this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024

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Power-hungry AI is putting the hurt on global electricity supply (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by boem@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 25 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

How much of that AI is actually being used for something worthwhile? Most of the AI I see being sold to the public is pointless bullshit. Nobody needs Microsoft Copilot or Bard or whatever for home/personal use; it's just a new gimmick that's called something other than what it is to captivate the imagination. It's fuckin' Bonzai Buddy 2.0.

These dumbass "AIs" would be better served as NPCs in video games, and instead they're using them to just write the entire story and come up with lore details. 🤦‍♂️

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

There are lots of equally intensive AI models being used for various sciences. Being put to use in medicine, physics or even climate research.

Here's an article going into how AI is helping accelerate important worthwhile research

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Those aren't being sold to the general public, though. Those have value; the shit being put into our phones and operating systems or controlling search engines and allowing people to have AI girlfriends does not.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world -1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

True, but the research put into such things does translate into other far more beneficial areas. I say let those corporations spend the billions of dollars, eventually the consumer side will peter out but the knock-on effects for AI in science will continue for years to come

[–] CluckN@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Can you find an article that better fits my narrative?

[–] 9488fcea02a9@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago

Yeah, i hate how LLMs are getting lumped into actually useful machine learning stuff that has been in development for years without all the hype and idiot CEOs trying to use it to layoff useful employees

[–] restingboredface@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 months ago

Preach, friend. I'm so sick of seeing how everything is getting some useless AI service jammed into it for no reason. At best its just a pointless feature that can be ignored. At worst it's a data and memory vacuum that mines people's activity in the name of "product improvements".

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 24 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Is it time yet to darken the sky?

[–] EdibleFriend@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago

We're starting with the ocean and working our way up

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's not going to help improve the electricity supply.

[–] errer@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Sure it will! It’ll allow us to turn humans…into this

[–] RiikkaTheIcePrincess@pawb.social 5 points 7 months ago

[Very sarcasm] We can just burn more coal or just huck poor people into furnaces or something! Wait no, give them cars! Coal rollin' cars!!!! Why are we even pretending that racing toward extinction isn't our goal? Embrace doom! Down with humanity! Up with constant fucking around with no regard for costs or consequences!

May I please have some painkillers before being tossed into the furnace, though :-\ Or maybe just like, toss some naproxen in after me I guess?

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Could someone give me examples about fields where the AI is already useful?

Because right now it looks like the answer to a question no one asked.

I could see how it could be useful for NOC in videogames or as an assistant, but if it involves wasting so much energy, I don’t see the point.

[–] abhibeckert@lemmy.world -2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

or as an assistant

Is there any field where an assistant is worthless? I find GitHub CoPilot almost indispensable and soon equivalents will be available for nearly any industry.

Mostly though, I reject the idea that AI is a massive burden on our energy grid. It's well under 1% of global energy consumption right now and I don't see that changing. Yes, it's going up, but other things are going up too.

For example cars are getting bigger and heavier, which means they use more energy. More and more people around the world are heating/cooling their home to make it comfortable instead of just liveable - drastically increasing energy consumption. We build homes with concrete instead of timber. We're using more and more concrete worldwide... and concrete makes up something like eight percent of global energy consumption now (and growing).

We need to produce more energy. There's no way around it.

[–] Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 months ago

That's where I can't agree with you. I'd say we need to produce the same amount of energy while trying to have more efficient devices.

That's also why I'm asking what AI could bring to humanity. If it brings us ways to save energy and have enough food for a growing population, then I'd consider it. But for now, from what I know, it's just creating a new need when we are already consuming way too much and destroying our planet.

Instead of creating new needs, we should try to live with less, while still enjoying life.

Cars getting bigger and heavier is clearly true, but they are also consuming less (at least for ICE cars) than before. My Seat Leon Cupra is drinking way less fuel than my old Audi S4 Avant while being more spacious inside. I'm also sure that at one point we're gonna start having smaller and more efficient electric cars because not everyone wants a huge SUV.

[–] TheJack@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Well, Transcendence from 2014 got this right.

[–] Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

Seems like ai companies should take some of that investor cash and build up their own power supply. Maybe they can be the ones to use the small, modular nuclear power stations I've heard a little about. Or go bananas on solar and various energy storage solutions.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Electricity supply is becoming the latest chokepoint to threaten the growth of artificial intelligence, according to leading tech industry chiefs, as power-hungry data centers add to the strain on grids around the world.

Amazon, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet are investing billions of dollars in computing infrastructure as they seek to build out their AI capabilities, including in data centers that typically take several years to plan and construct.

But some of the most popular places for building the facilities, such as northern Virginia, are facing capacity constraints which, in turn, are driving a search for suitable sites in growing data center markets globally.

At present, “we probably don’t have enough capacity available” to run all the facilities that will be required globally by 2030, said Sharma, whose unit is working with chipmaker Nvidia to design centers optimized for AI workloads.

In October, the company said in filings to a Virginia regulator that it was experiencing “significant load growth due to data center development” and that growing power demands presented a “challenge.”

In response to the demand, authorities in jurisdictions including Ireland and the Netherlands have sought to limit new data center developments, while Singapore recently lifted a moratorium.

The original article contains 867 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 77%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

So either less AI or more efficient AI, right?

[–] RustyShackleford@programming.dev 3 points 7 months ago

As a deep neural network specialist, yes, to both.

[–] MxM111@kbin.social -5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Less AI is not an option. But more electricity is another alternative.

[–] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I have a dejavu with Blockchain.

[–] MxM111@kbin.social 0 points 7 months ago

We could make bitcoin and such unlawful. But making AI forbidden is good maybe for SciFi.

[–] somethingsomethingidk@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Anybody else notice the first graph goes from 2020 to 1996?

[–] Solemarc@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

I guess that's meant to be 2025 since the graph is projected? Pretty funky screw up though.

[–] maryjayjay@lemmy.world -2 points 7 months ago

Maybe we can ask ai how to make more power so there can be more ai. But then, when it tells us, we just mine more crypto. Fuck ai. Crypto won't murder us.