Repeat after me: This. present. hype. is. not. A.I. By parroting the marketing bullshit, it doesn’t become less false. Large Language Models are just glorified pattern matching and everyone who calls them AI is a dumb fuck.
True. But it makes the 30% extra carbon emissions even worse: Ruining our climate for something that isn’t even AI. Not that ruining it for anything should be on the table.
It’s called AI even if it isn’t artificial intelligence, it’s unfortunately how language works. Like how literally has been redefined to mean figuratively.
It’s called AI even if it isn’t artificial intelligence, it’s unfortunately how language works.
Only for people for whom words don’t have meanings. There is nothing “intelligent” about pattern matching. As I said - only dumbfucks call it “A.I.” and we shouldn’t regurgitate the verbal diarrhea of marketing idiots.
Holy fuck. I knew that AI did use above average amounts of power, but THIRTY FUCKING PERCENT added to the total emissions of a data giant like Microsoft??? That’s absurd! How the hell did they create something so inefficient??
Efficiencies are in the works from a lot of angles (new hardware, novel agent structures, new neural net types, etc). The first computers filled rooms, and AI seems to be improving much faster. 4x the rate of Moore’s Law, if it holds.
To tie that back to MS, the code base for Windows is crufty af. I expect efficiencies to continue to come from the research and open source domains, but it’s fair to point out that corpo only implement efficiencies that cost money if they can’t offset that cost onto externalities like cheap labor and foreign resource degradation.
What a weird coincidence. I showed my daughter The Matrix for the first time last night. It’s been a long time since I was able to see someone do a “what the fuck?!” after he takes the red pill.
I know Microsoft is a controversial company from Start Menu ads to Balmer’s dancing ability. But! I have been following the AI topic pretty religiously and they have known that this would be the case for quite a while. In fact part of OpenAI’s growth struggling and subsequent partnership with Microsoft involved power generation.
Microsoft has been investing in electric power including using small module nuclear reactors. Sam Altman has been putting a lot of effort into power as well, acknowledging long ago that electricity generation is critical for AI. He’s been pushing into green energy also. Exowatt, Helion, etc.
So yes, the carbon footprint is going up now because they ‘had’ to unleash this genie from the bottle first or someone else would have. At least they know that the need for stable electric power and green power or renewable and efficient power is necessary and have been pursuing these solutions actively.
It should be so that they really change things so that power grids are more stable and renewable energy is better utilized. So to me, there is hope they are doing the right thing and putting effort where it matters.
I’m more effing disappointed and concerned about @$$h0les like Ron Desantis doing things like this:
Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state’s lengthy coastline.
Critics said the measure made law by the former Republican presidential hopeful ignores the reality of climate change threats in Florida, including projections of rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe storms.
It takes effect July 1 and would also boost expansion of natural gas, reduce regulation on gas pipelines in the state and increase protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
Hmm let’s see what changed since I last looked. This study seems recent, just looking at the publicly available sections:
SMRs do not represent dramatic improvements in economics compared to large reactors.
Translation: They’re way more expensive than renewables. SMRs have some advantage which are mentioned (less land usage, non-intermittency), then we have
The advanced SMRs are compared to conventional large reactors and natural gas plants,
…but not renewables+storage, which would be a good comparison point. If it looked any good they definitely would’ve included it.
Now that doesn’t mean that these things don’t make sense for Microsoft. It might e.g. simplify power distribution within datacentres to a degree that other sources just can’t, also reduce or eliminate the need for backup power, etc. But generally speaking I’m still smelling techbro BS.
Helping generate less carbon at some point in the future does not help with the fact that we are racking up the carbon bill now. What these companies are doing is entirely unnecessary, gimmicky, and will lead to even worse climate change outcomes. Between AI, crypto, and the O&G companies we just keep pressing the gas even harder on serious, irreversible climate change.
I hope this AI push fails spectacularly at some point, but the damage is already being done.
The only short term solution is the sort of legislation DeSantis is fighting against. AI is useful, but should only continue while paying the full cost of its energy consumption.
The people here are such fucking morons… Yes, let’s ban WIND POWER, literally one of the oldest forms of clean energy generation. I swear if I didn’t have family here I’d be gone.
I wish I had a decent explanation. But instead, I have Windows 11’s shiny new Taskbar configuration menu that politely warns me that showing seconds on the clock takes more power. Right under the “Show Copilot” button.
They are like a big coal-rolling tractor trailer rumbling past somebody on an e-bike and shaking their finger at you because you could be pedaling right now to save minuscule amounts of energy.
Telling others to conserve is free. They themselves conserving could potentially mean less money!
Right when we literally need to chill, they keep inventing nonsense that is somehow worse. Crypto is literally just machines wasting energy on purpose to create false scarcity, it was already a worst case scenario for truly pointless excess emissions but by god, they managed to top it, this place is going to be a raisin with dead oceans.
Of course, anyone who does anything less than suck the dick of this AI is a reactionary ignorant peasant, at least with crypto everyone agreed it was lame, now we’re back to the iPhone fuck-you-only-change-allowed-keep-up-granny bullshit that lead to everyone but you knowing everything about you, so they can exploit and even criminalize the behavior your phone tells them about. Never the change we need, though. Just whatever makes your stupid line go up.
I guess. Glad I’m not having kids. That’s the only fucking downward pressure on future emissions that’s happening, on any meaningful scale. I can’t wait to see what sort of shitty boilerplate copy and fake fucking pictures makes all this CO2 worthwhile. I’m sure the problem is me, and my Luddite, unseasoned irrational fear.
People on here are straight up brain washed, even more than on reddit… Good on you for not having kids though, you’re making society a favor, just for different reason than you think.
The third, well, it’s your choice to choose not to have children. That’s fine and I understand. But people shouldn’t feel obligated not to get children to save the climate.
I’m not about to say people can’t have kids, but they should really do their best to truly understand the future that awaits those kids. That temperature line is going to keep going up (except in certain areas when the AMOC collapses). Things will be worse and no one is coming to save us. Deciding to bring a new life into that future is a serious ethical and moral choice.
Sure, and I’m not calling it the end times. But things will continue to get worse as carbon accumulates and causes temperatures to rise.
Having a child has and always will be a moral and ethical choice (for those who have a choice) and it should not be taken lightly. But there are different stakes now than before. And we still haven’t gotten rid of the looming shadow of nuclear annihilation, we’ve only added to the ways we can destroy ourselves.
The main task of the ECB is to maintain price stability. The ECB’s Governing Council considers that price stability is best maintained by aiming for 2% over the medium term. Price stability creates conditions for more stable economic growth
I mean, I don’t disagree with you on that. I didn’t think your first comment quite conveyed this nuance, and deflationary economies are terrible for everyone.
That’s a myth spread by modern monetary theorists because they only understand the economy from an inflationary perspective. Economies worked fine for millennia without inflationary money.
I don’t think local economies from millennia ago are similar enough to compare to modern global economies with our current population boom. I think we could for sure have a different approach if our population was stable or decreasing.
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