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How AI labs are solving the power problem

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Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#261

Post by Xss3 »

immibis wrote: post #202
mucle6 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrasing 'historically black neighborhoods' feels like it pushes a specific agenda rather than just addressing the pollution. It implies that if this were happening near a non black neighborhood, it wouldn’t be as egregious, which is a strange moral stance. Also 'historically' is irrelevant. Pollution hurts the people living there now.

It's because it's part of a more general pattern where bad things like this are preferentially done to black people. It's the same with highway locations. For some reason, when choosing where to demolish to build a highway, they prefer to demolish neighbourhoods with mostly black people.

Is that weighted by land cost?

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#262

Post by saghm »

esseph wrote: post #86
jstummbillig wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the instinct but if people seriously think that they are solving any problem by unplugging cell phone chargers, they are simply bad at math. Human time is easily worth more than that, even when working at minimum wage. That said, it obviously sucks that utility prices are rising for people who can not effortlessly cover that (not to speak of the local pollution, if that's an issue). Maybe some special ta…

They are not necessarily bad at math, but they probably aren't electricians or EEs or have ever needed or been asked to calculate how much power a cell phone charger uses. Mom/Dad used to unplug things and turn lights off, so they do too.

I think it's also just how people start acting in situations where they can't control anything that would make a difference. In the presence of an issue you can't solve, if you can do something, even if it's small and won't really help, sometimes it feels good to at least do that. Being able to address the anxiety even a little a bit still might be worthwhile.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#263

Post by cfraenkel »

ACCount37 wrote: post #176
g8oz wrote: post #101

>>xAI entirely bypassed the grid and generated power onsite, using truck-mounted gas turbines and engines. These generators polluted the nearby historically black neighborhoods in Memphis Tennessee with nitrogen oxides. Residents are afraid to open their windows, with the elderly, children and those suffering from conditions like COPD particularly affected. Lawsuits alleging environmental racism are pending. xAI says…

These "gas turbines" are located next door to the Allen Combined Cycle Plant, a grid scale natural gas power plant with 1.1GW capacity. It's there to power a nearby steel mill. That's the kind of neighborhood xAI has put its cluster in. I'm incredibly skeptical of any claim that xAI's power use is putting a dent in the local environment, and "environmental racism" just reeks of the usual agenda pushing.

Just because one corp does something x bad, it means some other corp is ok to do something 10x bad?

There's a huge difference between a utility scale power plant (you know, with things like tall chimneys) and "truck mounted" generators in the impact to the local air quality. But you know this and are playing word games.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#264

Post by marci »

Xss3 wrote: post #261
immibis wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it's part of a more general pattern where bad things like this are preferentially done to black people. It's the same with highway locations. For some reason, when choosing where to demolish to build a highway, they prefer to demolish neighbourhoods with mostly black people.

Is that weighted by land cost?

When they bothered compensating, it was far from market value, so no.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#265

Post by esseph »

saghm wrote: post #262
esseph wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not necessarily bad at math, but they probably aren't electricians or EEs or have ever needed or been asked to calculate how much power a cell phone charger uses. Mom/Dad used to unplug things and turn lights off, so they do too.

I think it's also just how people start acting in situations where they can't control anything that would make a difference. In the presence of an issue you can't solve, if you can do something , even if it's small and won't really help, sometimes it feels good to at least do that. Being able to address the anxiety even a little a bit still might be worthwhile.

They don't know it doesn't help. That's what you're missing.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#266

Post by kortilla »

TSiege wrote: post #94
Aurornis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a really long way of saying "We need to burn fossil fuels to make more money." Like every other industry in the world? I’m kind of amazed that AI data centers have become the political talking point for topics like water usage and energy use when they’re just doing what every other energy-intensive industry does. The food arriving at your grocery store and the building materials that built your house also c…

FYI Fairly certain this account is a bot. Acct created in 2023 and has 36k karma

Email the mods, don’t post about it

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#268

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #251
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might as well argue: "Part of my brain thought A at time Y. A different part of my brain had a different thought B, at a different time Z. Why the accusations of hypocrisy?" The problem arises when an individual or group tries to represent themselves as more credible/consistent/coherent than they really are. If you freely admit that you have multiple personality disorder, hypocrisy is to be expected from you as a…

You're making a sweeping bad faith representation of progressives yourself. It can simply be the case that your accusations of hypocrisy are wrong, because your entire characterization of the discussion/position is wrong. I'm not going to say "you made a good point" because you flatly have not.

Double standards pervade the ideology dude.

“Women are terrible!”

“Uh, hey, that's pretty misogynistic.”

“Whoops, sorry, what I meant to say was, ‘White women are terrible!’”

“That's better.”

...

“Black men are violent!”

“That’s just a stereotype. Discriminating on the basis of immutable characteristics is wrong.”

“Whoops, sorry, what I meant to say was, ‘Men of all colors are violent!’”

“Right on, smash the patriarchy!”

https://substack.com/@plasmabloggin/note/c-160662902

There are dozens of cases like this. E.g. if you say white people are too powerful, that's enlightened. If you say Jews are too powerful, that's antisemitic. Double standards are the rule. Consistent, impartial application of principles is a very rare thing with this ideology.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#269

Post by Grimblewald »

sam-cop-vimes wrote: post #59
thrance wrote: post #27

> Eighteen months ago, Elon Musk shocked the datacenter industry by building a 100,000-GPU cluster in four months. Multiple innovations enabled this incredible achievement, but the energy strategy was the most impressive. xAI entirely bypassed the grid and generated power onsite, using truck-mounted gas turbines and engines. Wow, "truck-mounted gas turbines"? Who else could have mastered such a futuristic tech in so…

I'm no fan of Musk, but you've got to admit it was a clever way to achieve the goal. SemiAnalysis don't do fanboy articles - their research is pretty in-depth. So they are stating it as they see it. The problem ordinary people all over the world have is that governments are allowing this to happen. Maybe if there were stricter regulation it will prevent players such as Musk to come up with such "innovations".

You'd have to be a little thick yourself to think that's clever. If you think that's clever, let me recommend you sell your car for extra fuel money, chop off your legs for rapid weight loss, and perhaps abuse methamphetamine to not have to sleep, boosting productivity 3 fold. Perhaps you'd like to add robbing banks as a faster way to get your cash out.

Re: How AI labs are solving the power problem

#270

Post by ladidahh »

mhb wrote: post #198
ladidahh wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be the exact same problem, and equally bad.

I agree. Which is why I think that detail is not relevant and just a distraction.

Well, if racism in America was over. As in, similar rates of wealth and poverty, incarceration and college degrees, etc etc, across racial lines, then yeah, it would be a distraction. But when economic disadvantage, inherited from outright racist laws, is abundantly clear to see, it's hard for me to accept that we are not still anti black (and anti poor, etc) as a country when things like this happen
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