A corporation running a nuclear reactor to train AIs might just be the most cyberpunk news headline I’ve ever seen.
Microsoft Needs So Much Power to Train AI That It's Considering Small Nuclear Reactors
Submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
https://futurism.com/the-byte/microsoft-power-train-ai-small-nuclear-reactors
Comments
ascense@lemm.ee 1 year ago
ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 1 year ago
This gave me an idea for some level design I might want to use in a video game.
rush@lemm.ee 1 year ago
I’d play that, the fact that you’d include this content sounds dope
swab148@startrek.website 1 year ago
I wanna play your game lol
qaz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Better than coal or oil, it might even result in more R&D into reactor designs.
thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
Yeah, I don’t understand why building a relatively clean energy source is a bad thing. Reactors are now like 3+ generations past the versions that were super dangerous. Hell, they even have reactors that can use spent fuel from other reactors.
lemmyvore@feddit.nl 1 year ago
Oil lobby and other interests. Follow the money. Plus it’s easy to play on people’s fears about radioactive waste.
Oh well, countries that know what’s what just quietly build and use their reactors and go about their business. Finland for example is set for a while now.
scarabic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
There’s no shortage of modern reactor designs. We have amazing stuff designed and even prototyped and proven - low waste, safely-failing reactors that basically can’t melt down. All we really lack is dunking and regulatory clearance to build more.
LazaroFilm@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Cortana, can you design a nuclear reactor to train you better?
swab148@startrek.website 1 year ago
Yes daddy
qaz@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Searching “Design a nuclear reactor to train you better” on Bing…
nodsocket@lemmy.world 1 year ago
This is part of their plan to reduce carbon emissions.
negativeyoda@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I thought this crazy energy consumption shit would cool off a bit after assholes stopped bitcoin mining.
Glad AI stepped up so we can generate bad art and prose while buttfucking the planet
jarfil@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ok, hear me out: crypto, based on “proof of training an AI”
If it takes so much power, it must be secure, and this way it wouldn’t be “totally wasted”…
Luctia@lemmings.world 1 year ago
I’m not sure if you’re serious, but just in case: that wouldn’t work, mining is really just verifying transactions. So if you’re not doing that, you may earn crypto by “mining”, but you can’t spend it because no-one is verifying your transactions.
elbarto777@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The planet will be alright. It will be lush green in a few million years when humans no longer exist.
The current ecosystem, though… yeah. Buttfucked.
dustyData@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Cryptocoins, blockchain, NFTs, AI craze. It’s all the same people who think that the solution to the problems that capitalism has created is technology.
negativeyoda@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, it’s treating the symptoms… not the cause.
float@feddit.de 1 year ago
The GPU manufacturers are having the time of their lives.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So we finally get thorium power, but its only used to make celebrity porn for incels.
DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 1 year ago
Hey, whatever keeps them out of Walmart parking lots at 1am.
LemmysMum@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Like there’s somewhere better to buy celebrity porn at 1am. Psh.
AngryMulbear@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Nice!
Rakonat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Honestly getting Thorium power AND never having Incels leave their home or interact with society again sounds like a win-win.
MeanEYE@lemmy.world 1 year ago
We already know how well Microsoft optimizes code, so this comes as no surprise.
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 1 year ago
requires an intensive carbon footprint
Maybe we should focus on the collapsing ecosystem then instead of training AI datasets.
FaceDeer@kbin.social 1 year ago
Nuclear power means they can do both.
ZILtoid1991@kbin.social 1 year ago
Hear me out:
What if we used that nuclear power only to fix the environment?
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de 1 year ago
Only if there’s a meltdown, and that’s near-impossible with current reactor designs. Just don’t build in very disaster-prone areas like Florida or Japan.
oce@jlai.lu 1 year ago
Nuclear power still requires huge front costs (goal of SMR is to reduce that, but first generations will not solve it), so it could better to use them for every day life needs rather than a prospective commercial venture.
thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
AI might be a fantastic tool to help fix the environment, though.
Rayspekt@kbin.social 1 year ago
People aren't listening to human scientists and you think they'll be happy with an scary AI saving the planet?
hanni@lemmy.one 1 year ago
It will be used to drive more consumption.
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world 1 year ago
We already use AI in climate change models. This is a large language model that honestly, we don’t need.
halva@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
bold of you to assume microsoft is interested in that
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Nuclear power is actually way cheaper.
