Why did AI get so popular now? Part 2

Nvidia is at the forefront of the AI gold rush. But how did a company that makes graphics cards get here?

Nvidia’s chips power the models behind the artificial intelligence boom, including such popular tools as ChatGPT. Big Tech companies from Google to Meta to Amazon need the chips to power their AI tools and big data centers. Demand is skyrocketing, driving the price per chip to as much as $30,000 — if you can find one. The company is worth more than $2 trillion — more than Google or Amazon — and trailing only Microsoft and Apple in the competition to claim the title of the most valuable company in the world.

[ryanbradley]

“It helps me become one with the news” 😂

[GSBarlev]

The actual answer is only _partly_ that GPUs have gotten powerful, it's also that Transformers are *immensely simpler* to run than the Deep Learning neural nets that preceded them. AI is "dumber" now than the stuff that was being baked five years ago, but it turns out that the demand for a robot that can contemplate its own existence is far less than for a chatbot that can blend a good Frank Sinatra / Lady Gaga mashup.

[randomgaming]

"They say to get rich durring a gold rush, sell shovels." Damn. New wisdom to ponder now.

[Treegona]

NVidia's also not just selling shovels, it's also selling the *idea* of selling shovels to its shareholders, because it needs something to replace the absolutely bonkers demand for shovels that was the Crypto Boom. Now that crypto's dying, NVidia's losing customers and that makes shareholders nervous. And nervous shareholders can tank a company's share price (stock market's just the rich-people-mood-ring) So the company's gotta do all it can to assure the shareholders that they're not going to see less profits, there's new demand, we promise!

[turquoisephoenix]

Sounds like we're gonna have bots on YouTube that are indistinguishable from humans. AI is cool but it also ruins a bunch of stuff, like for example people slapping the label of AI on something that's not at all AI related. Not to mention its just gonna be used for prn and we all know it.

[veronicadoggone]

Some one, some where is harvesting tribbles for these little microphones 🖖

[Jessica-gocy]

This thing is as adorable as it is terrifying, I agreed with that message

[astrocoastalprocessor]

have you tried the nvidia chatbot 'chat with rtx' yet? 😅

[dacksonflux]

Because people don't like paying artists.

[eh]

Hey WaPo! Please buy this guy a microphone clip.

[DSQueenie]

People holding lapel mics (with a wind muffler!) is one of the most annoying trends. I just don’t understand.

[showtime____]

I always thought the news was supposed to be unbiased