this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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Energy demands are only going to increase as we replace gas with electric alternatives. The problem you're pointing to is an issue with the current infrastructure.
Infrastructure in this case refers to the data centers and LLMs. It takes hundreds of megawatt hours to train a single current-gen LLM and who knows how many gigawatts of energy are being consumed by the sum of LLMs at any given point but it likely dwarfs the sum of all energy spent training LLMs.
But then there's the energy involved in producing those cards, shipping those cards, the data centers themselves.
It wouldn't be preposterous to suggest that the sum of energy spent at any given time on generative AI is enough to power New York City. Might even be well more than
No, in this case I'm referring to the electric grid and what powers it.
Yeah and the problem I'm pointing to has nothing to with electrical infrastructure and instead the sheer amount of energy wasted on bullshit.
You could have fantastic electrical infrastructure but if people are consuming literal gigawatt hours and boiling municipal water dry making Garfield and Shrek comics, that's the problem. Where does this energy come from? How is the copious amount of heat dealth with? Those are the corollaries
It's seriously the biggest waste of energy in human existence and it's staring at you right in the face. Gotta be blind to miss it
You're missing or ignoring my point. If the energy is provided by carbon neutral sources, then the amount used is irrelevant. That should be our goal. And I don't know where you're getting the notion that water resources are " boiled dry" or that gpu heat has any meaningful impact on the climate, but those aren't actual issues.
And for the record, I'm not defending LLMs or generative images here. That bubble would be better off bursting, but the energy use isn't why. Hell, it may be the only good aspect of the whole thing. With MS booting up old nuclear reactors, maybe it will revitalize interest so can make some use of that technology.
Energy is zero sum. If you're throwing away carbon neutral energy you could instead use that energy to displace consumption of energy that would otherwise be produced by coal or whatnot.
Furthermore, many of these data centers use evaporative cooling as opposed to a sealed system and water indeed goes right out and into the atmosphere. There are limitless articles discussing this and the footprint
Edit: I should add that the whole zero sum aspect of energy is why things that 'scrub carbon' are a pipe dream. That stuff often requires so much energy to produce that, even if it were made from solar or whatever, there's always a more positive impact simply by taking that energy and using it to reduce energy production that emits all the carbon in the first place. Consumption is still the crux of the problem at this point and to look at anything that requires gobs of energy and uses clean energy as some insular thing that is separate from things that use dirty energy is not a good way to look at things
Let's not forget cryptocurrency mining