AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#251

Post by Blackcatmaxy » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

HPsquared wrote: post #172

leoedin wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If water is just used for cooling, and the output is hotter water, then it's not really "used" at all. Maybe it needs to be cooled to ambient and filtered before someone can use it, but it's still there. If it was being used for evaporative cooling then the argument would be stronger. But I don't think it is - not least because most data centres don't have massive evaporative cooling towers. Even then, whether we con…

If it was evaporative, the amounts would be much less.

Imnot sure why you're saying it would be less? All sources I can find say that evaporative cooling is a tradeoff of more water for less power.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#252

Post by dripdry45 » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #15

Yes! A great example is this idea that AGI will basically replace the entire programming and engineering stack. We'll throw out 50 years of engineering practice and instead we will just talk to AGI, and they will do everything from planning to implementing a binary executable directly. I heard variations of this fantasy for 2 years now, it sounds amazing. Until you actually realize that we built this AI machine out o…

it sounds like they are trained to be a confidence man executive. hype things and blow smoke. It's able to form a response when questioned carefully about the patterns created; that’s the only plus I am seeing from your point of view on this particular use of the technology.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#253

Post by mikemarsh » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

kalkin wrote: post #182

mikemarsh wrote: post #149

The idea of replicating a consciousness/intelligence in a computer seems to fall apart even under materialist/atheist assumptions: what we experience as consciousness is a product of a vast number of biological systems, not just neurons firing or words spoken/thought. Even considering something as basic as how fundamental bodily movement is to mental development, or how hormones influence mood ultimately influencing…

Conflating consciousness and intelligence is going to hopelessly confuse any attempt to understand if or when a machine might achieve either. (I think there's no reasonable definition of intelligence under which LLMs don't possess some, setting aside arguments about quantity. Whether they have or in principle could have any form of consciousness is much more mysterious -- how would we tell?)

Defining machine consciousness is indeed mysterious, at the end of the day it ultimately depends on how much faith one puts in science fiction rather than an objective measure.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#254

Post by HL33tibCe7 » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

tomwphillips wrote: post #222

simonw wrote: post #12

Tip for AI skeptics: skip the data center water usage argument. At this point I think it harms your credibility - numbers like "millions of liters of water annually" (from the linked article) sound scary when presented without context, but if you compare data centers to farmland or even golf courses they're minuscule. Other energy usage figures, air pollution, gas turbines, CO2 emissions etc are fine - but if you com…

Hey Simon, author here (and reader of your blog!). I used to share your view, but what changed my mind was reading Hao's book. I don't have it to hand, but if my memory serves, she writes about a community in Chile opposing Google building a data centre in their city. The city already suffers from drought, and the data centre, acccording to Google's own assessment, would abstract ~169 litres of water a second from lo…

The fact that certain specific data centres are being proposed or built in areas with water issues may be bad, but it does not imply that all AI data centres are water guzzling drain holes that are killing Earth, which is the point you were (semi-implicitly) making in the article.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#255

Post by derektank » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:37 PM UTC

kajika91 wrote: post #68

Aransentin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing almonds uses 1.3 trillion gallons of water annually in California alone. This is more than 4 times more than all data centers in the US combined, counting both cooling and the water used for generating their electricity. What has more utility: Californian almonds, or all IT infrastructure in the US times 4?

I'll take the almonds any day.

Other people might have other preferences. Maybe we could have a price system where people can express their preferences by paying for things with money, providing more money to the product which is in greater demand?

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#256

Post by thewebguyd » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #176

simonw wrote: post #12

Tip for AI skeptics: skip the data center water usage argument. At this point I think it harms your credibility - numbers like "millions of liters of water annually" (from the linked article) sound scary when presented without context, but if you compare data centers to farmland or even golf courses they're minuscule. Other energy usage figures, air pollution, gas turbines, CO2 emissions etc are fine - but if you com…

I suppose instead we can talk about people's 401k's being risked in a market propped up by the AI bubble.

We really need to stop tying people's retirement to the market. I've already lost ground due to 2008, and COVID, and while I was young, I lived through my parents suffering through dotcom as well.

It's long past time we have a universal public pension, funded at least in part with a progressive wealth tax, or least go back to private defined benefit pensions to where the employer or pension fund bears the risk rather than the individual.

Supplement it with market speculation if you want, but we need something guaranteed for everyone that's a little more robust and provides a better living than the paltry social security we have now.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#257

Post by ACCount37 » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC

hitarpetar wrote: post #220

danielbln wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a strong argument here. Are you saying there is a level of complexity involved in biological systems that can not be simulated? And if so, who says sufficient approximations and abstractions aren't enough to simulate the emergent behavior of said systems? We can simulate weather (poorly) without modeling every hydrogen atom interaction.

I guess it depends, can you tell the difference between a weather simulation and the actual world?

Can you?

You have weather readouts. One set is from a weather simulation - a simulated planet with simulated climate. Another is real recordings from the same place at the same planet, taken by real weather monitoring probes. They have the same starting point, but diverge over time.

Which one is real though? Would you be able tell?

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#258

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #185

buellerbueller wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, you are ignoring my (implied) argument: Humans NEED food, the output of agriculture. Humans do not NEED any of LLMs' outputs. Once everyone is fed, then we can talk about water usage for LLMs.

We produce enough food for everyone already, and then waste a huge amount of it. Our food problem isn't about producing more, it's about distributing what we have.

[deleted]

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#259

Post by keeganpoppen » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:38 PM UTC

lukan wrote: post #206

Flavius wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. It seems like a symptom of a larger issue: people are becoming increasingly selfish and entrenched in their own bubbles. It’s hard to see a path back to sanity from here.

Well, I share your pain .. but was it ever really better in reality? Unfortunately it is not like human society in history had truth as the highest virtue.

yeah maybe around the time of Archimedes it was closer to the top, but societies in which people are willing to die for abstract ideas tend to be one... where the value of life isn't quite as high as it is nowadays (ie no matter how much my inner nerd has a love and fascination for that time period, no way i'm pressing the button on any one-way time machines...).

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#260

Post by bigbuppo » Fri, Nov 14, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

wild_egg wrote: post #140

Etheryte wrote: post #2

Many big names in the industry have long advocated for the idea that LLM-s are a fundamental dead end. Many have also gone on and started companies to look for a new way forward. However, if you're hip deep in stock options, along with your reputation, you'll hardly want to break the mirage. So here we are.

They're a dead end for whatever their definition of "AGI" is, but still incredibly useful in many areas and not a "dead end" economically.

Well, except for that needing a 40 year bond for a 3 year technology cycle thing.