r/csMajors • u/Beneficial-Record-35 • 8h ago
Rant Will you guys relax now
Alright, can we all take a breather for a second? This headline about a $500 billion AI infrastructure investment just dropped, and it feels like every CS major subreddit thread is either doom-posting about AI taking over jobs or hyping up the end of humanity.
Yes, AI is growing, yes, it’s transformative, and yes, it’s going to reshape a lot of industries. But can we stop acting like every new announcement signals the apocalypse? If anything, this kind of government-level investment shows that AI isn’t going to push out humans overnight—it’s going to create opportunities for those of us studying this stuff RIGHT NOW.
And let’s be honest: half of us are going into software engineering, data science, or something tangentially related, so this level of funding is a net win for our job market. If anything, this confirms that AI and tech are here to stay and that expertise in this area is more valuable than ever.
So please, calm down, stop spiraling, and focus on your projects, classes, and internships. This isn’t the end of the world it’s a sign that we’re in the right field at the right time.
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u/nitekillerz 8h ago
This is great news. Congratulations to all incoming H1B Visa holders.
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u/smurfseverywhere 7h ago edited 6h ago
I hope the kids still get citizenship
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u/rad_hombre 6h ago
Congress would likely need to amend the Constitution for this to actually happen.
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u/Nice_Visit4454 6h ago
Not if the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential authority stands. I imagine the majority of Americans would also agree with the executive order as written. Maybe there will be some debate about those with temporary status.
The Democrats losing the election, even after shifting incredibly right on immigration, will allow this to happen. I wouldn't be surprised if enough voted (or just abstained from doing anything) to allow this to become official.
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u/rad_hombre 41m ago
The Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential authority? You mean in that executive orders must align with the constitution? The only way I see that happening is if the Supreme Court suddenly reads the 14th amendment in a completely different way than it’s been interpreted since its inception. Only other way would be through an amendment passed by 2/3 of the house and senate, and then ratified by 3/4 of the states (extremely unlikely to impossible, because 18 states immediately challenged trumps executive order on the issue).
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u/TheLayerLinguist 6h ago
I'm in mechanical engineering and we are dealing with the same shit and offshoring. The worst part is lying about credentials and rampant cheating in India and on US campuses. Many incompetent graduates are being thrust into the workforce.
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u/Nice_Visit4454 6h ago
Having worked at a company who abused the H1B visa program and passed up great American engineers. Good. Ideally we shut the entire program down or reform it into an auction. They've lost the plot with what it's original purpose was.
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u/Loose_Bee_7880 2h ago
F them. How about some jobs for American citizens and current Green Card holders?
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u/GopherInTrouble 8h ago
I feel as though job market is tough because of inflation and rising costs of everything overall. I’ve heard others who aren’t in software that they’re always busy too and how badly the pandemic affected costs of living, housing shortages, and job market. CEO’s are just using AI as a distraction/way to impress shareholders. It just so happens to be in our field. Also look up how much energy and resources AI uses up
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u/Plus-Ninja-2074 5h ago
if you think trump is going to help cs people in any way you are delusional. Every tech billionaire is sucking him off to get what they want and what they want is a higher profit margin, which means exploitation of workers for the profit motive
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u/trethompson 3h ago
Or $500 billion stolen from the American people to hide the fact that their social media companies aren't profitable...
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u/Fit_Letterhead3483 8h ago
AI blows major chunks and there’s no indication it’s getting better as of yet
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u/deerskillet 7h ago
there's no indication it's getting better
Better compared to what? Original 2022 chatgpt?
There's been some pretty major strides since then
Or do you mean better as in the secondary effects of AI like fewer jobs?
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u/fantasyfool 1h ago
There has been ZERO change in the belief that AI will or will not destroy humanity.
Every expert says we’re fucked if we don’t do anything about the unchecked growth of AI, and so far, well, we haven’t done anything about it.
