one assessment suggests that ChatGPT, the chatbot created by OpenAI in San Francisco, California, is already consuming the energy of 33,000 homes. It’s estimated that a search driven by generative AI uses four to five times the energy of a conventional web search. Within years, large AI systems are likely to need as much energy as entire nations.
Then solar. Wind. Geothermal. Whatever. Energy usage is never, ever going down unless population does and probably not even then. If that silicon isn’t used for AI it’ll be something else. Then what?
Ah, you’re one of the ‘we shouldn’t do anything about ecological disasters because something else will come along and make things just as bad anyway’ crowd. I hear that’s the latest right-wing school of thought now that it’s almost impossible to deny climate change is happening.
What’s your plan, everyone just turn back the wheel of time and homestead and grow potatoes and leave technology behind? Because regressiveness is a lynchpin of right-wing thought, too.
I don’t think either of us are served by attacking each other, but we can dance if you want to, we can leave your friends behind, 'cause your friends can’t… Oh sorry I got distracted.
Yes. The only two options are let companies like OpenAI use ridiculous amounts of energy and fresh water or we all live like it’s the 19th century.
There are no other options. Certainly not something like, say, stop these AI companies from doing that and if they can’t find a better solution, too bad.
Why AI specifically? Like I said that silicon will still be used for something else. So your argument isn’t supporting your thesis. You don’t care if AI is useful. You don’t care if it enables and uplifts people or helps make scientific discoveries. You don’t care if this is a stepping stone to greater efficiency over a broader scope.
It’s specifically energy used for AI that is bad and there is no rescuing it. This isn’t about the energy or water. This is about you hate AI and any angle you can find to attack it is good. Seems disingenuous to me. But also a waste of time because you don’t actually want to hear energy solutions, you just want to stop AI. And that’s fine, but you’re jerking everyone’s chain when you argue it’s about the environment because of that could be solved you’d still hate it.
Yes, again, I have heard the “we shouldn’t do anything about an ecological disaster because something else will come along that will be bad too” argument before. It doesn’t wash.
Please demonstrate that to be true. Unless it’s a lie. Is it a lie?
Last week you were advocating in favor of mobs burning self-driving cars if they were “pissed off” by them. You banned AI-generated art from the @tenforward community you mod. You seem pretty firmly anti-AI to me.
That is a scurrilous misrepresentation of what I said I said and has nothing to do with AI. Irrelevant and ironic for someone who criticized me for making personal attacks.
I am not the only mod. It was a group decision because AI in that specific community is both lazy and, more importantly, gets Star Trek wrong virtually every time.
So neither of those things are evidence and one is essentially both a personal attack and a lie. Come to think of it, both of them are essentially lies since you made it sound like the banning was a unilateral decision rather than a decision reached after a lot of discussion between a team of moderators.
But hey, do as you say, not as you do, right?
You… you literally asked for this. Your previous commented ended with “Please demonstrate that to be true.” You asked for it to be demonstrated, so I demonstrated, and now you’re angry that I did so.
The thread was here if anyone wants to look at the full context. Archive.is link.
I’m rapidly losing track. Are you now against bringing up what people do in other threads and communities when you argue with them?
Is it a lie? That’s just what I infer from you being completely dismissive that AI could be worth it, or that a cleaner power source could be found, or that the same silicon dedicated to another purpose would be just as damaging to the environment.
And look, it’s fine to hate AI if you do, but that makes this whole conversation about wasting water pointless if solving the problem through either better technology or perhaps proving it’s a more efficient use of water if it accomplishes enough work. Why would anyone put any effort into addressing those issues if they aren’t what really bothers you about AI? I could’ve done something more productive with my time.
And none of this is personal, by the way. We don’t see eye to eye on AI, but I agree with probably 90% of what you post and disagreeing here doesn’t make me respect you any less as a person. I haven’t downvoted anything you’ve said. But if we’re going to discuss the issue I’d like it to be fruitful which isn’t possible if aren’t discussing the actual issue.
And if we are, then why so dismissive about solving the energy issue more broadly in a way that actually saves water regardless of what those compute cycles are spent on? Because the trend is that energy usage will continue to rise regardless of AI, so what you are arguing you want isn’t going to achieve the outcome you desire. So instead of a pointless gesture, let’s find an actual solution because it isn’t actually AI that’s to blame here.
Yes it is.
Apart from when you decided to lie about me instead of asking what I thought.
I’d call this pretty damn personal-
And also a lie.
Let’s see if you will admit that it was both a personal attack and a lie.
I don’t hold out much hope.
33,000 households worth of electricity is not a “ridiculous amount of energy.” It’s actually quite modest. Your wild hyperbole doesn’t help your case.
You have a very strange definition of ‘modest.’ Because I would say one household’s worth of electricity is modest and 33,000 is a fuckload. Or did I miss something and we’re running houses off of AA batteries these days?
OpenAI is a global service. People all over the world are using it and doing a massive amount of work with it. According to this page there are 180.5 million users and openai.com got 1.6 billion visits in December last year. It is extremely modest on that scale.
You need to account for what’s being done with resources when trying to judge whether the resources are excessive.
Do I have to account for that? Or can I say that 10,000 more households than this town I live in of almost 60,000 people is a whole lot of energy regardless?
And I’m really more concerned about the water anyway. You don’t seem to be, which is odd considering what I already posted about how much water is being used in Iowa and how little fresh water there will be available in the U.S. in 50 years. I guess because you’ll likely be dead by then anyway?