NVIDIA Executive Says Cryptocurrencies Add Nothing Useful to Society

[AleksandarK]

In an interview with The Guardian, NVIDIA's Chief Technical Officer (CTO) Michael Kagan added his remarks on the company and its cryptocurrency position. Being the maker of the world's most powerful graphics cards and compute accelerators, NVIDIA is the most prominent player in the industry regarding any computing application from cryptocurrencies to AI and HPC. In the interview, Mr. Kegan expressed his opinions and argued that newly found applications such as ChatGTP bring much higher value to society compared to cryptocurrencies. "All this crypto stuff, it needed parallel processing, and [Nvidia] is the best, so people just programmed it to use for this purpose. They bought a lot of stuff, and then eventually it collapsed, because it doesn't bring anything useful for society. AI does," said Kegan, adding that "I never believed that [crypto] is something that will do something good for humanity. You know, people do crazy things, but they buy your stuff, you sell them stuff. But you don't redirect the company to support whatever it is."

When it comes to AI and other applications, the company has a very different position. "With ChatGPT, everybody can now create his own machine, his own programme: you just tell it what to do, and it will. And if it doesn't work the way you want it to, you tell it 'I want something different," he added, arguing that the new AI applications have usability level beyond that of crypto. Interestingly, trading applications are also familiar to NVIDIA, as they had clients (banks) using their hardware for faster trading execution. Mr. Kegan noted: "We were heavily involved in also trading: people on Wall Street were buying our stuff to save a few nanoseconds on the wire, the banks were doing crazy things like pulling the fibers under the Hudson taut to make them a little bit shorter, to save a few nanoseconds between their datacentre and the stock exchange."



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[Vayra86]

An award for timing seems appropriate here.

Nice PR.

 

[Bomby569]

The "crash" for Nvidia was inevitable once ETH moved to proof of stake. Unless they think they would be selling at scalping prices to mine poop coin.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

F##$ crypto ,f##£ gamer's it's all AI baby everything else is balls.


Get your wallets out, shits getting more expensive, Huang's big crypto fleece is over and he knows it, you'll pay , because someone has to.

Next crypto boom this turd of a CEO will be flogging GPU straight to miner's from his car boot like before the scummy shit.

 

[natr0n]

The people responsible for the prices now... prostates should swell and muffs get yeast infections which no ointment can stop.

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

Isn't that like the pot calling the kettle black?

Dare I say that, at leastnin my opinion, Nvidia is even worse, and they're doing damage to society....everyone may be celebrating AI, but the nasty side effects don't make the headlines....let's take a single issue and that's police and courts in America using things like "predictive policing" and "facial recognition" to not just identify a possible suspect to investigate later, but using facial recognition as the ONLY evidence to obtain arrest and search warrants and there's already numerous horror stories. A police department in Flordia used "predictive policing" and AI to "identify" certain families and individuals as "future criminals" and then used thet information to begin a campaign of non-stop harassment to try and force these people out of town.

There's been plenty of cases of people being arrested ONLY on the assessment of AI with respect to facial recognition and the arrested person is completely innocent (this most greatly effect people of color as these facial recognition models are "taught" on mostly white faces and therefore are highly inaccurate with people of color.

Or how about judges using AI to determine whether a defendant should receive parole or whether they're more or less likely to become a "repeat offender"...would you want a black box AI system in the hands of the state being used to determine whether or not someone has freedom...whether you have freedom?

As an example, It's only a matter of time before police are using drones (probably operated, at least in part by AI) to circumvent and neutralize the 4th amendment....courts have already allowed the "extension of police senses" with drug dogs (which the research has shown have an abysmal success rate approaching a coin flip and yet judges have REFUSED to let defense lawyers present this empirical evidence as evidence) so how long until they use that same justification for drones with thermal cameras? And what happens when a technology is developed that essentially allows someone to look through walls? A lot of people respond to this with "if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you worry" to which I reply "wasn't that a popular phrase in 1936 Germany?" (Just a joke), but seriously there's not a day that goes by where the police don't wrongfully arrest someone or a prisoner is released after being wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years, and thats why even if you're innocent, these trends should be distrubing.