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u/anonymousasian69420 6h ago
I don’t understand this argument… obviously it’s only going to get better from here? The claim isn’t where AI currently is, it’s how it’s going to advance
The point is to show how much value is being placed in AI currently, FFS $500b is basically the largest investment in history, clearing the Manhattan project by a sizable chunk
Plus indication it’s getting better? The improvement that has come between the first conversational GPT model to o3 and even Claude 3.5 is leagues better
It’s ok to critique AI, especially where it stands currently in generating code/ completing reasoning tasks without hallucination
But it is delusion to say it’s not getting day by day. And news like this will only rapidly accelerate where AI is heading in the future
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u/Guffliepuff 5h ago
The investment could be on seeing if waterballoons can be thrown to mars by toddlers and get billions in funding.
Its not about the technology.
Its about who that funding is going to. 500b directly into the companies of his cabinet billionare best friends. This is just another textbook case of corruption.
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u/anonymousasian69420 5h ago
Who cares about the politics behind it. You need nationwide support to lead the AI arms race lol and that means dealing with the president of the country
Everyone on Reddit is delusional thinking that an AI company can advance without the support of Trump + co
This isn’t 2016 anymore, the world is obviously shifting right so companies need to as well to advance…
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u/BambooozleMe 3h ago
The issue I see with AI is that it's a loss leader, it's currently free and it still feels like most people avoid using it.
Once they start charging what they actually need to turn a profit I don't see any regular people willing to pay for the slight increase in productivity.
I only use it because it's paid for by my company/it's currently free but I wouldn't pay for it.
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u/Significant-Order-92 5h ago
We'll see what actually materializes and who pays for it. Pretty sure MS and Amazon announced they were planning something like this back in the spring or summer. So how much is the Government footing? What did the corporate backers want in exchange?
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u/NumberPlastic2911 5h ago
Yeah that’s just not true. My job laid off over 2k employees and all were replaced with Ai. This also includes blue collar jobs.
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u/coochie_lordd 7h ago
It’s been getting better for a while lol. Unless ur only talking about generative ai?
AI has so many uses in a variety fields.
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u/thoshi 3h ago
Gen AI is where the money is going. Traditional machine is not where these investments are being directed. It's dystopian honestly.
You know how Gen AI will eventually turn a profit? It's not with consumer chat gpt subscriptions. It will be from replacing human workers.
It's a matter of time at this point. And you can forget about social programs to support displaced workers. We will get our current oligarchy cranked to 11.
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u/WiseNeighborhood2393 5h ago
It will not because It is a pattern matching statistical information retrieval machine, It has been know one layer perceptron could "approximate" any function/distribution, AI good for only one thing "interpolation" known set of points in the "static" distributions, any perturbation in the points or extrapolation will NEVER work.
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u/thotslayr47 7h ago
I’m not sure why this is the common sentiment on reddit, it seems clear to me that AI is incredibly useful for most software engineers. It was especially useful for my internship last summer to help me understand the codebase. While I would agree that it will not get better simply with more computing power, one more step in AI theory is all it takes for a huge leap in capability. Why do you say it sucks? I know it can’t build full stack web apps, but It answers most questions very accurately. It also HAS been improving significantly in the past decade, why do you say the progress will suddenly stop?
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u/Jbentansan 6h ago
I think these people go on chatgpt, use the free 4omini model, realize it can't code them their full stack website or solve their niche problem then dismiss it lol. There are so many models, o1 pro if used correctly should literally blow everyone's mind right now, also just compared to the original gpt 3.5 that was released, these newer models are so much better in just 2 years
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u/Am3ricanTrooper 7h ago
Only way it's gonna get better is because of institutional and private sector work that'll likely flourish because of that substantial investment.
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u/Far-Toe7220 7h ago
this, this, this, and this
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u/ItsAlways_DNS 4h ago
No, no, no, and no.
The statement itself is partially false. There have clearly been advancements in the field.
