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AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

johnquigginblog.substack.com

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Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#111

Post by Arnt »

palata wrote: post #104
Arnt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing forces the rebound effect to dominate. Computers grow cheaper, we rebound by buying ones with higher capacity, but the overall price still shrinks. I bet the computer you used to post today cost much less than Colossus. Similarly, nothing forces AI or 5G to use more power than whatever you would have done instead. You can stream films via 5G that you might not have done via 4G, but you might've streamed via W…

> Nothing forces the rebound effect to dominate. Not sure what to say to that. Yeah, it would be great if we didn't put so much resources into destroying our own world. I agree. The fact is that rebound effect very much dominates everything we do. I'm not saying it should, I'm saying it does. It's an observation.

I think you're telling me that graphs like these always point upwards, right?

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...

My own impression is that sometimes the aggregate total grows and sometimes it doesn't. And when it grows, sometimes that's because the rebound effect dominates.

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#112

Post by palata »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #105
palata wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also seem to live in a different world. I urge you to start getting informed on what needs to be done in order to build hardware (hint: it does not grow on trees). > then you are still MASSIVELY reducing your total energy. Instead of using all those caps, look at the numbers: we have them. We use more and more energy. > but that's just wildly, almost unfathomably, less efficient. Not sure if you really need the h…

More energy because more people and more things are electrified & mechanical. A massive portion of the world was basically living in the stone age and has been lifted into middle class lives over the last 60 years. The population has also more than doubled. This is like comparing apples to apes. Sure, if you go back to when we were all monkeys, we are obviously using more energy per capita. If you go back to WW2, The…

> Sure, if you go back to when we were all monkeys, we are obviously using more energy per capita.

We keep using more and more energy per capita, period. You can go back 10 000 years, 200 years or 100 years, it's the same.

> If you go back to WW2, The West is using far less energy per capita, even when you account for imports.

This is blatantly wrong.

> Sorry, you can't say, globally we use more energy, so every usage of energy is causing us to use more energy. It's not that simple.

It is that simple: what you wrote is called a tautology: we use more energy, so we use more energy. And every new usage of energy is causing us to use more energy.

If you use more, you use more. How is that not simple? :-)

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#113

Post by palata »

Arnt wrote: post #111
palata wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing forces the rebound effect to dominate. Not sure what to say to that. Yeah, it would be great if we didn't put so much resources into destroying our own world. I agree. The fact is that rebound effect very much dominates everything we do. I'm not saying it should, I'm saying it does. It's an observation.

I think you're telling me that graphs like these always point upwards, right? https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab... My own impression is that sometimes the aggregate total grows and sometimes it doesn't. And when it grows, sometimes that's because the rebound effect dominates.

Read the part in your link that says "Here, energy refers to primary energy".

Primary energy in the US ignores the primary energy used in China for goods that end up being imported in the US.

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#114

Post by whiplash451 »

bobbyraduloff wrote: post #16

> But far from demanding more electricity personal computers have become more efficient with laptops mostly replacing large standalone boxes, and software improvements reducing waste. If only it was true, I reckon we’re using multiple-orders of magnitude more computational per $ of business objectives simply because of the crazy abstractions. For example, I know of multiple small HFT firms that are crypto market make…

> We’ve not reduced waste in software but rather quite the opposite.

Indeed. But that is because we optimized (and are still optimizing) for speed of development, not much else.

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#115

Post by abosley »

As someone who has worked in hypercloud data center expansion and planning - I can confidently say this analysis is um, incomplete. W/out violating NDAs...I'd refer everone to multiple public articles talking about the situation in Ireland, where the hyperclouds are consuming well north of 22% of total energy production.

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#116

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

palata wrote: post #112
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More energy because more people and more things are electrified & mechanical. A massive portion of the world was basically living in the stone age and has been lifted into middle class lives over the last 60 years. The population has also more than doubled. This is like comparing apples to apes. Sure, if you go back to when we were all monkeys, we are obviously using more energy per capita. If you go back to WW2, The…

> Sure, if you go back to when we were all monkeys, we are obviously using more energy per capita. We keep using more and more energy per capita, period. You can go back 10 000 years, 200 years or 100 years, it's the same. > If you go back to WW2, The West is using far less energy per capita, even when you account for imports. This is blatantly wrong. > Sorry, you can't say, globally we use more energy, so every usag…

https://datacommons.org/tools/visualization#visType%3Dtimeli...

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#117

Post by bluefirebrand »

grmnygrmny2 wrote: post #100

The electricity aspect has always been one I wish AI skeptics/critics wouldn’t lean on so much, because it seems like the one most likely to be solveable. I think we should be focusing on the economic aspects instead - if all this pans out as boosters promise, how does our economy exist when all white collar jobs go away? Who buys all the stuff, with what money?

I'm less concerned about the economy more concerned about social stability

When people can't buy the stuff because they have no money, how do we stop the bloodbath that follows?

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#118

Post by palata »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #116
palata wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, if you go back to when we were all monkeys, we are obviously using more energy per capita. We keep using more and more energy per capita, period. You can go back 10 000 years, 200 years or 100 years, it's the same. > If you go back to WW2, The West is using far less energy per capita, even when you account for imports. This is blatantly wrong. > Sorry, you can't say, globally we use more energy, so every usag…

https://datacommons.org/tools/visualization#visType%3Dtimeli...

Ok, you show me a line. Where does it explain what it measures? It says "Energy used per capita", it doesn't say what energy it accounts for.

It most definitely does NOT account for the commute of the employees in China who worked on parts of your smartphone. Does it account for the use of TikTok? To what extent? Does it account for the AC in the datacenters used by TikTok outside the US?

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#119

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #99
tharmas wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a theory BigTech hired to hoard talent to inhibit competitiveness of rival companies.

That is not a theory and not limited to big tech either.

What are the other examples

Re: AI won't use as much electricity as we are told (2024)

#120

Post by JimDabell »

danans wrote: post #110
JimDabell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's the number their CEO put out, but AFAIK it is completely unverified (they did not provide any background as to how it was calculated). To believe it is an article of faith at this point. Google also puts the median Gemini prompt at 0.24 Wh. The information available from different sources point in the same direction; you don’t have to take Sam Altman’s word for it. 0.3 Wh was the figure that was already pret…

> Why are you demanding absolute, unimpeachable rigour when vendors give specific figures, but are comfortable with hand waving when it comes to complaining about energy use? Because the evidence that AI data centers are using a lot of energy (generated by fossil fuels in particular) is observable in current concrete reality, like the xAI datacenters running gas turbines adjacent to a neighborhood in Memphis, TN: htt…

> AI data centers are using a lot of energy

This is a worthless thing to say in the context of this discussion.

How much is “a lot”? How many queries does that service?

Saying that “data centres use a lot of energy” doesn’t tell us anything at all about their energy efficiency.

> Companies like OpenAI, Google, and xAI have an incentive to downplay the energy usage of their facilities. If not, they should publish their methodology.

All you’re really doing here is giving me the impression you aren’t participating in this discussion honestly. You demand more detail, but if you had read the things I pointed you towards, you would see that Google have published what you want already. You don’t actually care about the details, you want to complain without bothering to look at the information handed to you on a plate.

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