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"The Obscene Energy Demands of A.I." - hackernews discussion (news.ycombinator.com)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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HN reacts to a New Yorker piece on the "obscene energy demands of AI" with exactly the same arguments coiners use when confronted with the energy cost of blockchain - the product is valuable in of itself, demands for more energy will spur investment in energy generation, and what about the energy costs of painting oil on canvas, hmmmmmm??????

Maybe it's just my newness antennae needing calibrating, but I do feel the extreme energy requirements for what's arguably just a frivolous toy is gonna cause AI boosters big problems, especially as energy demands ramp up in the US in the warmer months. Expect the narrative to adjust to counter it.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (15 children)

this is the general argument in favour of cryptocurrency, with the name changed. you don't seem to have argued that the actual reality of AI we have right now is not the same problem.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (14 children)

Because I’m not arguing with OP, I’m largely agreeing with them. Generating silly images and doing school kids homework is not the promised land of AI the corporate overlords keep promising. But that’s not to suggest the field in general has zero uses. Crypto and AI are apples and oranges and while I’m not exactly sure what you mean by the arguments being the same, it would be possible for the same argument to be true for AI and not true for crypto, because AI has much more obvious use cases to benefit the common good.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (13 children)

"AI" is a marketing term for various at best slightly related technologies. If you mean LLMs or whatever, you'd need to be specific else you're not even defining the goalposts before setting them up with wheels.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

yeah, I definitely think machine learning has obvious use cases to benefit the common good (youtube auto captions being Actually Pretty Decent Now is one that comes to mind easily) but I'm much less certain about most of the stuff being presently marketed as "AI"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

i'm pretty cool with ELIZA

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

Can you tell me more about why you're pretty cool with ELIZA? 😉

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

we're talking about you not me. come come elucidate your thoughts. can you elaborate on that?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

(meta: has any llm actually exceeded this level of engagement? I can't recall seeing a single example. some changes in the sophistication of the language perhaps, but otherwise nothing)

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