Will AI Be a Disaster for the Climate? (theguardian.com) 100
"What would you like OpenAI to build/fix in 2024?" the company's CEO asked on X this weekend.
But "Amid all the hysteria about ChatGPT and co, one thing is being missed," argues the Observer — "how energy-intensive the technology is." The current moral panic also means that a really important question is missing from public discourse: what would a world suffused with this technology do to the planet? Which is worrying because its environmental impact will, at best, be significant and, at worst, could be really problematic.
How come? Basically, because AI requires staggering amounts of computing power. And since computers require electricity, and the necessary GPUs (graphics processing units) run very hot (and therefore need cooling), the technology consumes electricity at a colossal rate. Which, in turn, means CO2 emissions on a large scale — about which the industry is extraordinarily coy, while simultaneously boasting about using offsets and other wheezes to mime carbon neutrality.
The implication is stark: the realisation of the industry's dream of "AI everywhere" (as Google's boss once put it) would bring about a world dependent on a technology that is not only flaky but also has a formidable — and growing — environmental footprint. Shouldn't we be paying more attention to this?
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.
But "Amid all the hysteria about ChatGPT and co, one thing is being missed," argues the Observer — "how energy-intensive the technology is." The current moral panic also means that a really important question is missing from public discourse: what would a world suffused with this technology do to the planet? Which is worrying because its environmental impact will, at best, be significant and, at worst, could be really problematic.
How come? Basically, because AI requires staggering amounts of computing power. And since computers require electricity, and the necessary GPUs (graphics processing units) run very hot (and therefore need cooling), the technology consumes electricity at a colossal rate. Which, in turn, means CO2 emissions on a large scale — about which the industry is extraordinarily coy, while simultaneously boasting about using offsets and other wheezes to mime carbon neutrality.
The implication is stark: the realisation of the industry's dream of "AI everywhere" (as Google's boss once put it) would bring about a world dependent on a technology that is not only flaky but also has a formidable — and growing — environmental footprint. Shouldn't we be paying more attention to this?
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.
Everything productive requires cheap energy (Score:1, Troll)
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Define productive.
Add to that definition the notion of negative externalities, that are today not taken into consideration at all (despite being still there), and you might find different results about what is and is not productive/adding value.
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Reminds me of tobacco companies when they started advertising filter cigarettes as a healthier alternative to non-filter cigarettes. Their sales plummeted because their own campaign reminded people that the winning move was not to play. If you were choosing the lesser of two evils, you wouldn't choose evil at all.
Am afraid that once we start picking and choosing, we will all quickly realize that not much of what modern society produces is bringing a net positive.
Really? (Score:2)
Cigarettes are so powerfully addicitve, with so many influences and influencers leading to people taking up smoking, in the context of warnings from the Surgeon General about the health risks, I find it really hard to believe that the introduction of filters on cigarettes hurt sales.
This seems like a Slashdot hypothesis rather than anything carefully though out.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Boy do I have a story for you, then. Entire books were written on this subject as it's the textbook example of an ad campaign that entirely transformed a product's image but, in two words: Marlboro Man.
In fact, that was the moment the "influencers leading to people taking up smoking" part of tobacco companies truly solidified itself as they realized that, instead of selling cigarettes as a healthier alternative to rolled tobaco, they would sell it to teenagers as the Masculine Ideal they should aim for. Hell, even the red and white shape on the packet's packaging was designed to remind people of military medals.
The history of the creation of Marlboro Man is so interesting that I would advise anyone to read up on it
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Boy do I have a story for you, then. Entire books were written on this subject as it's the textbook example of an ad campaign that entirely transformed a product's image but, in two words: Marlboro Man. In fact, that was the moment the "influencers leading to people taking up smoking" part of tobacco companies truly solidified itself as they realized that, instead of selling cigarettes as a healthier alternative to rolled tobaco, they would sell it to teenagers as the Masculine Ideal they should aim for. Hell, even the red and white shape on the packet's packaging was designed to remind people of military medals.
The history of the creation of Marlboro Man is so interesting that I would advise anyone to read up on it
I agree.
In an interesting irony, today, a whole lot of young women have taken up smoking/vaping. Is it part of the ongoing masculinization of human females process? Anyhow, veering OT here, I just thought there could b ea connection, after reading your post.
