And noboday cares. If they care they should shut down OpenAI, Anthropic, and everyone else building models.
American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
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Re: American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
AI is useful, that's kind of the issue. It looks amazing until you realize how expensive and unreliable it is.
If its useful it is okay if its expensive and unreliable.
I disagree that that's always true. AI consumes some value and produces some other value. I'm skeptical that the output value will be worth more than the amount of money and electricity invested in this stuff.
Re: American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
If its useful it is okay if its expensive and unreliable.
I disagree that that's always true. AI consumes some value and produces some other value. I'm skeptical that the output value will be worth more than the amount of money and electricity invested in this stuff.
The money doesn't matter much, and the electricity is worth rolling the dice on.
Re: American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
#14There's always going to be new things to power, this is good. That's why we have to replace our non-electric infrastructure with more efficient alternatives and scale up green energy.
There are two ways to reverse course on anthropogenic climate change: reducing energy use and displacing dirty power sources with clean ones (including fission). I've heard takes like this one that its a net good that companies like Microsoft are investing in green infrastructure. I'd like to challenge that idea. I don't believe the juice is worth the squeeze here. At best, we're treading water here on energy usage.…
> and we really consider the value of an unreliable ai text generator, is what we're doing here really an unambiguous good for the human race?
The gamble is that it will become much more than this, you must know that. With regards to your question, no one knows. Place your bets.
Re: American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
#15This is kind of headline bait. I work in energy forecasting so I look at these numbers all day. Facebook's 350k H100s might draw around 1kW each, let's say 2kW with the rest of the rack and cooling. That's 700MW for what is probably the largest AI cluster in the world.
You know what's as big as that? Riot Blockchain's Rockdale mining facility (700 MW capacity).
Which one do you think provides more value, training Llama 3 or mining bitcoin?
The reason I'm not worried is because solar is now dirt-cheap, and compute is quite interruptible. If it costs you $50/MWh to train your LLM during the night but $5/MWh to do it during the day, maybe you're ok taking 2.5x as long to save $45mm on wholesale electricity costs.
I'm not saying it's trivial or even easy, but industrial energy usage is huge already. Freeport LNG is also ~700MW. EV-ification and crypto are already huge stresses on the grid, I don't think AI data centers are the only story.
Re: American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
#16This is kind of headline bait. I work in energy forecasting so I look at these numbers all day. Facebook's 350k H100s might draw around 1kW each, let's say 2kW with the rest of the rack and cooling. That's 700MW for what is probably the largest AI cluster in the world. You know what's as big as that? Riot Blockchain's Rockdale mining facility (700 MW capacity). Which one do you think provides more value, training Lla…
And can you tell about open ai consumption ? I'm curious.
It's just a personal opinion but don't think because solar energy is cheap that it must be consumed.
Also if I had to choose, I very much prefer to have heat in winter and freshness in summer than have AI and crypto.
Re: American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pedantic opening line aside, I think software engineers in general underestimate how much of our electrical infrastructure still runs on coal and natural gas, and also underestimate the amount of time required to stand up new capacity on "green" sources, especially nuclear. I consider it reasonable to have a conversation about AI with respect to how worth it it is vis a vis climate goals. The verge just ran article t…
Increasing efficiency is good, yes. Crypto sucks because it doesn't do anything useful and intentionally burns compute. If AI is not useful, then we will not need to spend the power on it because no one will want or need it. If it is useful, we will need to spend the power on it.
> Crypto sucks because it doesn't do anything useful and intentionally burns compute
Thats not true. Cryptocurrencies, such as Monero, enable you to completely anonymously send money fast and cheap over the internet. This has value for many people.
Re: American AI data centres may use as much energy as new US solar farms produce
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree that that's always true. AI consumes some value and produces some other value. I'm skeptical that the output value will be worth more than the amount of money and electricity invested in this stuff.
The money doesn't matter much, and the electricity is worth rolling the dice on.
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