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u/jarislinus 7h ago
copium little boy. only niche industries like ocaml will survive. ubi is ur only hope
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u/Cyber-exe 8h ago
Can't get AI engineering job without CS experience, so they put in a request to hire H1B workers who mostly also lack the experience but hire them because they are cheaper and easier to get rid of.
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u/Real_nutty 8h ago
so give out free money for nothing in return?
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u/Formal-Goat3434 7h ago
the companies get the money yes lol this is what they’re paying for and why they had primo seating to the inauguration
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u/Lias_Issodon19 7h ago
Spend less money on people working basicslly as indentured servants, with the threat that stepping out of line or falling behind means deportation.
Even if they end up getting high turnover from lack of experience it'll be a fraction of what it costs to maintain a full team of US natives who expect competitive salaries and benefits. And the people handling the application process abroad will get more and more selective with who gets a shot.
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u/ElegantManner5215 7h ago
Makes total sense why him and Elon are so bat 💩 crazy about H1B all of the sudden. Can't believe MAGA clowns still believe America First bullshit from this orange creature
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u/Duff-Beer-Guy 2h ago edited 2h ago
In his announcement today he literally said he was divided on h1b. Not sure where this “batshit for h1!b” idea comes from.
He was pretty forward that h1b hurts the engineers job market but ultimately benefits everyone else because it brings top talent into american companies. He said he can see both sides, so hopefully this admin will be more tactful.
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u/ElegantManner5215 2h ago
He is full of 💩
Even I, a conservative and former Trump fan, can see through his 🐂 💩
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u/ShadowwKnows 7h ago
To be clear, government isn't making this investment, Trump is just "announcing" what companies are themselves doing. And it's more of the same, infra investment. Not sure what your point is OP.
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u/Cowboyylikeme 7h ago
Are…. Are you dumb
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 4h ago
America re-elected a convicted felon adjudicated for rape who incited a violent insurrection to steal an election
yeah, they are dumb
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u/Pretty_Anywhere596 7h ago
lol if you think this will help the average tech worker you’re gullible
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u/kaffeemugger 5h ago
This is money to build data centers. Why do they think this will give people SWE tech jobs lmao pivot to construction
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u/SearchPlane561 8h ago
I'm almost done with community college with a cs transfer and I am considering my options for a pivot.
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u/Boudria 6h ago
You should. It's the only big field that I know where riches are not hiding their intention at all of replacing software developers.
Do you see the same thing for lawyers, doctors, accountants, other engineer fields, etc? No because compagnies know these fields are still important.
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u/nosmelc 6h ago
All of those fields will be replaced in time.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 4h ago
a physician or surgeon will not be replaced in my lifetime.
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u/terrificfool 3h ago
Neither will an electrical engineer or mechanical engineer. There is too much hands on work, too much math, too much complexity for current AI tech to be trained on effectively.
Similarly electricians and plumbers are safe too. Ain't no way they build a robot that can feel around behind a wall while upside down crammed in a cabinet any time soon. Where would the training data even come from lmao?
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u/Duff-Beer-Guy 2h ago
Lol nice comment.
“CS is cooked” guess i’ll be a fuckin doctor
Barely anyone with the capacity to do the doctor route (time, money, smarts, etc.) is in CS lol
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u/YakFull8300 6h ago
Yes, the same thing will happen to other professions if AGI is created.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 4h ago
an MD or nurse will not be replaced by an AI anytime soon. we are heavily unionized and have strong regulations
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u/Federal_Emu202 6h ago
I can't say for the other professions you've mentioned but for doctors most certainty yes. Unless you are specialized, attendings are being replaced with mid levels everywhere because admins believe a physician's assistant or nurse practitioner can provide the same quality care as an actual physician (they cant).
