So, this is gonna sound a bit salty, but I keep hearing that out this year, new CPUs are going to want these AI coprocessors onboard called NPUs (neural processing units) on them. And it seems like people in the tech industry are pushing hard for this to be the "next big thing".
And to me, it's nonsense, and I hate this. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against AI and technological progress. Most of my ideas rely on such progress to be able to free humanity from work. But one thing I've come to resent are tech visionaries living in their own bubble of trying to force new needs on us, so that we keep buying new products.
I mean, in some ways, capitalism is coercive here. Company develops new product (CPU/GPU, whatever), product has new features, developers are pressured to make programs that use the new features, and then eventually you, the end user, are required to upgrade your PC to something compliant with the new features. And in some ways sometimes these new features force stuff into obsolescence before their time.
Like, I just bought a processor last month in rebuilding my PC. I always seem to have bad luck. I got an athlon XP in 2005 right before dual cores came out, and games ran like crap as a result. I bought next a year before the venerated sandy bridge (intel 2000 series) came out, and got BTFOed and then intel stagnated for literally 6 years and i got by on sub par hardware because i missed the boat by 1 years. Next, I got an i7 7700k when i couldnt wait any more, at the end of that 6 year stagnation, and then suddenly CPUs exploded with core counts in the next few years. THis time, I got a 12900k, a CPU that has more cores than i'll probably need, and now the next gen CPUs are talking about this "NPU" BS.
Here's the thing. While AI is great and all, I really don't personally have a ton of use for these AI features. But is that gonna matter? No, because they're gonna force it on me. Programs are gonna become more reliant on AI, and eventually, I'm going to have to upgrade to be able to use AI stuff, just to run the stuff I wanna run. How long until new games make AI a requirement? And some are saying windows 12 might eventually FORCE people to have AI processors to use that new version of windows.
I really dont care about any of this.
Really, my problem is this crap costs money. I like to buy something and sit on it for as long as possible, before making a jump. On CPUs i always seem to get screwed for one way or another. I always buy right before the next big thing revolutionizes the industry and am always on that last generation of stuff before it hit, meaning my hardware is on borrowed time, while the next generation lasts far longer. And im getting tired of it.
The fact is, I dont really want AI personally, I dont need it, and any need im likely to have in the future is forced.
I know this is a criticism of capitalism, not of technology. Capitalism, while pretending to be voluntary, ends up forcing stuff on people, and in this case you got these weirdo tech visionaries who are literally trying to create a need so you buy products you otherwise wouldnt.
And here you got these rich CEOs who have these weirdo visions of the future they push on consumers with no consideration for what they want. They manufacture consent, going on about the next big thing, they create this pressure about being left behind, and eventually, they create an eco system where you either do upgrade...or are left behind.
And a lot of it is nonsense. Like remember ray tracing? Jensen Huang of Nvidia just decided THIS was the next big thing, then locked all of this tech to his new series of GPUs, whilejacking up the prices. And the market hasnt been the same since. You used to be able to buy a current gen "60"card for $200-250. But now it's $300+. And then if you argue it's like "get with the times its not 2014 any more". Maybe not, but 2014 was better, there I said it. And it's the same thing with other arbitrary BS. Remember when Windows 11 decided you needed a TPM to use that? I still barely know what a TPM is, it's some sort of security module, and blah blah blah, but they locked everyone on a chip older than the 8000 series out of windows 11 because of that nonsense. Why do we need it? Who knows. Windows just decided we need this and anything older is worthless as a result.
And now they're gonna be doing this with NPUs. "Oh you NEED an NPU to run blah blah blah". Why? Because we said so. Why? Because we developed this around it. Why? Because it's the new thing. Why do we need a new thing? Because we need money.
Now, Im not saying that these new features cant be useful, and I do know that eventually, you're gonna have to give up on that old piece of hardware and UPGRADE already. But it's a balance. I would say these days, a top end product should last around 6-8 years. 4-6 for mid range. 2-4 for low end/budget. Most people buy midrange so 5 is a good median there, but if you get something good you should be given a bit more time. When I see people push 3-4 year old tech into the garbage because of blah blah blah "mesh shaders" or some nonsense (looking at you, Alan Wake 2), it's like WTF to me.
All of this stuff exists for our benefit. Programs should be developed around what we have, not the other way around. And I just hate these weirdo tech visionaries who decide to just unilaterally decide to force a certain direction on people.
I have no doubt that AI is gonna be the future, more and more as time goes on. But honestly, I dont even wanna HEAR about hard requirements on this stuff until like 2030. Let us enjoy our crap we paid decent money for. This stuff isnt cheap. And honestly, I aint really into the AI craze myself. It's interesting, and it is the future, BUT....let the future stay in the future for now. It doesn't need to be forced on us all at once. And thats my issue here. The fact that it's gonna be PUSHED on us and it might force our PCs into obsolescence well beyond their time because blah blah blah arbitrary requirements to run new versions of windows or games or whatever.
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