AI energy consumption: should we limit our AI usage to save the planet?
https://thepurposemachine.substack.com/p/ai-energy-consumption-should-we-limit
AI energy consumption: should we limit our AI usage to save the planet?
https://thepurposemachine.substack.com/p/ai-energy-consumption-should-we-limit
35 Comments
๐๐ก๐จ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ ๐ฐ๐ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ฆ๐ข๐ญ ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐๐ ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐๐ ๐, ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฌ๐๐ฏ๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐ง๐๐ญ?
โPlug, baby, plug! Electricity is available.โ With these words Emmanuel Macron explained that France has enough energy available to power their newly announced AI data centers. This made me wonder; ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ช๐ด ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฑ๐ข๐ค๐ต ๐ฐ๐ง ๐๐ ๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ท๐ช๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต, ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ธ ๐ฎ๐ถ๐ค๐ฉ ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ณ๐จ๐บ ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ฆ๐ด ๐ช๐ต ๐ข๐ค๐ต๐ถ๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐บ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฆ?
๐๐๐ซ๐ ๐ข๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ซ๐ง๐๐:
– data centers will consume up to 4% of the total world electricity by 2030.- 24.64% of data center capacity is used by AI-related tasks.
– 153 TWh of energy is spent this year on AI, which is the equivalent to what 9 large nuclear power plants produce per year.
– Besides pure energy consumption, the demand for clean water for cooling purposes and the pressure on local energy grids are an issue.
– 2920 ChatGPT queries per year is the average per user, which comes down to about 11 hours of using an electric heater. But this figure does not include model training.
– Google now uses AI enhanced search results, so it’s no longer a low-power alternative to ChatGPT.
๐๐จ๐ฌ๐ข๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐ ๐ข๐ฆ๐ฉ๐๐๐ญ:
Thanks to AI we can predict weather and climate, map our oceansโ plastic concentration, effectively reforest with drones, recycle waste more efficiently, and provide life-saving information during heatwaves, hurricanes and floods. Finally, when properly trained, AI can help influence the publicโs opinion massively and help us all to prevent further climate change, and adapt to the inevitable changes.
๐๐จ๐ง๐๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง:
For me personally, I donโt see a future path where AI does not play a huge role in our daily lives. The potential of AI to have a positive impact outweighs the downside that comes with its energy consumption, for me. Eventually it is up to you to make a decision on how you will use artificial intelligence in your daily tasks.
But if we don’t have AI where can I get weird-looking art, bad scripts, incorrect legal advice, and bad governance?
Be honest: No one in r/Futurology cares about the planet.
These companies should be fuckin subsidizing all of our electricity with the amount they need to run AI
Itโs insaneย
Yes, but this is a sort of [Tragedy of the Commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons).
YES! Unless AI is creating new ideas to solve major problems, then it shouldnโt be used.
AI is being used to eliminate jobs and make the owners of companies more money.
We should recognize that no matter how much restraint everyone on earth has, if there is something desirable, someone is going to do it and everyone else will just be playing catchup at that point.
Can’t they just put them in space? Constant solar power.
How about we start with banning cars and stop using oil? Do you know how much energy the banking industry uses?
Instead of everyone just being lazy and just accept that it will be OpenAI as the Main contributor with their insanely ressource intensive approach., we could use techniques and models that are way more resource effective!!
Yes, right after we limit the energy consumption for banks, financial institutions, crypto mining, exploitation, logistics etc.
I just limit using it because it is lame. Which seems like valid reason.
Yes. We should have kept AI under control, it should not have been turned into a consumer-grade product for all to play with. Itโs a nuclear bomb, and we have locked out access around nukes for a reason. Lest we all become the modern radium girls.
Chat GPT doesnโt even think Greta should stop flying all over the world to stop climate change
Europe: “yes”
Rest of the world: “no”
Europe: “no then”
Maybe but not until crypto currencies are outlawed.
I mean we should do this with a lot of things. We should redesign our cities around bicycles. We should build for high speed rail not short-haul flights. There’s lots we can and should do.
Not happening though.
Buy a home on high ground, somewhere cool, if you can afford to. That’s what *you* can do about climate change. That’s literally all you can do about climate change.
One of my coworkers uses GPT to replace `n` with ` or ` in a text file. Surely that’s worth the energy consumption, who has the time for self-sufficiency
I just asked ChatGPT that question. Apparently the answer is no
Gonna leave this here:
https://www.charliechaplin.com/en/articles/29-the-final-speech-from-the-great-dictator-
Spread it guys, Charlie Chaplin said that shit in 1940!
Yes, limit it to the useful functions that solve real problems and that people say they want (eliminating nearly all of it).
Text based AI is important, shit like imagine and video generations is not useful and its cost a lot
Honestly AI is not what needs limiting. Military operations and testing, needless transportation of goods to places where local making of said goods is possible, over production of goods, the unnecessary amount of lights that are on at night by businesses and even on the street which also produce “light pollution” I mean in some places there are far too many street lights wasting electricity, blocking the night sky and disturbing the sleep of countless animals and insects all part of the ecosystem… There’s much more that people can come up with off the top of their heads here on Reddit. How many people leave things turned on and plugged in when not in use? AI is one of the last things we should limit our usage of to “save the planet”.
