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

submitted 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by gerikson@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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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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[–] 1stTime4MeInMCU@mander.xyz 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 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.

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 13 points 8 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.

[–] Lmaydev@programming.dev -3 points 8 months ago (4 children)

AI is the name of the field of study. It has existed since the 60s. LLMs are neural networks one of the first and most widely used forms of AI.

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 9 points 8 months ago

how come the reply humans from programming dot dev have always the daftest takes?

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