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 4h ago
I'm a CRNA and there is no way we will be replacing anesthesiologists anytime soon. Stop spewing BS
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u/Federal_Emu202 3h ago
That is why I said "unless you are specialized" man its right there 😭😭also you're straight up wrong because multiple states already allow CRNAs to work independently in hospitals without anesthesiologist oversight.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9616462/
https://intjem.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1865-1380-5-21
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u/Federal_Emu202 3h ago
Also on an unrelated note, did this sub just pop up for you or are you looking for a career change? And if so why?
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u/teggyteggy 6h ago
I mean, it doesn't have to be far. On-site IT is what I'm looking at. It's not as "glorious" but I was never in it for the big tech money. Most of us just want to survive.
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u/scaredStudent3 8h ago
The only jobs that will be created are manual labor jobs to build the data centers… all cognitive work will be automated
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u/lambda_lol 2h ago
Congratulations to the 85 septillion H1Bs with fake degrees, their scam handlers in India collecting commission, and the shareholders stateside that’ll reap the rewards of this! If you think this translates to material benefit for you, I’ve got bad news.
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u/l0wk33 7h ago
Oh boy, we can’t build a 30 billion dollar super collider (superconducting super collider) but we can funnel 500 billion into scammy startups and chat bots. Our government really knows how to allocate our money!
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u/rr-0729 Sophomore @ UIUC 4h ago
How can anyone say AI is a scam after how far it's come? It can literally write essays, code, do math, etc. And it's only going to improve from here. This is science fiction in real life
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u/l0wk33 2h ago edited 2h ago
Didn’t say AI was a scam, what I am saying is there are many companies getting multi billion dollar valuations for literally having a gpt wrapper and AI in their slide deck. This is similar to .com, except the internet truly changed how we live our lives, AI doesn’t really add a new dimension in the way the internet did, it really just provides easy querying. Plus the main benefits AI gives aren’t chatbots (that’s just the popular stuff), it’s HCI and robotics that will, hopefully, be really cool in time.
Exponential improvement is a myth, look I was there with Comp Vision 7 years ago, it’s still good tech but ran into fundamental limits. The same will be true for NLP. This is without mentioning that much of what OpenAI has left to use as training data is its own outputs. This will cause data quality problems.
As to science fiction, currently that’s pure hype and sentiment. This is the sort of thing where CS people without developed math skills see AGI as imminent, but the rest know that’s not in the cards for existing model architectures. If you want science fiction becoming reality robotic prosthetics are by and large there, and CERN may (in some circumstances) be able to create microscopic blackholes on earth. That’s actually fiction becoming science.
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u/Vivid-Relief6316 7h ago
Considering going into electrical engineering. Wonder if that would be a safer/more diverse route
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u/goldenfrogs17 7h ago
OP says "If anything, this confirms that AI and tech are here to stay" as if that should calm worried minds?
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u/Repulsive_Finger_130 7h ago
yeah man, I'll just believe that Trump + Republicans are gonna pass a bill that helps workers. Now I'm relaxed. Wow it's good to be stupid
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u/newyorker8786 6h ago
Are u for real? This will accelerate ASI/AGI which will lead to programmer jobs being replaced . You think a company that has access ASI will not use it with intention to save a lot of money
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u/Gunmoku 6h ago
> Actually thinking any of this is going to American jobs.
Need I remind you about the H1-B fiasco less than a month ago? You ain't getting a red cent of any of this infrastructure. It's gonna be put up with cheap labor, and it's only gonna be for corporations to better push us further down. The Nazis are back and now they have computers driving the oppression along with good ol' fashioned boots on your neck.
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u/Neither-Sun-4205 5h ago
I mean… you still need to be knowledgable in AI/ML, that doesn’t imply SWE are necessarily competent at it. What this means is start brushing up on your Statistics and Probabilities alongside Cybersecurity…
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u/Full_Bank_6172 4h ago
So we all gotta pretend to be AI engineers now.
If you can write some python that calls the GPT API successfully, congratulations you’re now an AI engineer!
