31–40 of 125 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct. We have to order by impact and refrain from spending effort on all but the issue at the top of the list. If we choose to affect any lower-priority issue, it is an example of hypocriticality that de-legitimizes the whole project.
If we had stayed farmers, we wouldn't have these issues. Most people would be still happy. Intelligence is both destruction and savior.
> “If you’re going to use generative tools powered by large language models, don’t pretend you don’t know how your sausage is made.” This isn't a very hopeful quote given how many people continue to eat sausages even though we all know how sausages are made.
I'm doubtful. There's a few documentaries showing the process and I've had people tell me multiple times that they were genuinely shocked by it. I'm assuming those people "knew" and it's just that knowing "it's all the waste at the butcher getting stuffed into guts" is not quite the same as seeing it first hand.
> Firstly, there’s the environmental impact. Models require massive amounts of electricity and water (to cool servers). An AI chatbot contributes more to the climate crisis than a Google search. I really dislike the "people should be better and use less energy" argument for solving macro-problems like this > My naive optimism led me to believe that technology would help us fight climate change. I was wrong: AI and Cr…
There's no good reason it would. Nevertheless, proponents of both AI and crypto have claimed multiple times it would. So I think it is quite fair to bring it up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The marginal impact of AI on global climate probably rounds down to zero, or at least is not the thing driving us over the cliff: > Global energy consumption in 2023 was around 500,000 GWh per day. That means that ChatGPT’s global 3GWh per day is using 0.0006% of Earth’s energy demand. https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa...
That may be true, but I guess my approach to it would be that as a general principle we shouldn't be using things that increase energy usage for little real gain, and this is something that is in my professional field that I can do something about personally. It does come somewhat from a place of feeling like the world as a whole is absolutely failing to get to grips with the significant large-scale changes that are…
(to be clear: I'm not vegan. but most people, incl. myself, could be quite easily, and it would save several orders of magnitude more energy and water)
> Models require massive amounts of electricity and water (to cool servers). Does it? https://prospect.org/environment/2024-09-27-water-not-the-pr... > training GPT-3 used as much water as just under twice what is required for the average American’s beef consumption. In other words, just two people swearing off beef would more than compensate. https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa... > It would…
That beef consumption and other activities also require massive amounts of resources is independent. Both can be true. And both need to be addressed. We no longer have the luxury to pick and choose which climate interventions we find most convenient; we need to succeed on all fronts. If the patient is dehydrated and bleeding, do doctors sit around debating if they should give them water or gauze? No, they do both immediately.
Disappointed with the article, especially because it uses "think of the planet" as a weak argument against this technology. > Firstly, there’s the environmental impact Their own blog contributes to climate crisis they are now crying about. We can argue someone in a developing country writing a similar article saying "all these self publishing technologists are making climate crisis worse" and it'll have a stronger po…
Your argument seems to be flattening everything so it's just the same - "everything has an impact" - but different things have different impacts, and each needs to be measured against their utility. Me ordering a coffee at my local cafe has an impact, but it's a good deal less than me driving from London to Edinburgh. The author's argument, as I read it and generally agree, is that we don't really need LLMs to get th…
Thus LLMs don’t have to be that useful to be worth it. And if used in certain ways they can be very useful.
Source (with links to further sources): https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa...
> “If you’re going to use generative tools powered by large language models, don’t pretend you don’t know how your sausage is made.” This isn't a very hopeful quote given how many people continue to eat sausages even though we all know how sausages are made.
> Models require massive amounts of electricity and water (to cool servers). Does it? https://prospect.org/environment/2024-09-27-water-not-the-pr... > training GPT-3 used as much water as just under twice what is required for the average American’s beef consumption. In other words, just two people swearing off beef would more than compensate. https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa... > It would…
Water usage is also a nuanced concept because water isn’t destroyed when we use it. You have to consider the source and incidentals of processing it, as well as what alternatives it’s taking away from. None of this fits into convenient quotes though.
I think energy usage is a much better metric because we can quantify the impacts of energy usage by considering the blended sum of the sources going into the grid.
> Models require massive amounts of electricity and water (to cool servers). Does it? https://prospect.org/environment/2024-09-27-water-not-the-pr... > training GPT-3 used as much water as just under twice what is required for the average American’s beef consumption. In other words, just two people swearing off beef would more than compensate. https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversa... > It would…
I don't understand the "whatboutism" angle. Running LLMs requires massive amounts of electricity and water. Period. That beef consumption and other activities also require massive amounts of resources is independent. Both can be true. And both need to be addressed. We no longer have the luxury to pick and choose which climate interventions we find most convenient; we need to succeed on all fronts. If the patient is d…