I wrote this and feed it through chatGPT to help make it more readable. To me that’s pretty awesome. If I wanted I can have it written like an Elton John song. If that doesn’t convince you it’s fun and worth it then maybe the argument below could, or not. Either way I like it.
I don’t think I’ll convince you, but there are a lot of arguments to make here.
I heard a large AI model is equivalent to the emissions from five cars over its lifetime. And yes, the water usage is significant—something like 15 billion gallons a year just for a Microsoft data center. But that’s not just for AI; data centers are something we use even if we never touch AI. So, absent of AI, it’s not like we’re up in arms about the waste and usage from other technologies. AI is being singled out—it’s the star of the show right now.
But here’s why I think we should embrace it: the potential. I’m an optimist and I love technology. AI bridges gaps in so many areas, making things that were previously difficult much easier for many people. It can be an equalizer in various fields.
The potential with AI is fascinating to me. It could bring significant improvements in many sectors. Think about analyzing and optimizing power grids, making medical advances, improving economic forecasting, and creating jobs. It can reduce mundane tasks through personalized AI, like helping doctors take notes and process paperwork, freeing them up to see more patients.
Sure, it consumes energy and has costs, but its potential is huge. It’s here and advancing. If we keep letting the media convince us to hate it, this technology will end up hoarded by elites and possibly even made illegal for the rest of us. Imagine having a pocket advisor for anything—mechanical issues, legal questions, gardening problems, medical concerns. We’re not there yet, but remember, the first cell phones were the size of a brick. The potential is enormous, and considering all the things we waste energy and resources on, this one is weighed against it benefits.
Womble@lemmy.world 5 months ago
AI is a rounding error in terms of energy use. Creating and worldwide usage of chatGPT4 for a whole year comes out to less that 1% of the energy Americans burn driving in one day.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 months ago
I think I’ll go with Yale over ‘person on the Internet who ignored the water part.’
e360.yale.edu/…/artificial-intelligence-climate-e…
From that article:
Womble@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Forgive me for not trusting an ariticle that says that AI will use a perawatt within the next two years. Either the person who wrote it doesnt understand the difference between energy and power or they are very sloppy.
Chat GPT took 50GWh to train [source[(forbes.com/…/ai-is-pushing-the-world-towards-an-e…)
Americans burn 355 million gallons of gasoline a day source and at 33.5 Kwh/gal source that comes out to 12,000GWh per day burnt in gasoline.
Water usage is more balanced, depending on where the data centres are it can either be a significant problem or not at all. The water doesnt vanish it just goes back into the air, but that can be problematic if it is a significant draw on local freshwater sources. e.g. using river water just before it flows into the sea, 0 issue, using a ground aquifer in a desert, big problem.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Training is already over. This has nothing to do with training, so that is irrelevant. This is about how much power is needed as it is used more and more. I think you know that.
Also, I’m not sure why you think just because cars emit a lot of CO2, it doesn’t mean that other sources that emit a lot of CO2, but less than cars, are a good thing.
Cool, tell that to all the people who rely on glaciers for their fresh water. That only includes a huge percentage of people in India and China.
But really, what you’re telling me is that studies and scientists are wrong and you’re right. Cool. Good luck convincing people of that.
rekorse@lemmy.world 5 months ago
They aren’t just taking water noone was using.