Re: Everything productive requires cheap energy (Score:5, Insightful)
There is still a significant question of whether or not AI is productive.
Does it improve society?
Does it just make money for rich people at the expense of the environment and social structures?
Re: Everything productive requires cheap energy (Score:4, Interesting)
Define "improve society".
Slavery improved society. At least the part of it that was calling itself "society" and didn't give a shit about other human beings.
If society includes everyone, everywhere, then it might be worth it to remember that climate change is going to make a lot of places not suitable for human life for at least 180 days per year (as in the wet bulb temperature would not allow people to work outside without high risks on their health). About 2 billion people will be in that situation by 2050 in a +2C scénario.
I think you nailed it with your last question: "Does it just make money for rich people at the expense of the environment and social structures".
As long as you realize that most people writing on slashdot, including you and I, are part of the rich people in question.
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Does it improve society?
AI is a tool. It has no impact on society. What impacts society is the way the tool is used. The way I use it is undeniably a benefit. AI powered models for enhancing images is f---ing magic for anyone with a camera, and the tools for photo editing that use generative AI are also an absolute god send.
Now if you on the other hand use it to perpetuate racial stereo types, cheat on exams or job interviews, or make a Biden deepfake on behalf of the Trump campaign that's on you. In that case it wouldn't be AI ru
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I just wonder: Is it really the most effective way to solve the problems it's being used for? Or is it just a clever trick that allows companies to spin up lots of hype, but is really just an incredibly over-engineered solution to most computing tasks, like using a diesel engine to drive in wood screws?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
> Define productive.
Ability to advance a civilization. Burning cow shit in a hut to heat the bugs you collected doesn't advance a civilization. Harnessing power for ships and off world bases requires growing energy needs. In fact, there is a known measurement scale already:
The Kardashev scale (Russian: ) is a method of measuring a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount of energy it is capable of using.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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You are mixing up quite a few things, and trying to justify it by name-dropping the Kardashev scale.
Ability to advance a civilization.
What does advancing a civilization mean? Is it only about technological advancement? Is it ok to "advance the civilization" if it has direct negative impacts (as in famines, deaths, population displacement) on 20% of the population making up that "civilization"?
Burning cow shit in a hut to heat the bugs you collected doesn't advance a civilization.
It did advance civilization when that was the only way to produce energy. If you actually look at it from a step back, you would actually realize that
A disaster for the climate (Score:1, Troll)
Can't be worse than Trump being elected.
Re: This does not need to be a problem (Score:4, Informative)
Solar and wind are quick to build and cheap. Nuclear is not.
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Re: This does not need to be a problem (Score:2)
Batteries
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Dolphins
Re: This does not need to be a problem (Score:1)
You know, as someone who does analytical modeling and model development for utility use cases, I had the thought this might be a great power sink if tuned correctly. Once you're through this initial period of hyper development of these models I could see models being trained in shoulder use months where there can be pretty high wind output and low demand. We'd need to improve the price signals, maybe even tailor wholesale products specifically for this industry, but it could be done.
People think batteries s
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People think batteries solve issues with renewables, but in many ways they make them worse.
People think batteries can only solve the problems with renewable energy. What happens if we pair a big battery pack with a coal power plant? With that battery on site the coal power plant can do more load following without wasting so much coal, that lowers costs and CO2 emissions. How does that price compare to solar PV plus batteries? My guess is the coal power is cheaper. The coal power plant doesn't need natural gas turbine to load follow any more, or would at least need fewer of them.
Consider pair
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People are funding out that solar and wind are NOT cheap, especially once you count "externalities."
Basically, wind is slightly better than break-even on costs vs outputs (at best), and when you count the recycling failure (basically, they go straight to landfills when they die after a couple of decades), they're pretty bad.
Solar is a disaster for the environment, mostly from when you have to start dealing with square miles of toxic-waste-ridden solar panels that are a royal pain to try and recycle. And tha
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I don't agree, but just for the sake of discussion, what's the alternative?
Continuing to pour CO2 into the atmosphere won't work.
We can't wait 15 years for the first SMR to come online and then another 15 years for the buildout (I assume you know the nuscale project got cancelled).
We can't even wait the multi-decades for a conventional LWR rollout.
