Post #3372292

2026-06-22 07:21 UTC

Today (actually sourced to Perun’s video from a few weeks back but I watched it today) in Everything is Connected: One of the advancements in one-way attack drones in the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been the move to directly-connected fiber optic cables for control. This has proven an effective way to counter electronic warfare, but has also meant that both sides have started using a volume of fiber optic cable that boggles the mind. This made the single fiber optic manufacturer in Russia a substantial strategic target, which Ukraine obligingly took advantage of. In turn, this has forced Russia to rely completely on imports, placing the Russian war effort in direct competition with China’s AI datacenter buildout for this now-vital resource. China being a proudly socialist country, this allowed the fiber optic manufacturers to raise their prices through the roof and absolutely take the Russians (and presumably their AI customers) to the cleaners. Never let it be said that there are no AI-tangential stories that you can’t feel at least a little bit good about, even if it is just the endless grift nexus capturing an even bigger bastard.

Replies (1)

@schnoopy@awful.systems 2026-06-23 01:04

The staggering amount of resources being poured into warehouses of machines that run code that create plausible text is mindblowing. A lot of stuff is ongoing cost too. For something which — as far as I’ve seen — can halfarse busywork nobody cares about, steal code from github/approximate yaasnippet if you don’t mind having to review code made with ducttape and a dream, or sort of act like a DM with alzheimers for very lonely people. What are we even doing here? Even if governments think “Oh well we better trial it a bit because maybe it’ll be useful” why would you expend so much human life on a slim possibility.

Open ##3377951