OpenAI boss Sam Altman wants $7tn. For all our sakes, pray he doesn’t get it | John Naughton
www.theguardian.com
The man behind ChatGPT is wooing the UAE to invest in energy-hungry AI. But if it turns out his tech can’t fix the world, he’s got his escape plan

OpenAI boss Sam Altman wants $7tn. For all our sakes, pray he doesn’t get it::The man behind ChatGPT is wooing the UAE to invest in energy-hungry AI. But if it turns out his tech can’t fix the world, he’s got his escape plan

  • RonSijmEnglish
    26·
    9 months ago

    Ok, sure. So in a tech race, if energy is a bottleneck - and we’d be pouring $7tn into tech here - don’t you think some of the improvements would be to Power usage effectiveness (PUE) - or a better Compute per Power Ratio?

    • thejml@lemm.eeEnglish
      111·
      9 months ago

      Every time we make tech use 1/2 as much power per unit of work , something comes along to need 3 times as much work. AI, Blockchain, etc.

      • GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.mlEnglish
        6·
        9 months ago

        The phenomenon you describe is called Jevons paradox. Absent a law to safeguard the increased efficiency, the waste will follow quickly.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.zipEnglish
        6·
        9 months ago

        Not producing any apparent value (above less wasteful alternatives) at that. Like ballast.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
      5·
      9 months ago

      There may be PUE. However AI adds significant net new energy expenditure. Even if you get higher efficiency per compute unit, you’re still burning more coal and gas, or using renewable capacity that could be going towards replacing coal and gas. And then in this particular example 7T is a huge amount of capital that could move the needle on so many difficult climate problems like decarbonizing steel, concrete and ag. I think spending that on AI that will likely only accelerate us towards planetary ecosystem destruction is … not great to say it politely. 😂 Climate change is an existential problem for our species. The lack of AI advancement, even the lack of AGI is not. If there was any likely solution to climate change that could come out of AI, I might think differently. However we have all the computation methods needed to analyze and solve what we can about climate change. We just need much more resources in doing those things now.

      Speaking of compute optimization, someone who’s actually built chips just chimed in on the matter.