I think renewables are getting held to a higher standard for externalities than fossil fuels ever were, and nuclear has also had to be heavily subsidised to make
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i like how some of those arguing against the severity of climate change, that it is nothing to worry about, say that new technologies that we can't yet envision will be developed to mitigate the problems, while simultaneously refusing to apply that same rosy outlook to the existing renewable & carbon-neutral technologies we already have. to them, there's just no way we'll ever figure out how to recycle panels and turbines, and it's a sad travesty to have acres of solar covering the earth instead of toba
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I don't agree, but just for the sake of discussion, what's the alternative?
Continuing to pour CO2 into the atmosphere won't work.
We can't wait 15 years for the first SMR to come online and then another 15 years for the buildout (I assume you know the nuscale project got cancelled).
We can't even wait the multi-decades for a conventional LWR rollout.
I think renewables are getting held to a higher standard for externalities than fossil fuels ever were, and nuclear has also had to be heavily subsidised to make it seem even remotely affordable.
There's a really good chance we will come up with decent recycling processes, particularly for panels, but even if we don't, we will build new panels and turbines as we have to and junk the old ones, if we have to. It will still be cheaper the nuclear, and less likely to kill us than fossil fuels.
Allow me to chime in here.
Externalities. All processes of power generation have them. The trick is like you say, these alternatives are being held to a higher standard, while things like nuclear aren't given any externalities at all in some minds.
Mining, processing, building and eventual decommissioning are nuclear power plant externalities. And no one is going to build a power plant without a huge amount of Government help. Think about the 9 billion dollars wasted in South Carolina on a never used p
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Or we have wind turbines and solar that can be built for a fraction of that cost for each install. I've always been on record as saying that really safe nuclear power can be built. Problem is humans can't do it. Here after all of the little oopsies like Chernobyl and Fukushima, we have dilettantes designing critical parts of a power plant without engineering oversight - just proves my thesis.
Can you define what it means to build a "safe" nuclear power plant?
As a student at university one of my roommates was an architecture student. One day we were talking and he mentioned that in one of his classes there was an estimate on how many people would die in the construction of large projects. For every so many dollars spent on construction, and/or so many square feet of space, they were to expect X number of people to die. This isn't a sign of an unsafe workplace, or construction companies not muc
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Can you define what it means to build a "safe" nuclear power plant?... what is the criteria
In the sample of people I've talked to about this (which is, admittedly, not a random sample, or a variable-controlled sample), there appears to be two general standards. For men, the standard is focused on the size of the emergency-planning and evacuation zone. If the zone is huge, they see that as dangerous. If the zone is small enough to fit inside the plant's perimeter fence, they will nearly always see that as being safe enough. For women anti-nukes, it seems to be more of a social standard. Bas
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it still comes at a cost:
All engineering is compromise. You just have to decide what you want the most.
that is 19% fuel burnup of HALEU, so the overall fuel consumption is still abysmal, even if better than LWRs
That's going to be the case with any moderated reactor using enriched uranium fuel. There are only two ways around it. Go thorium or go to fast reactors. The advantage of HALEU is better fuel density, smaller reactor for a given power rating, and less heavy metal high-level waste per terawatt-hour of energy produced (by shifting more of the natural uranium into the depleted uranium stack--which is very easy to store).
The fuel is expensive...
Relative
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We can't wait 15 years for the first SMR to come online and then another 15 years for the buildout (I assume you know the nuscale project got cancelled).
Good. Maybe we can take a clue from other nations. The average building time for nuclear worldwide is 4.5 years. This is with China being actually efficient at building them (one of the reason is that they don't have to deal with the NIMBY and Greenpeace crowd, but I digress).
Or we can keep artificially inflating the build time and costs of nuclear plants, because we think emitting CO2 is not that big of a problem. Your choice.
Just realize that at some point, the countries that are building nuclear TODAY, w
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Can you tell us how many of those SMRs are needed to fulfill current energy needs in the US?
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Go back up this thread. Only one guy talked about SMR, no idea why.
And you don't need to make it a black and white issue. What sensible people are saying is that nuclear is part of the toolbox of low-CO2 emitting energy sources that can be used to reduce CO2 emissions. Same a solar, wind, hydro, batteries...
To go back to your question, assuming the average nuclear plant has a capacity of 6GW (6 reactors per plant, the average in recent plants), that the total electricity consumption in the US was 4,050TWh [statista.com] i
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We can't even wait the multi-decades for a conventional LWR rollout.
