Wait till the author of this article finds out about oil companies.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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Repeat after me: This. present. hype. is. not. A.I. By parroting the marketing bullshit, it doesn't become less false. Large Language Models are just glorified pattern matching and everyone who calls them AI is a dumb fuck.
It's called AI even if it isn't artificial intelligence, it's unfortunately how language works. Like how literally has been redefined to mean figuratively.
It’s called AI even if it isn’t artificial intelligence, it’s unfortunately how language works.
Only for people for whom words don't have meanings. There is nothing "intelligent" about pattern matching. As I said - only dumbfucks call it "A.I." and we shouldn't regurgitate the verbal diarrhea of marketing idiots.
You can be upset about it, it doesn't change the fact that it IS called AI. Also the meaning of words change constantly.
Doesn't make it not a disruptive technology
True. But it makes the 30% extra carbon emissions even worse: Ruining our climate for something that isn't even AI. Not that ruining it for anything should be on the table.
Holy fuck. I knew that AI did use above average amounts of power, but THIRTY FUCKING PERCENT added to the total emissions of a data giant like Microsoft????? That's absurd! How the hell did they create something so inefficient??
Efficiencies are in the works from a lot of angles (new hardware, novel agent structures, new neural net types, etc). The first computers filled rooms, and AI seems to be improving much faster. 4x the rate of Moore's Law, if it holds.
The Jevons paradox would like a word
To tie that back to MS, the code base for Windows is crufty af. I expect efficiencies to continue to come from the research and open source domains, but it's fair to point out that corpo only implement efficiencies that cost money if they can't offset that cost onto externalities like cheap labor and foreign resource degradation.
I love how they're placing the onus on the suppliers. "We'll do the rest." Great.
This wasn't how Skynet was supposed to destroy civilization.
The Animatrix described it fairly closely
What a weird coincidence. I showed my daughter The Matrix for the first time last night. It's been a long time since I was able to see someone do a "what the fuck?!" after he takes the red pill.
I know Microsoft is a controversial company from Start Menu ads to Balmer’s dancing ability. But! I have been following the AI topic pretty religiously and they have known that this would be the case for quite a while. In fact part of OpenAI’s growth struggling and subsequent partnership with Microsoft involved power generation.
Microsoft has been investing in electric power including using small module nuclear reactors. Sam Altman has been putting a lot of effort into power as well, acknowledging long ago that electricity generation is critical for AI. He’s been pushing into green energy also. Exowatt, Helion, etc.
So yes, the carbon footprint is going up now because they ‘had’ to unleash this genie from the bottle first or someone else would have. At least they know that the need for stable electric power and green power or renewable and efficient power is necessary and have been pursuing these solutions actively.
It should be so that they really change things so that power grids are more stable and renewable energy is better utilized. So to me, there is hope they are doing the right thing and putting effort where it matters.
I’m more effing disappointed and concerned about @$$h0les like Ron Desantis doing things like this:
Climate change will be a lesser priority in Florida and largely disappear from state statutes under legislation signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that also bans power-generating wind turbines offshore or near the state’s lengthy coastline.
Critics said the measure made law by the former Republican presidential hopeful ignores the reality of climate change threats in Florida, including projections of rising seas, extreme heat and flooding and increasingly severe storms.
It takes effect July 1 and would also boost expansion of natural gas, reduce regulation on gas pipelines in the state and increase protections against bans on gas appliances such as stoves, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
Helping generate less carbon at some point in the future does not help with the fact that we are racking up the carbon bill now. What these companies are doing is entirely unnecessary, gimmicky, and will lead to even worse climate change outcomes. Between AI, crypto, and the O&G companies we just keep pressing the gas even harder on serious, irreversible climate change.
I hope this AI push fails spectacularly at some point, but the damage is already being done.
The only short term solution is the sort of legislation DeSantis is fighting against. AI is useful, but should only continue while paying the full cost of its energy consumption.
small module nuclear reactors.
Hmm let's see what changed since I last looked. This study seems recent, just looking at the publicly available sections:
SMRs do not represent dramatic improvements in economics compared to large reactors.
Translation: They're way more expensive than renewables. SMRs have some advantage which are mentioned (less land usage, non-intermittency), then we have
The advanced SMRs are compared to conventional large reactors and natural gas plants,
...but not renewables+storage, which would be a good comparison point. If it looked any good they definitely would've included it.
Now that doesn't mean that these things don't make sense for Microsoft. It might e.g. simplify power distribution within datacentres to a degree that other sources just can't, also reduce or eliminate the need for backup power, etc. But generally speaking I'm still smelling techbro BS.
I don’t think Microsoft has a money problem.
The people here are such fucking morons... Yes, let's ban WIND POWER, literally one of the oldest forms of clean energy generation. I swear if I didn't have family here I'd be gone.
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