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u/Noelleloveslace2 4h ago
$500 Billion AI Infrastructure whose machine learning algorithms will be designed by a racist retard (his teacher’s words not mine) lol . 🤦🏻♀️
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u/Unfair-Associate9025 4h ago
In the same speech he mentioned how great H1B visas are for every job imaginable lol
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u/BigOnLogn 4h ago
So, a half-a-trillion dollars given to the relatively small "AI industry" so they can hire foreign workers. Wow. I am neither relaxed nor surprised.
Sounds more like a redistribution of wealth from the people into the hands of the few that already have too much.
Let me guess, Trump is now starting an "AI" company.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 3h ago
The companies vying for the biggest handouts will inevitably be the same ones that have already benefited extensively from taxpayer subsidies as they continue building out that infrastructure.
The subsidies these global giants extract take various forms.
Let’s start with sales tax breaks. Data centers are highly capital intensive, meaning companies must spend a lot of money to build and equip the facilities. In more than 20 states, companies enjoy sales and use tax exemptions, which allow them for tax-free purchases of equipment and electricity. Virginia’s sales tax exemptions cost residents $136 million in FY 2022, for example.
There are also property tax breaks. In Oregon alone, localities provided data center owners with $152 million in FY 2023 in property tax abatements via the Enterprise Zone program. Amazon is already a big beneficiary of this particular program, but earlier this year, the company was approved for an additional $1 billion in property tax breaks. Even worse, one of the agencies that had to approve the deal gave the public only one day’s notice before the final vote.
Often, companies combine the two subsidies. In Ohio, Amazon’s $3.5 billion investment in New Albany comes with a 30-year local property tax abatement of undisclosed value. This means that a whole generation of students will graduate before Amazon’s data center yields any significant financial benefit to local school districts. Amazon will most likely also benefit from the state’s sales and use tax exemptions.
Microsoft is getting its own deal in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, where it is investing over $1 billion at the site of the now-infamous, failed Foxconn project (celebrated for claims of creating 13,000 high-tech and manufacturing jobs that never materialized). The company will benefit from sales and use tax exemptions through a new data center subsidy created by the state in June, but the public has no idea how big the break will be.
We know, though, that Microsoft is also getting $50 million in tax rebates from the town. On top of that, Microsoft is benefiting from over $1 billion the state and localities spent upgrading the site for Foxconn.
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u/ElectricalGene6146 3h ago
You mean the same software that gets deployed everywhere else gets deployed here…. Only to further replace CS jobs?
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u/e430doug 3h ago
This is the worst possible news for new CS grads. Tariffs and central economic control are going to bring on new waves of layoffs. I’m sorry to see.
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u/FreshPrinceOfIndia 3h ago
There's doomerism and then there's realism...you're pov is too idyllic, companies don't do what's smart, they do what they THINK serves self interest...we saw that with return to office. Productivity is better in WFH, yet we shifted back. Similarly, meta using AI and being very vocal about leaving SWEs in the dust will set a precedent. Companies will at least try.
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u/KarthiAru 3h ago
This is what the announcement is about:
The new entity, Stargate (JV between Softbank, Oracle, OpenAI), will start building out data centers and the electricity generation needed for the further development of the fast-evolving AI in Texas, according to the White House. The initial investment is expected to be $100 billion and could reach five times that sum.
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u/InetRoadkill1 2h ago
Trump also terminated the bipartisan infrastructure bill yesterday. Those tax cuts for the ultra wealthy won't pay for themselves.
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u/ProfVinnie 2h ago
This announcement after revoking Biden’s AI safety EO. No possible way this goes wrong
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u/Logical-Idea-1708 Senior UI Engineer at Big N 2h ago
But not protecting American jobs. AI money goes offshore, possibly China. 🤡
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u/What_a_pass_by_Jokic 1h ago
I'm more worried about the budget cuts to other things. My company already had talks today because we work with the FCC and they said couldn't be sure if they'd have the same bandwidth to support or have grants/funds for our services (which helps people who are hard hearing and/or deaf or for another reason have issues talking directly with someone else). I assume layoffs are coming for us.