This will ONLY get worse and more prevalent as the entire trend of technological development
since the industrial revolution has been one of states using technology to increase their ability to database and surveil people (we are literally the most surveilled humans in our species' history) and the insertion of AI into this dark partnership will only accelerate the process....and Nvidia and their products are ushering in that brave new world...as long as the bad parts of AI include taking away people's freedom and the use AI to increase the reach of the police state...the benefits will never outweigh them.

Pasco County Cops Harassed Them and Searched Their Homes Without Warrants. A Judge Says They Can Sue.

It's not every day you receive a letter from the local police department congratulating you on your acceptance into an exclusive program. Such is the

reason.com

Facial Recognition Leads Louisiana Cops to Arrest of Innocent Man

A Georgia man was falsely arrested in November after Louisiana officers used a facial recognition tool to identify him as a fugitive, according to The Associated Press. Significant differences in facial features and weight led to the man being freed. However, this incident points to another way...

www.yahoo.com

How Wrongful Arrests Based on AI Derailed 3 Men's Lives

Robert Williams, Michael Oliver, and Nijeer Parks were misidentified by facial recognition software. The impact cast a long shadow.

www.wired.com

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Nvidia Chief technical officer"I never believed that [crypto] is something that will do something good for humanity. You know, people do crazy things, but they buy your stuff, you sell them stuff. But you don't redirect the company to support whatever it is."

Total f#@£#@ horseshit your company did, is, and will do again.

And is doing NOW for AI by your pr piece now ,here tw@t.


The gamers that MADE your company should wise up and f#@£ you off, as the money grabbing hores Nvidia are.

 

[Vya Domus]

It hurts, doesn't it, when you actually have to make compelling products and miners aren't just buying whatever junk you can churn out as fast as possible.

 

[Kirederf]

It doesn't bring anything useful for society; but it sure was very useful for their bottom line...

 

[_Flare]

But the extra money they did take. Even being very tightlipped in their earnings, to camouflage they profited that much.
We consumers suffer until today because the supply chain in some countries didn´t lower the prices after the last boom.
That is a giant opportunity for AMD to gain marketshare ... but they seem not interested.

 

[ZoneDymo]

I do like the insight of this person, knowing full well that a big company getting even richer is of no value to society.

 

[Outback Bronze]

What,

They couldn't say this back in 2017 & 2021?

 

[KLMR]

The only comment should the News add is a link to their Corporate Social Responsibility:

Corporate Sustainability

NVIDIA empowers employees to create positive change in the world.

www.nvidia.com

 

[phanbuey]

I wonder what he thinks about videogames.

 

[Denver]

I could say the same for current games and AI. This level of hypocrisy is comical.

 

[R0H1T]

That is a giant opportunity for AMD to gain marketshare ... but they seem not interested.

In a way it's a good thing, we need less consumption of resources going forward & eff this FOMO fad ~ if this forces people to keep their perfectly good hardware for longer then I'm all for it! F*** Nvidia, Apple, Intel & yes AMD for fleecing almost inhumane levels of profit. Yes I know not every product is priced unfairly but the general trend is going only one way

 

[Bwaze]

The important thing is that gaming, which brings in 9 billion dollars per year, is barely mentioned at all, except as a source of graphics cards that were used for mining, but shall now find better use in AI! And gamers themselves? Screw them, cheapskates! They are responsible for lower revenue this past year since the crypto collapsed!

And use of gaming GPUs for AI has already begun - a friend that never gamed just bought an RTX 4090 - so he could render in higher resolution in Stable Diffusion, a Midjourney alternative AI drawing program that runs on your GPU.

 

[kondamin]

The moment SHTF where ever he's at he'd be very happy if he could transfer his net worth in to BTC and get out of dodge to a place that isn't going up in smoke.
BTC is a nice tool against centralized control which CBDC will make "regular" money.

