this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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"There's no way to get there without a breakthrough," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, arguing that AI will soon need even more energy.

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[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 136 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

Skinner Out Of Touch Meme: Are the AI using toouch energy? Nah, must be the weak energy sources.

Optimizing power consumption? Why?!

[–] JDubbleu@programming.dev 15 points 10 months ago (3 children)

In fairness the computing world has seen unfathomable efficiency gains that are being pushed further with the sudden adoption of arm. We are doing our damnedest to make computers faster and more efficient, and we're doing a really good job of it, but energy production hasn't seen nearly those gains in the same amount of time. With the sudden widespread adoption of AI, a very power hungry tool (because it's basically emulating a brain in a computer), it has caused a sudden spike in energy needed for computers that are already getting more efficient as fast as we can. Meanwhile energy production isn't keeping up at the same rate of innovation.

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[–] 018118055@sopuli.xyz 76 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The human brain uses about 20W. Maybe AI needs to be more efficient instead?

[–] NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 62 points 10 months ago (3 children)

If only we could convert empty hype into energy.

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[–] lone_faerie@lemmy.blahaj.zone 62 points 10 months ago (8 children)

So AI can't exist without stealing people's content and it can't exist without using too much energy. Why does it exist then?

[–] TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee 38 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Because the shareholders need more growth. They might create Ultron along the way, but think of the profits, man!

[–] Phanatik@kbin.social 9 points 10 months ago (4 children)

There's no way these chatbots are capable of evolving into Ultron. That's like saying a toaster is capable of nuclear fusion.

[–] Xiaz@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Thats if you set the toaster to anything above 3

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[–] BarbecueCowboy@kbin.social 7 points 10 months ago

I think we've got a bit before we have to worry about another major jump in AI and way longer for an Ultron. The ones we have now are effectively parsers for google or other existing data. I personally still don't see how we feel like we can get away with calling that AI.

Any AI that actually creates something 'new' that I've seen still requires a tremendous amount of oversight, tweaking and guidance to produce useful results. To me, they still feel like very fancy search engines.

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[–] TheRealKuni@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

So AI can't exist without stealing people's content

Using the word “steal” in a way that implies misconduct here is “You wouldn’t download a car” level reasoning. It’s not stealing to use the work of some other artist to inform your own work. If you copy it precisely then it’s plagiarism or infringement, but if you take the style of another artist and learn to use it yourself, that’s…exactly how art has advanced over the course of human history. “Great artists steal,” said Picasso famously.

Training your model on pirated copies, that’s shady. But training your model on purchased or freely available content that’s out there for anyone else to learn from? That’s…just how learning works.

Obviously there are differences, in that generative AI is not actually doing structured “thinking” about the creation of a work. That is, of course, the job of the human writing and tweaking the prompts. But training an AI to be able to write like someone else or paint like someone else isn’t theft unless the AI is, without HEAVY manipulation, spitting out copies that infringe on the intellectual property of the original author/artist/musician.

Generative AI, in its current form, is nothing more than a tool. And you can use any tool nefariously, but that doesn’t mean the tool is inherently nefarious. You can use Microsoft Word to copy Eat, Pray, Love but Elizabeth Gilbert shouldn’t sue Microsoft, she should sue you.

Edit: fixed a typo

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[–] GigglyBobble@kbin.social 47 points 10 months ago (4 children)

How about an efficiency breakthrough instead? Our brains just need a meal and can recognize a face without looking at billions of others first.

[–] Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee 11 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I mean, we can only do that because our system was trained for hundreds of thousands, millions of years into being able to recognise others of same species

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[–] Damaskox@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Erm.

I recall a study about kids under a specific age that cannot get scared of looking at pictures of demons and other horror stuff because they don't know yet what your everyday default person looks like.

So I'd argue that even people need to get accustomed to a thing before they could recognise or have an opinion about anything.

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[–] Cosmicomical@lemmy.world 31 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I heard that the human body can produce more bioelectricity than a battery

[–] CitizenKong@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Which is bullshit for obvious reasons. Humans are no eels.

[–] danielbln@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago (4 children)

In fact, the original script of The Matrix had the machines harvest humans to be used as ultra efficient compute nodes. Executive meddling led to the dumb battery idea .