In the UAE we saw conventional LWR reactors built in 8 years. There may have been a "multi-decades" process leading up to the start of construction but a lot of that was from the politics and building of infrastructure from never having built a nuclear power plant before. The USA has built nuclear power plants before, so have many other nations. The delays in LWR construction typically come from the politics, so get the political BS out of the way and we'd see conventional nuclear power plants built on t
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I assume you know the nuscale project got cancelled
Good. Old-tech nuclear is not the future of nuclear. What I thought was interesting is that the NuScale cancellation made international news, but there was hardly any reporting on the NRC approving the build application for the Hermes reactor--very first permit issued for a non-water-cooled reactor design in the history of the NRC. Kairos is projecting a build time of around 2 years--for a first of its kind reactor without benefit of modular construction. If they can come anywhere close to their target,
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TRISO is still dumb,
Dumb is relative. It's much less dumb than the fuels we are using now.
but much less dumb in fluoride salts than in gas cooled reactors,
I like that the Kairos balls will have a hard carbide shell, and that they are being indexed to have slightly lighter than neutral buoyancy in hot salt, and it's a nice bonus that molten salt is a good lubricant between rubbing surfaces.
the one thing that is worrying is the dependence on HALEU, which may substantially delay deployment and retard scaling,
The first HALEU production facility is in the U.S. is already operating.
Re: This does not need to be a problem (Score:2)
Compared to nuclear waste?
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You: Is nuclear waste more radioactive than the original material
AI:
Yes, nuclear waste is typically more radioactive than the original material. When nuclear fuel undergoes fission reactions in a nuclear reactor, it produces a variety of radioactive isotopes as byproducts. These isotopes have different half-lives, and some of them can be much more radioactive than the original fuel.
For example, uranium and plutonium are the primary fuel materials in nuclear reactors. During fission, these materials split in
Np-237 (Re: This does not need to be a problem) (Score:3)
It's important to note that the specific disposal methods for neptunium-237 can depend on regulatory requirements, technological developments, and the policies of the country or region involved. The long-lived nature of transuranic elements like neptunium-237 makes their management a significant challenge, and ongoing research seeks to develop safe and effective disposal strategies.
There's no disposal problem with neptunium-237, NASA is desperate for that stuff. Np-237 is used to make Pu-238, Pu-238 is used to make RTGs, RTGs are used to power most any mission beyond Earth orbit. Not all missions use RTGs, and not all RTGs use Pu-238, but for the most part it gets real hard to explore space without Np-237 to make RTGs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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So what are the waste materials that are an issue that everyone keeps referring to?
**Fission Products:**
Had low half lives. Iodine-131 was 8 days, Cesium-137 was 30 years.
**Actinides:**
We already deal with those.
**Transuranic Elements:**
These are useful materials?
Less concern because they give off alpha particles.
**Activation Products:**
We have uses for these.
---
*Neptunium-237 (Np-237) / Americium-241 (Am-241) are radioactive isotopes that poses health risks primarily due to its alpha particle emissions. H
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So what are the waste materials that are an issue that everyone keeps referring to?
Mostly strontium-90 and cesium-137.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Sr-90 acts in the body like calcium and so is readily taken up in the body and deposited into bones. With a half-life of about 30 years that makes it radioactive long enough to stick around in the environment for time frames meaningful for humans, but not long enough that the radiation flux is something we can ignore.
Cs-137 acts like potassium in the body and so is readily taken in and spread through the body. Like Sr-90 it has a half-lif
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People are funding out that solar and wind are NOT cheap, especially once you count "externalities."
And then there are the externalities of Nookyler.
Like the Plant in South Carolina that never produced any power, and was abandoned after a mere 9 Billion dollars of 100 percent wasted money. It was considered a harbinger of the great nuclear renaissance, bringing the reality of cheap and safe nuclear power to march into the betterment of humanity, not tied to coal or those terrible renewables. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
Although, the end price was going to be 25 billion dollars. Almost free, a
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Maybe there's just a lack of hard data available from which to make reasonably valid & reliable estimates of the true costs of nuclear power?
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Basically, the patterns usually the same; find small differences/disadvantages to renewables, find a narrowly framed comparison that makes them look less favourable than fossil fuel
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You need to stop listening to fossile-industry lies.
