Gadgets are getting worse and more expensive at the same time

The paper clip problem always seemed too absurd to me. Also known as the paper clip maximizer, this is the thought experiment by philosopher Nick Bostrom that imagines how a superintelligent AI with the goal of maximizing paper clip production could end up destroying the world by directing all available resources to making paper clips. Gadgets are getting worse and more expensive at the same time Blame AI. Adam Clark Estes is a senior technology correspondent at Vox and author of the User Friendly newsletter. He’s spent 15 years covering the intersection of technology, culture, and politics at places like The Atlantic, Gizmodo, and Vice. While it would be irresponsible to say this is happening, we are starting to run low on some resources. And it’s about to affect your life. You may have heard about the global memory shortage caused, in part, by the rapid buildout of AI data centers . Just as they need semiconductors for data processing and water for cooling, these facilities need memory, or RAM, for short- and long-term data storage. Pretty much all consumer electronics, from desktop computers to smartphones, also require memory to run. The problem is that just three companies - Micron, SK Hynix, and Samsung Electronics - make almost all of the memory on the market. They can’t make it fast enough right now, and it’s unclear when they’ll be able to catch up with demand . Normally the shortage of a computer component wouldn’t lead me to reference a thought experiment about the apocalypse, but here we are. Memory is a really important component, and as the AI data center boom sucks up more and more resources, not having enough of it means that virtually every gadget with a chip in it will either get more expensive or less innovative or both. You can think of it along the same lines as the dreaded combination of inflation and stagnation made famous by the 1970s and resurrected by the second Trump administration : stagflation. Things cost more, and they’re basically worse. Prices are already going up, and manufacturers are already pointing to the memory shortage to explain them. What you can expect in the months, and possibly years, to come is a slowdown in the type of specification bumps you’re used to seeing in new models. (This year’s iPhone Pro 17, for example, has 12GB of RAM versus the 8GB in the iPhone 16 Pro.) You might even see manufacturers picking cheaper options for components like displays or batteries, in ways that may not be immediately obvious. “They’re looking for anywhere to cut corners just during this timeframe to offset memory costs,” said Ryan Reith, a group vice president at the market intelligence firm IDC. He added that some companies just won’t build the higher-powered devices they’d planned to build in the near future. IDC, meanwhile, predicts smartphone sales will go down in 2026 due to the memory shortage. There is also hoarding. There’s a veritable alphabet soup of different types...

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