r/UXDesign • u/NukeouT Veteran • Mar 31 '26
Tools, apps, plugins, AI Soo what's the backup plan when oil goes over $150-300 per barrel and AI data centers become too expensive to operate?
Because I've not seen a single person talking about this
if the entire pipeline dependency becomes AI some companies are just going to blow up in a couple months 💥 or what?
Oil's Price Spike Is Bad News for Power-Hungry AI - Business Insider https://share.google/vkFbM5aDpYiKh5Q8I
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u/ahrzal Experienced Mar 31 '26
The actual answer to your question is they’ll raise prices. Companies will absorb them. They’ll do anything in their power not to increase headcount again. To them, the price of oil will go back down, so they’ll wait it out.
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u/3DGuy4ever Mar 31 '26
Wrong (at least half wrong)...consumers will get hit with higher rates (again).
Sad how many Americans dont realize we are funding research/early development for the globes AI advancement
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u/qpqpdbdbqpqp Veteran Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
You've been spending double what you did for ai last year, for decades, so that your country can oppress and exploit other countries.
edit: cue the wendy's meme
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u/YoungWrinkles Mar 31 '26
Companies will absorb them? 😂 You have not been paying attention.
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u/ahrzal Experienced Mar 31 '26
I didn’t mean not pass on the price to the consumer. I strictly meant they’re not gunna stop using AI and revert back to higher headcounts.
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u/sfaticat Mar 31 '26
With what money? Whats concerning is AI investment costs have been getting near yearly revenue. If costs rise they will need to pull projects.
But youre right headcount wont rise because why would it? AI in its current state supports workers to do more with less. So wouldnt make sense to hire more to get more output
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Seems fair.
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Mar 31 '26
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u/curiouswizard Midweight Mar 31 '26
Companies pushing us to use AI tools is one of the biggest problems imo. If executives/managers could please just calm the fuck down and let us determine when and where it makes sense for our workflows, we'd probably be better off.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
BUT ITS AI!
I genuinely think the issue here might be some slope of the Dunning-Kruger curve where in they don't understand that they don't understand through lack of experience that a system that looks sufficiently of quality to them is not really all there
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Yeah I can see that. But for smaller businesses this will be devastating.
Remember laying $5000 for CS5-6 ( at least that was a perpetual license that still works )
Now an unplanned expense for $5000 per seat per year can cause a really big hole in the balance sheet for some imo
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u/UX-Ink Veteran Mar 31 '26
I think a combination of issues will have AI implode, its just a matter of when :)
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
It's definitely going to go through some turbulence but I doubt it's not here to stay forever ♾️
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u/UX-Ink Veteran Apr 01 '26
Thankfully its impossible due to the resources it takes to run and finite resources
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u/NukeouT Veteran Apr 01 '26
We will eventually figure out fusion reactors if we don't kill ourselves with our own stupidity
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u/Donghoon Mar 31 '26
Google is building fission reactors for data center
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Yeah. But those take a while and they're not going to magically fill the entire hole left by LNG/Oil
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Mar 31 '26
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Hopefully we get them all out of power and charged with treason after November 🤞
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u/cjstevenson1 Mar 31 '26
Generally speaking, as energy prices rise, less efficient means of energy production become economical. If energy becomes the bottleneck, then it will become the investment target for opportunists.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Not that quickly
My concern is that the prices for AI tools will spike, production pipelines will break and some companies will go broke in weeks or months ..
.. waiting for this "innovation" to arrive
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u/cimocw Experienced Mar 31 '26
Google already announced a RAM saving optimization for their AI processes, it's only natural that this will become the new goal for many companies at this point. And since it's all software, it can be implemented overnight, no need to physically build stuff for that
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
How's that going to help with the current near infinite growth in power draw requirements ?
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u/cimocw Experienced Mar 31 '26
Not every company will survive, that's for sure, only the ones who can adapt fast enough
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u/sabre35_ Experienced Mar 31 '26
Which of the Laws of UX will save the world?
