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AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

tomwphillips.co.uk

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Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#171

Post by magicalist »

the__alchemist wrote: post #97
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 will go meta into what you posted here: That people are classifying themselves as "AI skeptics". Many people are treating this in terms of tribal conflict and identity politics. On HN, we can do better! IMO the move is drop the politics, and discuss things on their technical merits. If we do talk about it as a debate, we can do it when with open minds, and intellectual honesty. I think much of this may be a reactio…

> I will go meta into what you posted here: That people are classifying themselves as "AI skeptics"

The comment you're replying to is calling other people AI skeptics.

Your advice has some fine parts to it (and simonw's comment is innocuous in its use of the term), but if we're really going meta, you seem to be engaging in the tribal conflict you're decrying by lecturing an imaginary person rather than the actual context of what you're responding to.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#172

Post by HPsquared »

leoedin wrote: post #155
efsavage wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The water argument rings a bit hollow for me not due to whataboutism but more that there's an assumption that I know what "using" water means, which I am not sure I do. I suspect many people have even less of an idea than I do so we're all kind of guessing and therefore going to guess in ways favorable to our initial position whatever that is. Perhaps this is the point, maybe the political math is that more people th…

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.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#173

Post by Flavius »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #157
Flavius wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expecting a purely technical discussion is unrealistic because many people have significant vested interests. This includes not only those with financial stakes in AI stocks but also a large number of professionals in roles that could be transformed or replaced by this technology. For these groups, the discussion is inherently political, not just technical.

I don't really mind if people advocate for their value judgements, but the total disregard for good faith arguments and facts is really out of control. The number of people who care at all about finding the best position through debate and are willing to adjust their position is really shockingly small across almost every issue.

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.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#174

Post by abathur »

simonw wrote: post #134
belter wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The water issue really is a distraction which harms the credibility of people who lean on it Is that really the case? - "Data Centers and Water Consumption" - https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-co... "...Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons per day, equivalent to the water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people..." "I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption…

Also from that article: > U.S. data centers consume 449 million gallons of water per day and 163.7 billion gallons annually (as of 2021). Sounds bad! Now let's compare that to agriculture. USGS 2015 report: https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2018/3035/fs20183035.pdf has irrigation at 118 billion gallons per day - that's 43,070 billion gallons per year. 163.7 billion / 43,070 billion * 100 = 0.38 - less than half a percentage p…

Agriculture feeds people, Simon.

It's fair to be critical of how the ag industry uses that water, but a significant fraction of that activity is effectively essential.

If you're going to minimize people's concern like this, at least compare it to discretionary uses we could ~live without.

The data's about 20 years old, but for example https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/Water%20Resource%2... suggests we were using over 2b gallons a day to water golf courses.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#175

Post by [deleted] »

lkey wrote: post #163
the__alchemist wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will go meta into what you posted here: That people are classifying themselves as "AI skeptics". Many people are treating this in terms of tribal conflict and identity politics. On HN, we can do better! IMO the move is drop the politics, and discuss things on their technical merits. If we do talk about it as a debate, we can do it when with open minds, and intellectual honesty. I think much of this may be a reactio…

| Drop the politics Politics is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of status or resources . Most municipalities literally do not have enough spare power to service this 1.4 trillion dollar capital rollout as planned on paper. Even if they did, the concurrent inflation of energy costs is about as polit…

[deleted]

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#176

Post by overgard »

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.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#177

Post by wilkommen »

travisgriggs wrote: post #161

> As a technologist I want to solve problems effectively (by bringing about the desired, correct result), efficiently (with minimal waste) and without harm (to people or the environment). Me too. But, I worry this “want” may not be realistic/scalable. Yesterday, I was trying to get some Bluetooth/BLE working on a Raspberry CM 4. I had dabbled with this 9 months ago. And things were making progress then just fine. Sud…

In the short term, it may be unrealistic (as you illustrate in your story) to try to successfully navigate the increasingly fragmented, fragile, and overly complex technological world we have created without genAI's assistance. But in the medium to long term, I have a hard time seeing how a world that's so complex that we can't navigate it without genAI can survive. Someday our cars will once again have to be simple enough that people of average intelligence can understand and fix them. I believe that a society that relies so much on expertise (even for everyday things) that even the experts can't manage without genAI is too fragile to last long. It can't withstand shocks.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#178

Post by simonw »

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.

Absolutely.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#179

Post by HPsquared »

Etherlord87 wrote: post #111
simonw wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45927268 Given the difference in water usage, more data centers does not mean less water for agriculture in any meaningful way. If you genuinely want to save water you should celebrate any time an acre of farm land is converted into an acre of data center - all the more water for the other farms!

According to this logic the ideal situation is when there are no farms anymore because then each (out of zero) farm gets maximum water.

Eventually people stop building more data centers as food becomes scarce and expensive, and farms become the hot new thing for the stock market, cereal entrepreneurs become the new celebrities and so on. Elon Husk, cereal magnate.

Re: AGI fantasy is a blocker to actual engineering

#180

Post by rcxdude »

buellerbueller wrote: post #156
simonw wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once again, the key thing here is to ask how MUCH value we get per liter of water used. If data centers and farms used the same amount of water we should absolutely be talking about their comparative value to society, and farms would win. Farms use thousands of times more water than data centers.

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.

Farms already produce more than enough food to feed everyone (and, indeed, the excess is a feature because food security is really important). The reason not everyone is fed is not due to needing to divide water resources between farms and other uses.
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