Earlier quoted context omitted.
ChatGPT saved 3 hours of my time today.
You are far more energically efficient than a data center. Wetware >>> software
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'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
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Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#42If you build the datacenter by the sea or floating, you could combine the cooling with desalination
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
ChatGPT is not housing anyone, nor is it providing office space. Even Disneyland is at least providing joy for children and adults.
My entire life trajectory has changed because of how LLMs have expanded my ability to write, think and reason. Have fun at Disneyland, though.
If you've experienced this life altering change and it's reproducible, you could show up a lot of AI critics with specifics. How have LLMs expanded your ability to reason, for example?
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#44From the article: > Using the chatbot for between ten to 50 queries consumes about two litres of water, according to experts from the University of California, Riverside. From ChatGPT: > A single BTC transaction consumes approximately 1,000–1,500 kWh of electricity, with cooling processes for fossil fuel and nuclear power plants using about 2–3 liters of water per kWh. This translates to an indirect water consumption…
How is it a “consumption” (in either case) if the water is basically just running through a pipe and released a couple miles down the line/evaporated into the atmosphere without being polluted?
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#45Not sure if that' more than a person sitting in the office writing this when you take into account all electricity used by the building, maintenance, other people (catering cleaning etc.) And I think this energy-shaming whether that's AI crypto or something else is just a wrong approach. If somebody buys energy he can use it for mindless entertainment if he so pleases, why focus on datacenters and not Disneyland?
That's a great argument! Assuming every word generated by ChatGPT is a word which would otherwise have been typed by a human writer. Is every word generated by ChatGPT a word which would otherwise have been typed by a human writer?
Why would that matter? Every system has inefficiencies. For example: Person sitting in office, trained for years, kept alive and breathing, being paid for by their employer — that is not writing that mail their boss is waiting for, but instead arguing about the resources used by ChatGPT.
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#46Not sure if that' more than a person sitting in the office writing this when you take into account all electricity used by the building, maintenance, other people (catering cleaning etc.) And I think this energy-shaming whether that's AI crypto or something else is just a wrong approach. If somebody buys energy he can use it for mindless entertainment if he so pleases, why focus on datacenters and not Disneyland?
If "energy-shaming" is a bad practice, why start by mentioning energy consumed by the author of the article ? I think we can leave Disneyland aside and talk about the content of the article, and whether AI companies should receive the gentle treatment they have received: premium access to water, power, and money. Sure, they can buy it, but what about the people who have to absorb the externalities?
So how do you suggest we act in a world where energy usage ultimately has to be limited? Just let the market regulate that?
Then you end up with luxury villas with swimming pools in the desert while farm land dries out and people die of thirst. If you grow a system against stiff bounds you will get hard saturation effects. And that means you can't have it all in such an environment.
Now using that drought-example I think it is reasonable to say your pools have to stay empty, priority 1 is drinking water and priority 2 is farm land. And if you are the type that would like to fill a pool in that hypothetical situation you probably deserve to be shamed.
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#47Not sure if that' more than a person sitting in the office writing this when you take into account all electricity used by the building, maintenance, other people (catering cleaning etc.) And I think this energy-shaming whether that's AI crypto or something else is just a wrong approach. If somebody buys energy he can use it for mindless entertainment if he so pleases, why focus on datacenters and not Disneyland?
Agreed. If it's useful, why not scale up the electricity and water supply, and make the latter sustainable.
Sometimes the reactionary rules make sense to try scaling down: electronics on standby can’t use more than 1W, by law in EU and UK. Consumers were right to wonder: what was my TV doing that needed more than 1W?
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#48Not sure if that' more than a person sitting in the office writing this when you take into account all electricity used by the building, maintenance, other people (catering cleaning etc.) And I think this energy-shaming whether that's AI crypto or something else is just a wrong approach. If somebody buys energy he can use it for mindless entertainment if he so pleases, why focus on datacenters and not Disneyland?
ChatGPT is not housing anyone, nor is it providing office space. Even Disneyland is at least providing joy for children and adults.
You know what’s also not housing someone? Office space. This feels like the ultimate waste - massive empty buildings in prime central locations with plentiful public transit designed to house humans during the day in addition to their own houses - which are being pushed further and further away from the central locations because of the office space - that they’re forced to commute long distances against their will to occupy simply because management wants them to. I’d rather have a data center.
I’ve used ChatGPT to teach myself several programming languages, guided me through learning how to design circuits for my own projects, among many other uses. Professionally I use LLMs to scale processes for detecting fraud, financial crimes such as money laundering and sanctions evasion, amongst other things at a much greater precision and recall than other models and human investigators at a much larger scale (we still use those other vectors as well but the major break through for quality and scale was LLM hierarchical agents). We’ve done the analysis and it’s demonstrably improved our business and made the financial system in our corner safer and more stable. So, I dunno my friend. I think you’ve perhaps got a bias based on your inexperience ?
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
So do coal-fired power plants. So does our endless production of plastic waste and our ever-growing landfills. So does all our fossil-fuel use. Where is it all taking us, friend? Most people are not honest enough with themself to understand the bigger picture, nor are they selfless enough to give a darn to sacrifice something of their own benefit to help the whole.
Yes, let's all kill ourselves and save resources!
Yeah, having less data centers will cost lives; it won't be lack of drinking water or living in an overheated environment!
My mistake is mistaking high karma for intelligence. Wrong again!
Re: 'Thirsty' ChatGPT uses four times more water than previously thought
#50Not sure if that' more than a person sitting in the office writing this when you take into account all electricity used by the building, maintenance, other people (catering cleaning etc.) And I think this energy-shaming whether that's AI crypto or something else is just a wrong approach. If somebody buys energy he can use it for mindless entertainment if he so pleases, why focus on datacenters and not Disneyland?
Claude estimates the average American consumes about 3800 liters of water per day counting all the food inputs (Claude only drank half a cup for this answer).