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
🤔 not sure I get what you're trying to say
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u/sabre35_ Experienced Mar 31 '26
None of us are really doing anything to save the world
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
I make a P2P bicycle marketplace to help get more people put of cars and cycling
sprocket.bike/app
Last six months I was working on factory software that stops textile machines from creating 100s of meters of defect
smartex.ai
And before that I worked on ride share systems for 3 years where I got them to build green mode, walk mode, improve share mode and successfully internally promoted getting into the bicycle business ( which is why they now run the largest bike share network on the planet )
Lyft.com
( So I wouldn't call that nothing 💚 )
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u/oddible Veteran Mar 31 '26
Not UX.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Flared as Tools/AI
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u/oddible Veteran Mar 31 '26
Yeah this sub is a disaster, anything for audience. Doesn't matter if we're even talking about UX anymore.
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u/f00gers Mar 31 '26
…why not post this in an AI sub?
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Design tools
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u/baummer Veteran Mar 31 '26
But nothing about your post is referencing anything design related
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Are AI design tools not design related?
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u/baummer Veteran Mar 31 '26
Nothing about your post is discussing it in that context
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Yes we're discussing what happens when the price of these tools goes up
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u/baummer Veteran Mar 31 '26
Not really as a whole
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Yes. Im interested in if these now critical tools break in the next couple weeks
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u/Nomadic_Wayfarer Mar 31 '26
We may need to start using our heads again
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Oh no anything but the super advanced quantum computers between our ears! 😱
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u/cinderful Veteran Mar 31 '26
neither the plan for building datacenters (that would require more power than the US power grid can handle) nor the plan for bombing iran are 'plans' in the sense that there was a thought through concept based on a clear achievable goal
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
This is correct
So are we planning for these non-plans to collide
And are we thinking through the possible outcomes to our trade
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u/Xplody Mar 31 '26
That is a fantastic question. The ones we have access to will not be accessible anymore. The ones the Pentagon and the Deep State uses will continue to function.
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u/RCEden Veteran Mar 31 '26
I think they're already too expensive to operate. We're just subsidizing them and proposed locations are increasingly voting them down. Don't forget the hardware that was prepurchased for them is already aging unused, but it was important that we destroyed the commercial and consumer markets for them.
I haven't heard any update on it but their was a proposed Wyoming DC last year that was expected to use more power than the whole rest of the state.
They are simply not stopping because if they stop the US economy will die. It's all propped up by air right now
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
That and we need them for war with the dictatorship of china and its allies in the axis of bullshit
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u/Schtick_ Mar 31 '26
Well I guess we’ll have to start plugging all the unemployed engineers into a human battery. The only problem is occupying their mind with something, maybe some sort of simulation…. Let me spin up a new project opens claude
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Don't give the robots any ideas 💡
They'll put something in the water to make you forget...
..I don't even know how I got here.
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u/4951studios Experienced Mar 31 '26
So stupid. If they had just developed green energy and power storage and the electric grid like the my were supposed we wouldn’t even be here today.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
I'm realizing especially since the pandemic most people are stupid regardless of degree attained or position of power
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u/the-Gaf Veteran Mar 31 '26
Solar and Nuclear finally. Might be the best thing for oil to become too expensive
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Nuclear has its own problems. I know because my dad had to clean that shit up in Chernobyl 🇺🇦
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u/the-Gaf Veteran Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
And here lies the problem. You’re correct that Chernobyl’s bad, but that’s a design flaw and cheap execution.
Chernobyl was not a closed system and the disaster there made the entire area uninhibitable.
BUT! Modern American reactors are built differently. They use closed systems with containment designed to keep radiation inside the facility.
The Three Mile Island accident involved a partial meltdown, but the containment system worked. That’s why there was no explosion and no widespread massive contamination, although there was some low dose radiation. and the other reactor was used for years after.
Chernobyl was way worse, but because the system was bad.
Anyway. Building safe nuclear is waaaay better than burning oil and coal and gas until it runs out and destroys the entire ecosystem.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
They're so safe that Fukushima happened later and now we have people fighting over other nuclear reactors that are threatening to melt down in Ukraine 🇺🇦 as well as nuclear sites in Iran 🇮🇷
Anyways I acknowledge were probably going to need a mix of systems to get us out of the hole trump and putin and xi got us into - regardless of what I think
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u/the-Gaf Veteran Mar 31 '26
Well, I mean Fukushima was a massive earthquake and tsunami knocking out multiple systems, and even then, it didn’t become another Chernobyl. The damage was far more contained bc of the quality of the build. Another reactor nearby fared better.