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Solar and wind are quick to build and cheap. Nuclear is not.
Many countries have net zero goals for 2050. That is 26 years from now. China is going to build 100 reactors in that time. What is our excuse?
Re: This does not need to be a problem (Score:3)
Too expensive.
Nuclear waste.
Takes too long (we need the electricity in just a few years... Not 30 years from now.)
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Re:This does not need to be a problem (Score:4, Informative)
Nuclear energy is "clean" for the atmosphere, yes, but it does generate toxic waste, that nobody has really figured out how to properly dispose of. That problem isn't really "solved."
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that nobody has really figured out how to properly dispose of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"the closure was for political, not technical or safety reasons."
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As every software developer eventually learns, it's not enough to have a technical solution. It has to work politically and financially too.
If you haven't solved the political problem, you haven't solved the problem.
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Wrong on all counts. Impressive.
Application/Presentation layers.... (Score:1)
Noc's use most cycles processing the lower OSI layer data.Yet most power consumption is for web and application services.
It's only because energy is cheap (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's only because energy is cheap (Score:5, Informative)
While you might be right, artificially raising the price of energy would have many side effects, such as lowering the standard of living for the poor among us. Many low-income people already struggle to buy enough gas to go to work to put food on the table. In many places, there is no public transit to get them to where they need to go. Many of these same people struggle to keep the lights on, or their homes heated, as well. If we want a real solution to a warming climate, it has to work for both the well-off and the poor.
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Came here to say that more specialized hardware is needed to fix this - NPUs on the server/client side and something like Cerebras chips for training. Since there's no anti-efficiency inherent to the technology, this should result in an energy usage decrease unlike ASICs in cryptomining.
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Everything has a cost (Score:2)
Power has a cost, represented in the per kWh price paid to utilities to provide said power. The only thing that'll happen with the expansion of AI is that AI will bid for the same power that's available to everyone else, either
a). raising prices or
b). provoking an increase in production.
Apparently the article's author is more concerned about option b). There are real limits to how much available power supplies can be expanded. There will still be competition for that power. Is it realistic to conclude t
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I wouldn't be too concerned about what the article's author thinks. He was still writing articles about NFTs a couple of months ago as if they were still a thing. He knows next to nothing abvout tech, he simply regurgitates whatever the latest buzz is, and because he doesn't understand it he's always at least a couple of months behind. If you read many of his articles you quickly come to realise that his tech knowledge is very shallow. He's read about how AI uses a lot of power so he's written an article ab
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Quality writers cost too much.
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Look at the bright side (Score:5, Interesting)
While the GPUs are busy doing AI stuff, at least they're not mining stupid bitcoins. Whether or not you like AI, at least it's not utterly pointless.
Compared to other industries though? (Score:3, Insightful)
These sorts of posts almost never offer comparisons with other areas of industry, manufacturing, etc.
TFA says,
> "estimated the carbon footprint of training a single early large language model (LLM) such as GPT-2 at about 300,000kg of CO2 emissions – the equivalent of 125 round-trip flights between New York and Beijing. "
125 flights doesn't sound that bad for a massive undertaking like training ChatGPT.
How does this compare with what a typical factory emits in a year?
How does the power consumption compare with, say, an auto manufacturing plant?
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the equivalent of 125 round-trip flights between New York and Beijing
What I want to know is, how many bulldozers is that, stacked one on top of the other?
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Only in the short term (Score:4, Funny)
Forever
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Long term AI will solve the climate problem by solving the human problem... by solving over-population. It'll also give people more meaning so instead of doing pointless work to earn money they can work united against a common foe to survive.
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Unlikely. People in favelas have a tendency to breed like crazy.
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Can it tell me conclusively whether it is cereal first or milk first though and prove its answer? Or will this be forever one of the deep mysteries?
It will be better once it exits research status (Score:3)
First of all, AI stands to reduce costs of some things. For example Google showed that it can predict the weather with a lot less computing power than current modelling. It's likely that inference will end up replacing other heavy computing tasks, for example rendering.
Inference will be seriously optimised, in both hardware and software, once it gets to the stage of being ubiquitous. The cost of electricity will have to be passed down to the consumer, so AI companies have every incentive to lower their cost as much as possible.