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[–] ATDA@lemmy.world 28 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Didn't CERN open a portal to hell recently, can't we just steal their power? What are they using it for what could go wrong?

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[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Or we could stop this ridiculous llm “ai” trend and move towards sustainable living like our hyper-waste society

[–] Falcon@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

These comments often indicate a lack of understanding about ai.

Ml algorithms have been in use for nearly 50 years. They certainly become much more common since about 2012, particularly with the development of CUDA, It’s not just some new trend or buzz word.

Rather, what we starting to see are the fruits of our labour. There are so many really hard problems that just cannot be solved with deductive reasoning.

[–] Sloogs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

It's simultaneously possible to realize that something is useful while also recognizing the damage that its trend is causing from a sustainability standpoint, and that neither realization particularly demonstrates a lack of understanding about AI.

[–] KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 10 months ago

Humans very rarely take sustainability into account when money can be made.

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[–] datendefekt@lemmy.ml 25 points 10 months ago (2 children)

So is AI the new Blockchain?

[–] Mangoholic@lemmy.ml 13 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Unlike the Blockchain it has an actual use tho.

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[–] SuperSpruce@lemmy.zip 21 points 10 months ago

Exactly. This is why the AI hype train is overblown. Stop shoving "AI" everywhere when they know it'll cost a lot in electricity.

The real path forwards with AI will be specialized super advanced models costing hundreds per run (business use case) and/or locally run AI using NPUs, especially the latter.

[–] yildo@kbin.social 18 points 10 months ago

We must disassemble the solar system and make ~~paperclips~~ AI server farms

[–] trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.com 18 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

It's called nuclear energy. It was discovered in 1932 and properly harnessed with an effective reactor that consumes both radioactive material and waste (CANDU) in 1950's/1960's and the newest CANDU reactors are some of the safest and most efficient energy generation in the world.

Pretending like there needs to be a larger investment into something like cold fusion in order to run these computers is incredibly dishonest or presenting a clear hole in education coverage. (The DoE should still work on researching cold fusion, but not because of this.)

[–] kalleboo@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I love nuclear but China is building them as fast as they can and they're still being massively outpaced by their own solar installations. If we hadn't shut down most of the research and construction in the 80's it would have been great, but it's not going to be a solution to the huge power requirement growth from EVs and shit like AI in the "short" term of 1-20 years.

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[–] stoly@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I love when people invent something then complain about how dangerous it is. It really hits you in the feels.

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[–] NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

Just don't forget the BIG circuit breakers.
Some day we are going to need them.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 16 points 10 months ago

Nvidia Execs: Did you say the price of GPUs should go up?

[–] BudgieMania@kbin.social 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

dude think about this stuff before you open the floodgates bro

[–] stopthatgirl7@kbin.social 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That requires someone in business to think beyond the next quarter’s profits.

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago

That requires someone in business to think

I'm not convinced that Altman has cleared this beyond meaningless buzzwords

[–] hperrin@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago (9 children)

The sun gives us free energy. Is he aware of that?

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[–] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So much for hoping ai was going to solve energy breakthroughs.

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[–] dezmd@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

OH NO, AI IS THE BLOCKCHAIN.

[–] Unpigged@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 10 months ago (4 children)

So why won't he use the AI to discover one?

I'm sorry but as an AI language processing model I am unable to discover alternative energy sources. My training data concludes on June 21, 2021 and I am unable to understand requests that would require knowledge after that date.

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[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago

Stop mining bitcoin.

[–] skymtf@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 10 months ago

Yes we will build a massive nursing home and use the old people as batteries.

[–] bc1@lemmy.l0l.city 7 points 10 months ago

Subsidize retrofitting the entire nation with solar and invert it back into the grid

[–] Holyginz@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Might be because it's a LLM not an AI and requires massive amounts of data to be funneled into it to actually work. My admittedly limited understanding of it makes it seem like it's just another buzzword for things like neural networks and machine learning.

[–] fidodo@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

LLMs are a specific application of neutral networks which utilize machine learning.

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[–] jplee@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Is the answer people? I think I’ve seen this movie before.

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