You just need to find a geologically safe place to put it and you need to make sure everyone involved follows safety protocols to the letter. And you can’t have anyone cutting corners to save money. You need to spare no expense when it comes to safety.
The only issue is that people don’t stay strict with keeping everything safe sometimes. People are terrified of it because when something goes wrong, everyone can see the very gruesome results very quickly
But I don’t think microsoft or any company should be making an AI at the rate they are if it’s going to take as much resources as it seems.
Nobsi@feddit.de 1 year ago
en.wikipedia.org/…/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#…
No, it isnt.
Safety isnt what makes nuclear expensive. You actually got rawdogged by Nuclear fanatics.Natanael@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
Capital costs is incomplete, you need to look at lifetime costs versus lifetime production to get a more useful average - Levelized cost of energy (LCOE)
en.wikipedia.org/…/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
lazard.com/…/2023-levelized-cost-of-energyplus/
EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Wikipedia is owned by someone who’s married to an intelligence agency member.
Chocrates@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Damn. Sucks to still see Natural Gas as the cheapest.
I think that modern nuclear designs have a place in decarbonization but I don’t think it is cheaper and we have a lot of hurdles still.
not_gsa@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Rare lemming reasonable take
UFODivebomb@programming.dev 1 year ago
Yea this entire clickbait can be summarized as “company looks to spend less on high capacity power”
Havald@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Building and maintaining one isn’t really the concern I have with this one, nuclear reactors are incredibly safe these days. What are they going to do with the nuclear waste? That’s the real issue here. Governments can barely figure that out, how’s a megacorp going to do that in an ethical way? I already see them dumping it in a cave in some poor country in africa.
Silverseren@kbin.social 1 year ago
If they're actually using a new type nuclear reactor, the small portable ones, then the waste is both incredibly small and recyclable. Nuclear technology has come a long way since the decades old reactors, we just haven't built very many new ones to showcase that.
Nilz@sopuli.xyz 1 year ago
It’s a shame we aren’t seemingly taking them into consideration in the whole energy transition crisis we are in.
But rather let’s just keep sending people into hazardous coal mines while ignoring nuclear energy until the solution to all our problems magically comes to us.
lolcatnip@reddthat.com 1 year ago
How much nuclear waste are we talking about? Every time I’ve seen any actual quantity mentioned, it’s tiny.
Ducks@lemmy.world 1 year ago
And relative to coal’s radioactivity, it’s essentially nothing.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
As noted elsewhere, these don’t create the same kind of spent fuel as a PWR. So that helps.
But also, the people who designed the PWRs didn’t just say “and then we’ll make shitloads of unmanageable waste lol!” Up until the Carter Administration, we ran a system called “reprocessing” that essentially shredded and dissolved the old fuel rods, isolated the metals chemically, and packed out separately.
France does this. Finland does this. Japan does this. Their waste concerns are negligible compared to ours.
Meanwhile Carter, bless his heart, determined that reprocessing was a proliferation risk, and shut down the US industry, saying “y’all will figure out a way to dispose of these things”.
So now we are using circular saws to hack these things apart, cramming them into barrels stuffed with kitty litter (you read that right), and hoping that nothing will happen to the barrels for 50 million years?
Long-term waste disposal became an impossible problem to solve in the US because our one and only allegedly nuclear-savvy president made the solution to the problem illegal. It became one immediately, and has never stopped being one.
oce@jlai.lu 1 year ago
Nuclear waste is a technically solved issue with long term geological storage, long term dangerous waste which requires more tech is a very small mass. The problems are political, uneducated people are irrationally scared of those waste that they associate with Chernobyl so they oppose any kind of geological storage, and politicians don’t have the balls to openly contradict them.
wahming@monyet.cc 1 year ago
Weird thing is, I’d trust them to not abandon the reactor during a budget shutdown…
mojo@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The reason is ultimately irrelevant, but I welcome more nuclear energy.
eestileib@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Tell me more about how capitalists efficiently allocate resources.
Astroturfed@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The human body produces a lot of electrical impulses. What if they just took all their workers and put them in some type of “work pod” and harnessed the energy to run the large scale AI?
sixCats@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
This seems kind of ideal though, computers provide a near constant load (relatively speaking) that combines very well with nuclear energy.
Perhaps we should be asking why we haven’t already been doing this for the past decade?
