HN reacts to a New Yorker piece on the “obscene energy demands of AI” with exactly the same arguments coiners use when confronted with the energy cost of blockchain - the product is valuable in of itself, demands for more energy will spur investment in energy generation, and what about the energy costs of painting oil on canvas, hmmmmmm???

Maybe it’s just my newness antennae needing calibrating, but I do feel the extreme energy requirements for what’s arguably just a frivolous toy is gonna cause AI boosters big problems, especially as energy demands ramp up in the US in the warmer months. Expect the narrative to adjust to counter it.

  • Deborah@hachyderm.io
    0·
    9 months ago

    It is in fact quite doable to condemn the AI industry, which is what uses all the energy, without condemning AI scholarship, which quite definitely doesn’t. In fact, I know that’s possible, because that’s the overall take of the commentariat here.

    The frivolous toy and the thing using all the energy are the same picture.

    See also: supporting space research is why many of us condemn starlink’s LEO pollution.

    • 1stTime4MeInMCU@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      9 months ago

      I don’t disagree with anything you said but I don’t think the distinction was explicit in the OP hence my comment. It was a “yes and”

      Also responding to a general anti AI trend in public discourse that I think is short sighted and inaccurate rather than specifically to OP

      • gerikson@awful.systemsOPEnglish
        0·
        9 months ago

        From your syntax I can divine that you are mad at me (or rather, my submission) but for the life of me I don’t understand why. Is it because I wrote “AI” instead of “the bad AI from BigTech using TWh to generate shitty hero images for blogs but not the good AI from the heroic researchers constructing our glorious future for the pure love of science” ?

        If so, nothing would please me more than for the “bad AI” to crash and burn, pauperize Sam Altman and all his bootlickers, and AI research to retreat to the academic caves to hibernate another AI winter.

        • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
          0·
          9 months ago

          every time I see responses like that I’m left wondering if it’s from someone working in (or closely adjacent to) the field. someone with some eyes on the potential and Big Mad about the bullshit, but feeling unable to affect it in any manner

          a charitable interpretation (and wishful thinking perhaps?), but still

        • 1stTime4MeInMCU@mander.xyzEnglish
          0·
          9 months ago

          I’m not mad at you at all, i basically agreed with you. i was just engaging in a more nuanced discussion…. Or trying to. the replies here seem fairly hostile so I think I’ll see myself out of this community.

          • self@awful.systemsEnglish
            0·
            9 months ago

            ah yes, the type of nuance that can’t survive even the extremely mild amount of pushback you’ve experienced in this thread. but since we’re “fairly hostile” and all that, how about I make sure your lying AI-pushing ass can’t show up in any of our threads again

            I should’ve known taking my time to explain our stance was a waste of my fucking time when you brought up nuance in the first place — the only time I see you shitheads give a fuck about that is when you’re looking to shift the Overton window while pretending to take a centrist position