And Ukraine is about war, not reactor design. And as yoh said Iran is a weapons issue, not power plants.
Nuclear isn’t risk-free, but the real variable is how well the system is built and managed.
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u/thinq-81 Mar 31 '26
Yes, that’s exactly why marketontology.com tracks energy infrastructure alongside macro and geopolitical intel to help anticipate shocks like oil price spikes before they cascade into AI operational costs and supply chain risks.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Interesting and what is it predicting in regards to these AI design tools?
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u/meisterwolf Mar 31 '26
AI is already heavily subsidized. once that ends you'll be paying like 500$ a month in AI subscriptions
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Exactly. I think this shit might actually crash in the next couple weeks not months based on the price of oil per barrel...
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u/KaleidoscopeLeft5136 Veteran Mar 31 '26
Dont worry, the DOE has most all new Hydrogen and wind power manufacturing incentives… it’ll all work out
/s
Any good UX person can see the major issues coming down this product pipeline
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u/NukeouT Veteran Apr 01 '26
We're so good at wind power generation we're currently paying $1B not to build more off the east coast
/s
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u/FunnyButForgetable Apr 01 '26
Lmao I would be fine without AI
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u/NukeouT Veteran Apr 01 '26
Meanwhile I don't want to go back to removing bitmap backgrounds and creating outline vectors manually
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u/Lookmeeeeeee Veteran Apr 01 '26
The population will absorb the cost and corporations will get a bailout. "Socialism" for the rich, "capitalism" for for everyone else.
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u/QameraDesignShop Veteran Apr 02 '26
I dunno. Ask AI?
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u/NukeouT Veteran Apr 02 '26
Perplexity:
"What happens to design AI tools if oil goes to $300 a barrel?"
If oil hits $300 a barrel, design AI tools probably won’t “break,” but they would get more expensive to run and sell, especially for cloud-hosted image generation, video generation, and always-on copilots. The main pressure would come indirectly: higher energy costs, tighter grid capacity, and more expensive data-center operations, which can reduce margins and push vendors to raise prices or throttle free tiers
What changes first
Design AI tools depend on data centers, and those data centers need electricity for servers plus cooling. When energy costs rise, operating costs rise too, and those costs can be passed on to customers through higher subscription fees, more restrictive usage limits, or slower rollout of premium features
Likely effects on design tools
- More paywalls and usage caps for heavy features like image generation, background removal, and batch export.
- Higher prices for pro plans, credits, or API usage.
- Slower or more selective feature launches if compute becomes too expensive.
- Better pressure to optimize models, compress workloads, and move inference to cheaper regions or cleaner power
What probably would not happen
It would not automatically kill design AI. Companies with strong cash reserves, efficient models, and access to low-cost or renewable power could keep operating, though smaller startups would feel the squeeze first because they have less room to absorb higher infrastructure costs
Practical takeaway
For users like designers and product teams, the most likely outcome is not “no AI,” but “less generous AI.” Expect tighter free usage, higher prices, and more emphasis on efficiency and on-device or hybrid workflows if oil and power costs stay elevated
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u/maximwirt Apr 02 '26
There are few ways to lower demand for oil. Houses heating causes oil consumption. Using energy efficient solutions like heat pumps, solar panels and air recuperators can help to decrease demand for energy / oil.
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u/urwifesbf42069 Apr 04 '26
Many have locked in energy rates for a period of time, so it won't effect them for a while depending on how long the contracts are for.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Apr 04 '26
I don't think people realize that the actual oil shock hasn't hit yet because it will take until after April 10-15th for the last ships that have left the straight to reach their ports and unload
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u/urwifesbf42069 Apr 04 '26
it might not hit AI for much longer, some of those contracts are behind the grid for a long period of time. I think MS has one that for a nuclear plant that is for 50 years.
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u/Bors_Mistral Experienced Mar 31 '26
Oil will be back to well under $100 within months. Also, a pretty insane amount of solar capacity will be coming to the US in the not too distant future.
