cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/32023985
Writing a 100-word email using ChatGPT (GPT-4, latest model) consumes 1 x 500ml bottle of water It uses 140Wh of energy, enough for 7 full charges of an iPhone Pro Max
Of course the db0 community downvoted it
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but who’s the db0 community?
Divisions by Zero, an anarchist instance which is really cool in many ways, such as being strong activists against copyright and for piracy, but also very into technology.
Since the crosspost in on LW and 98% upvoted, not sure what the person you’re replying to is talking about.
Seeing db0’s stance on AI has been depressing.
“Back in my day”, the sense among piracy advocates seemed to be that cultural artifacts are so important to society and human dignity that they shouldn’t be held hostage by gatekeepers who are only interested in profit and see exposure to a wide audience as a monetization failure. It was a respect tor the value of a creative work, a duty to preserve that signal and not let it be consumed by the noise of commerce.
Today, it seems that the pirate scene views cultural artifacts as disposable and fungible, raw materials with no essence or signal in their own right. It’s more about speedrunning towards some inevitable nihilistic chaos, tearing everything down to spite the old gatekeepers and joining forces with the new gatekeepers so long as they seem to be on the side of destruction and “free shit”. There’s no allegiance to society, just a brutal individualistic free-for-all.
It’s the antithesis of what I believed the internet was going to do to the old copyright regime. And I’m not sure there’s a home for people who still think like me.
We’re just not doing the same knee-jerk reactions to GenerativeAI as technology. I would argue most of us are against corporate control of such technology though. In a sense it’s like not being against social media even through we’re against facebook and reddit.
Personally, I reject copyrights as a valid framework, and thus all arguments that hinge on respect for copyrights to go against GenerativeAI fall flat. I likewise find that the problems caused by generative AI are capitalist problems, and not technological problems.
More to the point, I regularly upvote and posts posts such as the OP myself on !techtakes@awful.systems
Many data centres use water-based systems to cool the plant with towers evaporating the heat, like a huge perspiration system, which means that the water is lost. It also has to be drinking quality because impurities can damage the servers.
If anyone was curious like me.
It seems like it wouldn’t be insanely costly to make the system near closed loop with minimal water loss.
That would take a lot of energy for a facility that is very energy hungry already. It is cheaper to pull in cold water from the mains and flush hot water down the sewer.
Could do what nuke plants do and have another heat exchanger between the clean water and the water that evaporates, then use less clean water for that loop. If that’s too expensive it just means they aren’t being charged enough for potable water.
And possibly even use the hot water to generate electricity if it’s at a scale.
