Comment on We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

• el_bhm@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Launch cost is astronomical.

  Maintenance access is horrible.

  Temperature delta is insane, upto 250C.

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• billwashere@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I don’t understand the self-cooling. Isn’t it harder to keep things cool in space since there is no conduction or convection cooling? I mean everything is in a vacuum. The only place for heat to go is radiative and that’s terribly inefficient. Seems like a massive engineering problem.

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  • dustyData@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It is, infrared radiators weight a shit ton and are inefficient, big and unwieldy. Still the only viable option for cooling in space. AI would take an hugemongous square footage of it just so the GPUs won’t melt.

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    • billwashere@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I thought so.

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• DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  You can cool servers way better on Earth than you can in space. Down here you can transfer heat away form the server with conduction and convection, but in space you really only have radiation. Cooling spacecraft is an engineering challenge. One might imagine a server stuck inside a glass thermos that’s sitting out in the sun.

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• Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If the end goal is so little Timmy can ask a robot if nazis exist and it spits out misinformation or so Ai bots can flood social media with endless regurgitated bullshit, then no, it’s just more garbage in space.

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  • Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    When I think about the potential of AI, I like to think of Iain M. Banks’ Culture more than Skynet. We could probably all live in a post-scarcity society even without AI if we put our minds into it, but let’s free ourselves of unnecessary or unwilling labour while we’re at it, eh?

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    • Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’m glad someone’s hopeful. Any time I see a new technology, I wonder what the worst possible outcome could be, and it usually makes it there.

      Sorry, I just have zero faith in humanity.

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      • Almacca@aussie.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Oh, I have zero expectation of an actual positive outcome. I don’t think the tech-bros read. Or think ahead.

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• Gibibit@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Afaik space isn’t self cooling. Overheating of spacecraft is a thing. I think they can only cool through infrared radiation or something.

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• theterrasque@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  computerworld.com/…/china-takes-edge-computing-to…

  So someone thinks it’s not entirely stupid

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• eleitl@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Do you know how much energy you need to launch a kilogram into Earth orbit?

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• vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  very stupid. One of the most difficult things in space is cooling stuff. Sending up a bunch of space heaters in a box (almost all of the energy pumped into a computer is turned into heat. The actual computatiion takes next to nothing in comparison) is definitely not a good idea. Definitely not one thought up by a technical person.

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• vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  also, you can make computers much more cheap and reliable, more maintainable and much much faster, if you protect them from space radiation by operating them down here, under the protection of earth’s atmosphere.

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• Emi@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I assume yes, I know very little but I know space is very hard and harsh environment. Also it would be very expensive I assume. And it would need to be big.

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