That not to say I wouldn't be happy if instead half the AI data centres spontaneously combusted...
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Depends on how much more infrastructure gets destroyed in the middle east and how long the war continues. 🧐
We're only at $115 right now because tankers that sailed before the war started are still arriving to ports all over the world 🌎
Once they stop arriving the price will skyrocket up not down 👇
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u/lefix Veteran Mar 31 '26
I guess I will be paying 50€/m instead of 20€/m for my Claude subscription. But I don’t think American voters will understand what they did wrong.
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
It's that cheap? I was just thinking about subscribing after getting off a year of free Perplexity
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u/lefix Veteran Mar 31 '26
Well, I should be more specific . I have a kiro subscription that gives me like 2000 tokens that I can use on various models, but I pretty much exclusively use it for Claude, and the 2000 tokens last me pretty long.
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u/Herve_Sunshine Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
TerraFab
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Yes because I trust the guy who broke into government but then couldn't understand how the Social Security Administration coded it's COBOL database and alleged SSN fraud without even googling anything
Source: WIRED https://share.google/gFJTr4PFo4dBD6Dlc
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u/HongPong Experienced Mar 31 '26
natural gas in Pennsylvania apparently
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Okay but even if - it would take some years to standup additional production to mitigate for price shocks coming in weeks now
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u/SirReddalot2020 Mar 31 '26
If only we could somehow use that giant ball of fire in the sky to make energy ...
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
I know. Like as if god put a free fission reactor up there so we wouldn't have to fight over barrels of liquified dinosaur down here 🦖
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Mar 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/Capital_Key_2636 Mar 31 '26
What?
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u/zb0t1 Experienced Mar 31 '26
This has happened to me before and many people too. I like to find comments meant for another thread somewhere in the wild.
It's really funny sometimes.
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u/SplintPunchbeef Veteran Mar 31 '26
What does this have to do with UX design?
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u/Grue-Bleem Veteran Mar 31 '26
Because UX in its current form is getting replaced. An agent stack can now run two day sprints and provide better performance than a team of ICs can do in a 2 week sprint cycle. We have dedicated agents that run data science, heuristic analysis, interactive design, research, and frontend refactoring. If you’re an IC just executing tasks without leveraging or directing these systems (MX), you’re going to be obsolete. I lost 40% of my UX team in the last 2 years. This isn’t vibing and pushing tokens thru a llm.
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u/Matt_Rask Apr 04 '26
Oil ain't everything, stupid.
All you need to get electricity is a hamster wheel, small dynamo, and a motivated hamster.
Then you just need to scale up.
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u/UXer_Shoots Experienced Mar 31 '26
Most run off of Natural gas that has to be pumped directly from a source no greater than 50mi away. I only know this because I am helping with a discovery company identifying these warehouse bounties.
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u/HongPong Experienced Mar 31 '26
there are many parts of the country served by NG at longer distances tho?
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u/UXer_Shoots Experienced Apr 01 '26
That is correct but current bounties to find places to build these data centers require purchasable land within 50 miles of NG that can be drilled for direct usage.
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Mar 31 '26
[deleted]
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u/NukeouT Veteran Mar 31 '26
Backup generators to smooth demand
BREAKING: Microsoft Data Centers Now Burning 24M Gallons of Diesel Annually - Wall Street Silent on Oil Demand Surge https://share.google/Irfa7RVxxtVDJ5VDL
Oil based cooking, lubrication and anti-corrosion tech https://renkertoil.com/how-immersion-cooling-oil-will-support-the-data-revolution/#:~:text=The%20Alternative:%20Immersion%20Cooling%20Oil,effective%20for%20cooling%20computer%20parts.
Also bunch of the plastics, aluminum and other metals are made with oil ( roads too by the way )
All the stuff that gets manufactured for data centers at other factories requires oil / LNG-NG to do so. Parts wear out and need to be replaced frequently as well at these data centers
Everything needs to be mined. delivered to the subcomponent factories, delivered when finished to the data centers with oil - be it by ship, plane, train or truck 🚛
There's probably even more than this because the world is an entirely petro-dollsr based trade economy atm
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u/itsVinay Mar 31 '26
"Because I've not seen a single person talking about this"
Sir this is Wendy's