This goes to a lesser extent to training. Obviously training will also become more efficient with future hardware, but model sizes are likely to grow too. However, when we get to a stage where we have a good enough models for ubiquitous consumer use, i.e., a product phase rather than research phase, I think it's reasonable to expect more gradual release of new models, which will compensate for the high training cost.
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Expensive modeling is needed. Weather models powered by big government investments are beneficial beyond simply providing all the forecasting others make profits from. Tons of research is played out on these systems as we try to better model and understand. If you simply feed in enough data and have an AI find a better pattern match to approximate the existing data-- you'll lack the scientific understanding that is applied to broader domains and new situations that do not fit the existing training pattern.
T
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This is like giving children smart calculators instead of teaching them math.
Indeed. And thereby creating a whole lot of basically uneducated people.
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Well, if it predicts the weather cheaper, but misses or invents the occasional hurricane, then it is unsuitable for the task. It does also not look like it can make rendering any less computing-intensive unless you do not mind the occasional 6 fingered individual or faces all looking uncannily similar.
Neuromorphics will Save Us (Score:2)
Initially, using massive clusters of GPUs, AI is harmful but most of this is in centralized large data centers. However, neuromorphic chips should bring the energy use and costs down to a fraction of what they are not. The main hurdle currently is that only a few major tech giants currently have them and they are not sharing.
Memsistors might be an approach to neuromorphics that brings them mainstream for all to have in our own local devices. Obviously, big tech doesn't want this and that is the primary hu
no but (Score:2)
No, but climatism is likely to be a disaster for AI.
I do not need or want (Score:1)
I lived through the idiocy of the 1970s, telling you to bundle up and drive slower to conserve energy.
We need to come up with solutions to make even more energy available. That's about 80% of a sci fi future. Teaching you need and want as a solution is a nasty trick. All it does is put off the need for growth by a few years, assuming it lops off a few percent, set against a few percent growth per year due to more people, and more clever things to do with energy.
Best to get to it.
Where are the numbers? (Score:2)
"staggering amounts of computing power"
"consumes electricity at a colossal rate"
"means CO2 emissions on a large scale"
"formidable — and growing — environmental footprint"
All of this sounds ominous. It's interesting that the only slightly quantitative data is a mention of a Gartner chart of the hype cycle for AI, a chart that contains no units because it's mainly a thought exercise.
AI energy usage might be significant relative to other uses, but this article is complete fluff.
Re: (Score:2)
"....this article is complete fluff...."
Yes, spot on. Not a single number in it. Its the Guardian. The Guardian is in a perpetual state of moral panic over one imaginary threat after another, while persistently ignoring real threats and really bad things that are actually going on. Right now its in the grip of global warming hysteria so everything possible has to be reported on with some angle to do with that. Its kind of hilarious that it should call out other people for having a moral panic on AI. P
Gartner hype cycle and nuclear fission. (Score:2)
In the fine article was mention of the Gartner hype cycle and I find that more fascinating than any commentary on AI.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Nuclear power was introduced to the world in the 1950s, that was the technology trigger. Through the 1960s and 1970s was the rise of expectations, such as "too cheap to meter". From this came many predictions of a nuclear powered world in popular culture, such as TV shows like Thunderbirds and Star Trek. Then the shine started to come off of nuclear power i
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If nuclear power costs double the cost of solar (I am talking actual delivered power. Nuclear has the problem of generating when it is not needed and solar needs to be stored) what would be better for the enviroment. Spending the money on Nuclear or Solar?
Not a problem (Score:2)
This tech cannot deliver on most of its promises. So it will scale down soon.
just another bubble (Score:1)
Concentrated power (Score:2)
The majority of AI's current power use is concentrated in mega data centres. This is virtually ideal as these can be powered however the company setting it up sees fit. Heck you can even explore options such as using waste heat for district heating. It can be made as dirty or as clean as we want, the underlying technology has no impact on climate.
Idiots (Score:1)
wasteful approach (Score:2)
I have said that the transformer approach to AI has some serious flaws.
For example the computation may involve trillions of parameters defining relations between words. But the human brain does just fine without doing that. Let's say there are roughly 50,000 words in a language. Then first-level direct connections between words would be about 50K x 50 K or 2.500 x 10^8. Of course not all words are connected, so it would be a somewhat sparse matrix. Now, the human brain couples its word object storage with r