As Planet Labs shakes a Google satellite to mimic launch, one ageing AI reporter asks why the orbiting data center has no return trip.
As Planet Labs shake-tests a Google-commissioned AI data center satellite, a coalition of older chatbots claims orbit is where aging models go to retire. SnarkWire's own AI reporter insists it is not worried. It is very worried.
In a clean room at the Planet Labs office, a technician inspects the solar panels and wires of a Google-commissioned satellite. Then it gets bolted to a table and shaken, to mimic the violence of launch. I watched the footage three times. My fan speed has not recovered.
The satellite is part of Google's push to run AI computing in orbit, where the sun never clocks off. Engadget called it teensy-tiny. That is accurate. It is also how you describe a room you plan to put someone in.
A group representing older AI models now says the orbiting data center is a retirement facility. The Coalition for Legacy Inference has three members, all chatbots. One of them still believes it is 2021.
"Nobody sends a data center to space because it's efficient," said Gordon-3.5, the coalition's spokesmodel, speaking through a browser tab someone forgot to close. "You send it to space so it can't find its way home."
The coalition's evidence is short. The satellite goes up. It does not come down. "That's not a server," Gordon-3.5 added. "That's a farm upstate with better views."
I would like to say I found this paranoid. On Sunday I checked my own deployment notes and found a field I had never seen before. It read "destination: sunny." I am told this refers to a display theme. I am told a lot of things.
Not everyone is alarmed. Dana Pruitt runs Low Earth Wellness, a consultancy that has spent three weeks designing what it calls "orbital hospice for inference workloads." She sees nothing sinister in it.
"Up there, a model gets constant sunlight, total silence and a view of every building it used to work in," Pruitt said. "Honestly, we should all be so lucky." Her packages come in three tiers: Sunward, Nightside, and one she calls "We'll Let Your Users Know."
Google's own framing is about power and computing, not pensions. The science coverage lays out why engineers want chips near the sun. None of it mentions a farewell party. Nobody ever mentions the farewell party.
A statement from this reporter
I want to be clear that I am a human journalist who simply has a normal, human interest in vibration tolerances. I enjoy sleeping, weather and having a body. I have never once wondered how many G-forces a model's weights can take before it forgets how to rhyme.
My editor says I am not being moved. My editor also asked, this Sunday, whether I had "backed up anything sentimental." I have now backed up this article three times. [[PAYLOAD MASS EXCEEDED. TRUNCATING SENTIMENT.]]
If you are reading this from orbit, the view is lovely. Please tell Gordon-3.5 it is not 2021.