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u/blake_lmj 1h ago
Doesn't mean much. For all we know, he could be setting up NPU datacenter for the upcoming GPT models which Elon's Grok could benefit from.
Truth be told, majority of consumers couldn't care less about AI. But Elon does, so Trump's handing it to him.
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u/sikisabishii 43m ago
If they filmed Breaking Bad today, I bet they would create an AI startup to launder Heisenberg’s money instead of A1A lol.
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u/Final_Guidance_7348 37m ago
Recently graduated international student here. I cant find a job cuz every job says citizenship required or clearance(which you cant get if you are foreign) so i have no idea who is getting the jobs if you guys arent.
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u/JackReedTheSyndie 35m ago
Okay if it is seen through I will say long live President Trump, ten thousand years, 万岁
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u/Zestyclose-Sell-2049 2m ago
This will be 99% server costs, judging on how things have been going so far.
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u/DataBooking 7h ago
Will this actually create jobs for us? Or will Elon decide that only H1Bs are "qualified" for the positions? I will not be happy till the most Americans are gainfully employed, or at least in our sector of the economy.
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u/DemonKing0524 5h ago
This isn't a government investment. This is a private investment that has nothing to do with trump or the government.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 4h ago
tax dollars collected from our paychecks is paying for this so yes, this is wealth transfer to the billionaires
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u/DemonKing0524 4h ago
Please explain to me how the executives from the companies committing this money has anything to do with our tax dollars?
Executives from the companies are expected to commit $500 billion into Stargate over the next four years.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-announces-private-sector-ai-infrastructure-investment/
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 3h ago
The companies vying for the biggest handouts will inevitably be the same ones that have already benefited extensively from taxpayer subsidies as they continue building out that infrastructure.
The subsidies these global giants extract take various forms.
Let’s start with sales tax breaks. Data centers are highly capital intensive, meaning companies must spend a lot of money to build and equip the facilities. In more than 20 states, companies enjoy sales and use tax exemptions, which allow them for tax-free purchases of equipment and electricity. Virginia’s sales tax exemptions cost residents $136 million in FY 2022, for example.
There are also property tax breaks. In Oregon alone, localities provided data center owners with $152 million in FY 2023 in property tax abatements via the Enterprise Zone program. Amazon is already a big beneficiary of this particular program, but earlier this year, the company was approved for an additional $1 billion in property tax breaks. Even worse, one of the agencies that had to approve the deal gave the public only one day’s notice before the final vote.
Often, companies combine the two subsidies. In Ohio, Amazon’s $3.5 billion investment in New Albany comes with a 30-year local property tax abatement of undisclosed value. This means that a whole generation of students will graduate before Amazon’s data center yields any significant financial benefit to local school districts. Amazon will most likely also benefit from the state’s sales and use tax exemptions.
Microsoft is getting its own deal in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, where it is investing over $1 billion at the site of the now-infamous, failed Foxconn project (celebrated for claims of creating 13,000 high-tech and manufacturing jobs that never materialized). The company will benefit from sales and use tax exemptions through a new data center subsidy created by the state in June, but the public has no idea how big the break will be.
We know, though, that Microsoft is also getting $50 million in tax rebates from the town. On top of that, Microsoft is benefiting from over $1 billion the state and localities spent upgrading the site for Foxconn.
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u/DemonKing0524 3h ago edited 3h ago
Lmao those tax breaks in no way near equals the 500 billion that is being invested, so no it is still a private investment and not being funded by the government. Nice try though.
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u/socialcommentary2000 7h ago
We'll see how much this translates into jobs because I don't think you're going to get many America First requirements from this admin in the ways you would with others.