 

[Bwaze]

The moment SHTF where ever he's at he'd be very happy if he could transfer his net worth in to BTC and get out of dodge to a place that isn't going up in smoke.
BTC is a nice tool against centralized control which CBDC will make "regular" money.

Gibberish.

 

[Vayra86]

The only comment should the News add is a link to their Corporate Social Responsibility:

Corporate Sustainability

NVIDIA empowers employees to create positive change in the world.

www.nvidia.com

They are working on it.

Not achieving it. It never says that anywhere

The moment SHTF where ever he's at he'd be very happy if he could transfer his net worth in to BTC and get out of dodge to a place that isn't going up in smoke.
BTC is a nice tool against centralized control which CBDC will make "regular" money.

Its 2023 dude, not 2010. Wake up

 

[kapone32]

I wonder how big his house is and how many luxury items he owns? They are the same Company that was directly selling their cards directly to Mining operations. I wish they had reminded him that the cost of GPUs is still insane and AI could have unseen negative results.

 

[Vayra86]

The important thing is that gaming, which brings in 9 billion dollars per year, is barely mentioned at all, except as a source of graphics cards that were used for mining, but shall now find better use in AI! And gamers themselves? Screw them, cheapskates! They are responsible for lower revenue this past year since the crypto collapsed!

And use of gaming GPUs for AI has already begun - a friend that never gamed just bought an RTX 4090 - so he could render in higher resolution in Stable Diffusion, a Midjourney alternative AI drawing program that runs on your GPU.

AMD owns the console deals and moves a huge amount of GPUs that way dedicated for gaming.
AMD didn't spend a penny on RT development, other than copying over some best practices Nvidia kind of invented.
AMD's cards can still do RT alongside being custom APUs that Nvidia cannot offer to the market - well they can, but not on x86. They've only got some crappy ARM arch they can barely sell called Tegra.
AMD maintains a stable part of 'discrete-level' GPU market that can feed continuous development at minimal cost, and is guaranteed revenue based on multi year deals. They have a strong architectural core now and a hardware solution for memory that is future proof.

Nvidia doesn't own the consoles that push the same games their cards require to keep getting bought.
Nvidia first tries to push PC as the new RT platform and invests heavily in it with developers/engineering teams/bags of money. They reserve die space for it, they cut memory capacities for it, and they have to escalate on power draw for it, in a big way, to keep any semblance of generational improvement up and running. Then they shit all over the gamer in all shapes and scents imaginable, from overinflated pricing to misguided PR, a sharp reduction in driver/release quality, and just overall worse products and fár worse feature support gen over gen (FG/DLSS3 perfect example).
Nvidia's cards are a rough 30% better in RT, but even that gap doesn't enable a single new gaming experience - even a basic low poly game like Portal can't run path traced at playable frames on their latest greatest. The vast majority of games that implement partial RT, require a magnifying glass to capture the differences, and more often than not you'll conclude you were still actually watching a raster-based effect.

Now Nvidia is going for AI. Power to them. Lots, lots of power indeed. I hear there's a 4090ti coming.
But all that PR aside... I think its pretty clear who's positioned better for gaming now - ironically its the company that decided to do more with less, not the company selling less for more.

You know, that company that's doing 'AI-required' (-according to Nvidia) FSR without the use of AI and hardware agnostic so I can use it on Nvidia cards where Nv's own DLSS isn't on offer - speaking of shitting on your customer base...
Nvidia is rapidly becoming one big joke.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Easy to say that now

 

[Jism]

Alot of people will lose their job thanks to ChatGTP.

 

[Fluffmeister]

But the extra money they did take. Even being very tightlipped in their earnings, to camouflage they profited that much.
We consumers suffer until today because the supply chain in some countries didn´t lower the prices after the last boom.
That is a giant opportunity for AMD to gain marketshare ... but they seem not interested.

To be fair, AMD already milked the "Blockchain pioneers" too.