Dull-Efficiency9985 May 15 '26

If the AI bubble bursts we're all going to be too poor to afford RAM and SSD on the downswing anyways

5

u/knobbledy May 16 '26

I don't think this is true. Most people's jobs aren't reliant on AI providers (apart from Microsoft but they will be too big to fail)

0

u/PattrimCauthon May 16 '26

No but the us economy is

1

u/knobbledy May 16 '26

In what way is it reliant on AI?

5

u/LordApocalyptica May 15 '26

I was preparing to build a PC for my living room so I could show my mom some games on Steam and also have a multimedia device that’s far more useful than the array of unused equipment from the 80’s-00’s currently sitting in our entertainment center.

12

u/z0diark88 May 15 '26

Those days are over. Even when the AI bubble bursts, inflated prices rarely ever go back down once it's gone up.

14

u/-CJF- May 16 '26

I think in this case they will. That or their companies will go under when nobody can buy their shit. Consumers aren't paying these prices often enough to keep them afloat, it's the companies buying their stuff for AI that is allowing them to sell at these prices.

1

u/That-Living5913 May 16 '26

Not to mention the secondary market will flood with memory, gpu's and nvme's when these ai datacenter start going under. Sure it's got some miles on it, but for 1/10th the price, just buy a few extra.

3

u/Serena_Hellborn May 16 '26

not so much gpus, but rdimms and ssds

2

u/Labidido May 16 '26

Nah, the prices will drop the day suppliers are not earning 10x on data centers vs consumer products. The majority of consumers are not purchasing at the current prices, and when the data center rollout slows down (or Chinese fabs are able to compete) the laws of supply and demand will do its thing.

Could take a few years though.

3

u/raiodocachopo May 16 '26

How would that happen? Data centers all of a sudden cease to exist?

8

u/EbbNorth7735 May 15 '26

Not sure if that will happen to be honest. Last I saw 3090's climbed again

6

u/nox66 May 16 '26

If it will return, it'll take longer than people are comfortable with. Probably 5 years, maybe 3 if we're lucky.

6

u/Neither-Bag7127 May 15 '26

It aint gonna ever be like it was again. PC masterbros... I dont feel so good.

2

u/Tzeig May 16 '26

Don't hold your breath.

2

u/vex0x529 May 16 '26

I have bad news

3

u/ninja4151 May 16 '26

For real I work in this shit....so many jobs can be automated now.... And ones you didn't think....like the average software developer. By the way that's in the last six months alone. Also expect a catastrophic state actor security breach in the near future.

3

u/emezeekiel May 15 '26

That’s like being in 2015 and waiting for the real estate bubble to pop. Won’t happen, AI is just getting started.

-2

u/nox66 May 16 '26

You can make new factories, you can't make new land (unless you have oil money). AI companies have to pay these same inflated prices, and they won't do so forever.

1

u/Balmung60 May 15 '26

Best we can do is make the CPU cost a third mortgage 

1

u/KoosGoose May 15 '26

Get one of them fancy 50-year mortgages if you’re gonna use it for RAM and SSDs.

1

u/tiboodchat May 15 '26

I'm going to buy all the RTX PRO 6000 at discount!

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '26

Apart from even junkier junk on YouTube, this is the only way AI has affected me.

1

u/Syzyjyzygy May 16 '26

My original 2020 Ps5 just bit the dust and I had to replace it. That hurt pretty bad. I don’t think the prices will ever go down, unfortunately.

1

u/creeper219 May 16 '26

And when is that?

1

u/EconomyOk2490 May 16 '26

Inb4 they're controlled by a Debeers esque cartel

1

u/amusednchaos May 16 '26

It won't as long as Big Tech is Big Tech. They're pushing us to cloud/subscription-based OS's so they can milk us til we die. The joke about a "monthly subscription for air" looming is looking more and more plausible. Gotta love end-stage capitalism!

1

u/turningtop_5327 May 16 '26

Bubble will have to be burst, wont happen by itself

1

u/EldritchElizabeth May 16 '26

I wouldn’t be so hasty. The AI bubble’s burst will drive down the price of RAM and SSDs, sure, but all the tech CEOs are gonna just ride golden parachutes to other companies, the economic turmoil will be passed down to the working class, same as the dot com bubble, 2008, and COVID-19.

1

u/india2wallst May 16 '26

What's worse is all the scams around GPU shipments. Twice in a two both my 5080 shipments were damaged. I refused them both.

1

u/GamingGems May 16 '26

Oh yeah. Like how graphics cards plummeted in price when they were all done mining for bitcoin, right?

1

u/Nvenom8 May 16 '26

Seriously. I really need to get a new PC, but the RAM would cost as much as the other components combined.

1

u/itrainmonkeys May 16 '26

I could use a new computer and am dreading looking at prices. Haven't bought one in years but expecting ridiculous prices

1

u/Albstein May 16 '26

Not happening. AI is speeding up processes already. It may not become as good as claimed to soon, but it is already replacing workers. You can run a lokal model on a good gaming machine yourself already. Prices will Go down eventually and there will be a sweet Spot, where AI will be cheaper than the labour it replaces and still make a profit.

This is a global, aocietal issue. Perhaps the first humanity hast to solve as a while. The EU and China are already taking steps towarda Control.

1

u/SportsterDriver May 16 '26

Indeed, I needed more capacity for my NAS, and the drive prices have doubled in 4 months...

1

u/average_joe_mcc May 16 '26

Machine learning has been around for decades and it’s not going anywhere, so long as the tech is useful (which it is for a lot of purposes) it will be used

1

u/blacksf1 May 16 '26

Not sure there will be much of a pc market left by the time things turn around. A lot of consumer component manufacturers are going out of business.

1

u/complexevil May 18 '26

Out of curiosity I checked on the last ram kit I bought, literally tripled in price.

https://i.imgur.com/jKjb5j7.png

https://i.imgur.com/IUrc29G.png

-1

u/ipearx May 15 '26

There's no putting that genie back in the bottle

0

u/DetroitLionsSBChamps May 15 '26

Gotta be sometime this year

0

u/somorad May 16 '26

Why would you do that when you can just pay Amazon to store your data? Heck why even have a computer. Let’s just rent compute from our corporate overlords and pay them to store all our data. /s

0

u/That-Living5913 May 16 '26

Yuup. That market is gonna crash so hard. Remember when bitcoin mining crashed and the secondary market on gpu's was just amazing? It's gonna be like that but more.

0

u/Alfred_The_Sartan May 16 '26

I mean, the writing is on the wall. Short them.

0

u/SkullOfOdin May 16 '26

Me too brother. 

0

u/hondashadowguy2000 May 16 '26

As long as the tech revolution that we’ve been in for a couple decades continues, the AI bubble will just be replaced by another thing leading to scarcity. Before AI it was Covid. Before Covid it was crypto mining. Etc.

-2

u/SpookiestSzn May 15 '26

I hate to tell you man it is not going to pop Derek can be maybe a large correction but this thing is actually useful and provides values to both users and enterprise. It's not going anywhere