Using AI as the subject for energy consumption is a scapegoat as it does not solve the actual problem at hand. We only have 1 planet to live on right now, and I don’t think many, if any, nations of the world are speeding towards finding planet-agnostic energy production options. By that, I mean the following:
Let’s assume Earth suddenly couldn’t support humanity anymore, in the future that has a hard defined reality I would say is somewhere between 3.5 to 4.5 billions years as the sun ages and Earth approaches exitting the habitable zone where water can stay in liquid form. Or let’s assume any sooner date due to drastic world change that causes us, humanity and any other organisms, the need to either GTFO or sleep forever. If we, for example, went to live on Mars, I don’t think it would have any oil, coal, or other natural gas deposits to really utilize. Nuclear energy might also be finicky on various planets we might have to consider since energy in this context is what this really is about. Solar energy is a viable world-agnostic energy source so long as the celestial body in question is orbitting a star at minimum, but solar still needs research and development. Hydro could be possible on some celestial bodies, it might vary on many variables, and wind likewise could be feasible as well since we know Earth isn’t the only planet with wind patterns.
At some point, we have to better adapt our global energy supply, regardless of whether we are talking about ai being around or not. Anything that uses energy will only help use up energy we are either producing now or working to produce to keep up with energy demands. Removing ai does not solve the issue of our global energy grid still using finite resources for energy production. Fossil fuels are an easy to approach option, but like I said before, Earth is the only planet we have confirmation of that such energy type is available on, there may be alternatives out in space somewhere but right now we don’t know. The topic of keeping or removing AI also does not just magically produce more potent cleaner methods just because someone is asking it queries, nor does it eliminate our energy production source problems.
So AI is irrelevant to this conversation despite it using a non-zero amount of energy and is a heavier sink than others. If we are concerned about the planet, especially in relation to how we are using it in regards to energy, perhaps let’s look inward toward ourselves and solve issues where we get energy from first before complaining of anything using said energy. There are plenty of machines and other objects that rely on fossil fuels still in some concrete way. We still need better battery technology, and we still need to improve the efficiency of any and all renewable energy sources. Sitting on our hands and pinning blame on a scapegoat that did not create the energy problem will do us nothing as a species besides further entrench us to trying to repeat the same dilemma later on with different circumstances whenever it comes up again whether it be as soon as 2030, 2075, 2150, or as far out as 3000 and beyond.
Should we limit over consumerism? Eat less meat? Stop buying all sort of shit that’s just piling on landfills?
should we limit our _______ usage to save the planet?
just insert whatever you want in the blank space
Could just invest more into energy infrastructure, more research for green energy, and orfcourse nuclear.
Not a fan of AI, but the issue isn’t the power consumption of AI systems. The problem is the energy and infrastructure for those systems.
No, because it’s the only damn thing that will get them to build the many Nuke plants we need.
I feel like there is a point as human beings we have to be responsible for learning how to use our cognitive functions to a base levelโฆwhich in my book is the ability to read and write full sentences with complex thoughts. Expecting AI to do the heavy lifting with what should be basic level stuffโlike writing a research paperโis wasteful and doesnโt help you grasp the knowledge youโre trying to share.
AI canโt work out for you so that you can have a six pack with no effort. The same goes for your mental faculties.
Using AI to create a completely new proteinโฆthatโs another story
Everyone that tells me “(Generative)AI is here, there’s nothing that can be done about it” just doesn’t give enough of a damn to me. Generative AI, the amount of electrical power and environmental impact for the sake of profit over artists, workers and shit posts. Only for Deepspeak to manage a decent percentage of OpenAIs output.
First Bitcoin, then NFTs, now Generative AI using the same heatdump warehouses. This planet so badly wants to burn so it can be entertained.
There is no use having this discussion anymore lol. The planet is cooked, the boat has sailed. “Limiting” power usage ain’t gonna do shit for us anymore.
such a silly premise, AI is the only thing that can possibly produce the efficiency improvements we need to enable everyone on the planet to live a good life without totally destroying everything. If anything we should stop all the other wastes of resources and energy that we consume in affluent countries and work on making AI tools that can benefit the whole world.
but people are greedy and very poor at thinking about anything beside their personal emotions so we’ll just keep flustering around and acting silly.
I think there are many great technological and academic arguments in favor of making as many dog-shit pictures of fruit shaped like Jesus as we can on social media, and burn as much coal as there is on this planet as fuel to make fake internet money.
Don’t you think energy problems like this will be solved once AI is applied?
Bitcoin got a lot of flak for its security mechanism, and then AI came along and said, “hold my garbage collection.”
My opinion is that AI is mostly hype based on assuming its growth will follow Moore’s Law. *That is not a solid assumption.* If you look at things like video game polygon count, they reach diminishing returns.
I imagine that the tech is already within spitting distance of diminishing returns and that future innovations will feature training LLMs roughly to current power level with less information, using less hardware, or making the enterprise less hardware or energy intensive all around.
That doesn’t stop there from being a huge capital dump as investors develop a rabid case of FOMO, but this will mostly be a waste.