> it's not just about saving costs – it's about saving the planet. I have joined OpenAI to work on this challenge directly. I couldn't go on reading.
Agree, that statement sounds a bit like gaslighting yourself
Why I Joined OpenAI
171–180 of 236 posts
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#172> it's not just about saving costs – it's about saving the planet. I have joined OpenAI to work on this challenge directly. I couldn't go on reading.
me neither. are all these self declared fans commenting here real? I hope they're bots.
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#173Brendan, I'm a big fan of your book, and work. I don't have a problem with you joining OpenAI; best of luck there! However, I'm not sure your analysis is quite correct, in this case. If OpenAI can mobilize X (giga)dollars to buy Y amounts of energy, your work there will not reduce X or Y, it will simply help them produce more "tokens" (or whatever "unit of AI") for a given amount of energy. So in a sense you're helpi…
One day if openai becomes a real company (and public), like the kind that takes money from customers and employe accountants and turns a profit, etc, there may be downward pressure on the "costs" side of the equation.
Also while the thirst for training may be insatiable, I could see the energy cost of "hey chat can you check the basketball score" coming down.
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminds me of when I was younger and thought of companies like Google and Tesla as a force for good that will create and use technology to make people's lives better. Surely OpenAI and these LLM companies will change the world for the better, right? They wouldn't burn down our planet for short-term monetary gain, right? I've learned over the years that I was naive and it's a coincidence if the tech giants make people…
Could US tech companies stop making the world a better place? Like how Airbnb made housing markets "better" and and Facebook made politics "better"? We barely have anything left as regular people as our new feudal lords capture everything they can.
airBnB made a very constrained market more efficient, the downsides are classic NIMBY factors. (which are important, but also nothing has been solved in cities that outlawed AirBnB.)
on the other hand Facebook made the internet hate machine more efficient :(
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#175> ...it's not just about saving costs – it's about saving the planet There's something that doesn't sit right with me about this statement, and I'm not sure what it is. Are you sure you didn't just join for the money? (edit: cool problems, too)
The greatness of human accomplishment has always been measured by size. The bigger, the better. Until now. Nanotech. Smart cars. Small is the new big. In the coming months, Hooli will deliver Nucleus, the most sophisticated compression software platform the world has ever seen. Because if we can make your audio and video files smaller, we can make cancer smaller. And hunger. And AIDS.
Gavin Belson
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#176Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#177according to most in the industry, the cheaper AI is the more we will need of it. So to actually reduce the energy used by AI, you should try to make it as inefficient as possible.
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#178To answer a few people at once: I did mention compensation as a factor in the post, but I didn't elaborate details, so easy to miss. Comp is important of course, but so are the other factors. It feels like I can't go for a day without reading about the cost of AI datacenters in the news, and I can do something about it.
Hey Brendan - first time listener, first time caller.
Inferring the overall tone from the comments, I think the folks here are struggling with what sounds like a logical fallacy from someone who is certainly a logical thinker.
> how I could lead performance efforts and help save the planet.
The problem on the face of it being: Performance gains will not translate to less energy usage (and by extension less heat released into the atmosphere). Rather, performance gains will mean that more effective compute can be squeezed from the existing hardware.
If performance gains translate to better utilization of the hardware, it also follows that it will translate to more money for the company, allowing for the purchase of more GPUs. Ad infinitum.
My stance is that this is just businesses doing what they do. It's always required regulation to slow down the direct/indirect negative byproducts (petro companies being the most obvious example). I don't see how AI would inherently be different.
Is there another angle that I (we) am (are) missing where the performance efficiencies translate to net benefits for the planet?
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#179To answer a few people at once: I did mention compensation as a factor in the post, but I didn't elaborate details, so easy to miss. Comp is important of course, but so are the other factors. It feels like I can't go for a day without reading about the cost of AI datacenters in the news, and I can do something about it.
I use LLMs daily and they've become an essential part of my life. Really hoping your work can help make LLMs and AI more broadly cheaper and more abundant.
Would be fantastic if you can find a way to make optimizations you find available more openly. The whole ecosystem benefits when efficiency improvements are shared. Looking forward to seeing where this goes and don't let the negativity from some get to you
Re: Why I Joined OpenAI
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting. Out of curiosity, how long do you think OpenAI can survive as a company? Put another way, what would be your guesses for probability of failure on 1yr, 3yr, and 5yr horizons? EDIT: possibly a corollary--does Mia pay money for chatgpt or use a free plan?
As an engineer I can't comment on future company predictions. It sounds like a question for Sam Altman, as he has discussed risks in the past. My wife was paying for ChatGPT before I joined. I didn't ask Mia. I probably have three months of hair growth before my next chance to ask.
'Before you joined' seems to that she doesn't anymore.
I find it a little amusing that AI companies provide free AI subscriptions to their employees and their families. Perhaps because I'd never thought of it that way.
That's kinda nice actually; I assume employees get early access to models to test (5.3 codex, for example). Do families get it too?