cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/17993293
When they say AI might destroy humanity, it’s not due to some Terminator scenario…
It’s just cause they’re trashing the planet.
US slows plans to retire coal plants because of AI power usage
Submitted 3 months ago by Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
https://www.ft.com/content/ddaac44b-e245-4c8a-bf68-c773cc8f4e63
Comments
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Do I need to go dig in Grand Central Station trash cans for a floppy disc?
Good_morning@lemmynsfw.com 3 months ago
Wait, is that a hackers reference?!?
pyre@lemmy.world 3 months ago
we decided to slow plans to retire something no one wants to support something else that no one wants.
maniii@lemmy.world 3 months ago
AI seems to be just more and more statistical probabilities hashed-out at record-breaking speeds and power-consumption of computing. Its like that adage, “sufficiently advanced that it is magic” we are doing that for AI. We are building more and more complex statistical analysis engines that spew out near-perfect answers from garbage inputs at the expense of actual analysis ,research and development.
PriorityMotif@lemmy.world 3 months ago
You could train a model on all available research and use that to find holes that haven’t been explored in a way that no human possibly could.
chuckleslord@lemmy.world 3 months ago
You could do that training… and the “AI” can print out some lines that have the same writing styles as the articles. Because that’s all LLMs can do. Don’t buy the hype, they’re just energy sucking predictive text bots. Nothing more. The whole thing is a dead end as far as finding the actual systems behind intelligence.
chuckleslord@lemmy.world 3 months ago
That requires intelligence to determine. “AI” ain’t got none of that. It can tell you a recipe for muffins that definitely is probably edible, except for the obvious poisons.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
You could build a rocket in your backyard, fly to Mars, and come back to tell humanity.
maniii@lemmy.world 3 months ago
someone has to find the holes to input into the AI training data :'D so i guess that wont work.
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
Give me an N!
N!
Give me a U!
U!
Give me a C!
C!
Give me an L!
L!
Give me an E!
E!
Give me an A!
A!
Give me an R!
R!
What does that make?
NUCLEAR!
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 3 months ago
No.
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
Ok, then let’s boil the planet despite having safe and working alternatives.
lnxtx@feddit.nl 3 months ago
Let the big tech pay for it.
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
Sure!
Wogi@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Please don’t let venture capital get it’s fingers around the power grid that can’t possibly end well
PenisDuckCuck9001@lemmynsfw.com 3 months ago
A plant blew up one time due to being poorly mismanaged and an earthquake broke another one. Nothing bad has ever happened in the history of non-nuclear power generate. /s
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
I never said that nothing bad has happened with nuclear power.
Nuclear disasters are local, the ongoibg climate change disaster powered by coal plants (which let our a hell of a lot more radiation than nuclear plants) is global.
I’ll take a local disaster any day over a global disaster
HelloHotel@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Ofc! Oil gas and coal ONLY burn when placed in a funace. Attempt to light it on fire anywhere else and it will know and refuse catch fire. Its a safety feature. /s
pedz@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Nuclear plants cannot be built fast enough for the ever growing demands of “AI”.
stoy@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
I am not talking about expantion, I am talking about replacement
diskmaster23@lemmy.one 3 months ago
Those modular small scale reactors won’t take long.
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 3 months ago
lets fuck the planet up just a little bit more so that Russia and billionaires can spam the internet with chatgpt bots and create fake images.
beefbaby182@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Non-paywall link?
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world 3 months ago
ech@lemm.ee 3 months ago
This is focusing on the wrong thing. Electricity demands should be expected to drastically increase, with or without llms or other such programs. We need to be focusing on electrifying pretty much everything if we’re going to make a dent on carbon emissions, which will naturally lead to a significant increase in power demands. If that only leads to different and/or more carbon emissions, that’s a problem with the infrastructure of the grid, not what it’s powering.
And to be clear, I think these companies using stupid amounts of power to run these things is stupid as hell, but blaming them for problems that should have been addressed ages ago isn’t going to solve the problem. We need massive and sweeping infrastructure changes asap.
ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
The problem is, there is no plan in the US to upgrade the power grid - either at privaty company level, state level or federal level. It’s just no in the cards. And the grid is headed straight for a complete collapse with the double whammy of electric cars and AI.
The other problem is, if you keep using coal to meet electrical demands, this will certainly make zero dent on carbon emissions. The other thing that needs to happen besides upgrading the grid is a massive increase in combined renewables / battery storage solution, or of course viable fusion power (fat chance…)
jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Power utilities frequently complain about declining base load generation capacity. On this particular issue, they are actually correct. You have to have a consistent level of base load generation capacity that is capable of scaling to meet peak demand. Wind and solar power are great but are not available on demand.
So, you can either store excess power generated by renewable sources or generate with non-renewable sources. Utility scale storage just isn’t there at this point. Many of the coal plants that have been retired over the past two decades have been replaced by natural gas plants, which isn’t really an improvement.
One thing that probably exacerbates this problem is the fact that much of the power generated in the US has historically been fairly localized. Meaning, it’s generated pretty close to where it’s consumed. Moving away from a “local” generation model is not as easy as it sounds and makes utilities nervous, for legitimate reasons.
What we need in the interim is more small scale nuclear development. It’s far from a perfect solution but it’s way better than what we currently have.
AA5B@lemmy.world 3 months ago
There are plenty of plans. They’re just wholly inadequate.
Looking at my state. Coal is long gone. We plan offshore wind farms …. That keep getting blocked. We plan to buy huge amounts of long distance hydro … but transmission lines are blocked by intervening states. The ideas are there, the plans are there, but follow through is not. Clearing the obstacles is not
hlmeless@lemy.lol 3 months ago
“we need to electrify everything” How? With coal fired plants. Cool.
ech@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Way to completely miss my point.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
ech@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Clearly not what I said, but keep focusing on the rage-bait instead of what is actually needed to fix the problems at hand.