Pxtl@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
I predict that within 10 years, computers will be twice as powerful, ten thousand times larger, and so expensive that only the 5 richest kings of Europe will own them
not_gsa@lemm.ee 1 year ago
There is nothing wrong with nuclear power
constantokra@lemmy.one 1 year ago
I’m not one to be all doom and gloom about ai, but giving one its own small nuclear reactor, presumably one that’s in close proximity to it and separate from the local power grid… that’s obviously going to have substantial security measures around it… and be that much more difficult to cut off if need be…
I mean, it’s starting to sound a lot like an unbelievable plot hole in a bad sci fi movie isn’t it?
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 year ago
LLM seemed really impressive at first, but it made it to “this year’s NFTs” in record time.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
Mega corporations should not be allowed to use nuclear power plants purely for themselves.
Also, if you need that much power to do something bthat a human brain does with under 100 watts, I really think you’re doing it wrong
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
with the hopes of buying electricity from it as soon as 2028.
Fusion won’t be ready by then
Energy should be public
Nobsi@feddit.de 1 year ago
Just fill the Country with Solar, Wind and Water… won’t take 10 years and will be cheaper too.
Z3k3@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Hi bing. How do I stop a nuclear reactor from going critical?
dope@lemm.ee 1 year ago
The ultimate “AI product” will be a videogame that keeps you playing as long as possible. Indefinitely even.
PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Imagine if it ends up requiring the achieving of ignition for Microsoft to launch a version of clippy that is able to reliably comprehend English grammar enough to make writing recommendations.
Phero@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I guess the rich don’t have an energy crisis.
GreenMario@lemm.ee 1 year ago
AI needs that’s much power?
Fuck you, ditch it like a Zune and make some more video games.
squiblet@kbin.social 1 year ago
I can't handle this . i'm going to sleep.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I don’t get why a train AI would need so much power, how hard is it to drive a train?
Will the nuclear reactors be on the train with the AI, or will it be some sort of wired transfer?
tonytins@pawb.social 1 year ago
While I appreciate them going a greener route, if these chat AIs are still this inefficient to simply train, maybe it is best left to return them back to the research phrase.
xenomor@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m not opposed to new nuclear energy in principle. However Microsoft, an unrelentingly bad organization that consistently acts in bad faith to its customers, employees and businesses parters, and is seemingly dedicated to making awful products that never meaningfully improve, is not something I would trust to do nuclear safely.
cypher_greyhat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If they handle their nuclear reactor like they handle their cloud infrastructure security, we’re doomed.
AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 1 year ago
The thought of a nuclear reactor running on Windows is terrifying.
BaronVonBort@lemmy.world 1 year ago
They’re going to build it in 2026 but it’ll still somehow be running on XP.
Abnorc@lemm.ee 1 year ago
“What operating system is that running?”
“Uh… vista.”
“We’re all going to die!”
thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
XP is still a solid OS as long as you don’t connect to the internet.
whitecapstromgard@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Even Microsoft does not trust Windows on Azure 🤣
Godort@lemm.ee 1 year ago
They’ll probably not use Windows, instead opting for an OS that is proven to work with already running reactors, like QNX
swab148@startrek.website 1 year ago
They should run Arch, btw
scarabic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Modern nuclear reactors are designed to fail safely, so Windows couldn’t actually create a Chernobyl. Everything wrong with nuclear in our world is with old-gen plants. It’s a technology that got ahead of itself by 50 years.
threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 1 year ago
Yeah, there’s very little information in the article on what type of reactor they plan to use, but I hope they’re able to go with something like a molten salt reactor with the thorium fuel cycle.
MonkderZweite@feddit.ch 1 year ago
thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com 1 year ago
Lol, even Microsoft wouldn’t use Windows to train AI.
jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de 1 year ago
Like Microsoft uses Windows for anything that matters since they got rid of Balmer.
jarfil@lemmy.world 1 year ago
But… Developers!.. /s
9point6@lemmy.world 1 year ago
A lot of them do IIRC, windows 98 is popping into my mind as an instance I’ve read of
dezmd@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Windows NT or 2000. Not 98.
Rakonat@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Could be worse, could be running MacOS. Surely nothing bad can happen while the entire system freezes for no reason for 15 minutes or more without any possible input from the user. It will always fix it self… (hopefully before the reactor achieves a run away meltdown chain.)
spitfire@infosec.pub 1 year ago
What are you running? I’ve never had an issue like that at all