I don’t think you’re completely wrong here and there is a balance to be struck between doomerism and optimism. But I do want to point out that the hole in the ozone did not just “recover.” It didn’t just heal itself up as everything just continued on the course it had been. It was an international effort to reduce and nearly eliminate use of ozone depleting chemicals such as CFCs. In that case, which people like to point out as just another disaster that didn’t happen, a disaster was looming, science gave us the understanding of what it was and what we might do to mitigate it, the international community banded together and actually did it (who would’ve thought such things were possible) and voila!
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Totally fair point, and I lived through that… It actually is a good example, on how when we put our mind to it, rely on facts and science, we can find solutions that at a minimum keep the world spinning a while longer, and possibly even make it a better place. May the same be true for AI.
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That wont happen though if we view this totally through the lens of progress at all costs (which is the way many folks already view climate change). I don’t trust companies seeking trillion dollar valuations to be forthcoming or actually care about the future they’re creating. There are too many past and current examples of this to even need to cite a single one. I haven’t seen really any meaningful legislation brought forth based on legitimate concerns as this technology moves in leaps and bounds. There seems to be a broad of acceptance of this is happening, no time to slow down and ask questions, think about what the potential downsides of this are and how we could mitigate it- as if this is something that we truly, really, desperately need immediately, which in reality… we don’t.
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Almost all things that eventually get fixed, have a trail of blood that leads there. Every single improvement in aviation safety (which is phenomenal today) was brought about with a body count sometime in the past. People knew about global warming a long time ago. It’s not until the insurance companies (interestingly a very powerful course correction tool on many issues) came out of the woods on that, that things are been taken serious.
I have no illusion that the corporate cadre will do the right thing - neither the people that stand to gain immense wealth from building and selling AI solutions, nor all the unimaginative executives who hope to harness cost savings by replacing pesky people and with obedient machines, so they can buy back some more shares instead, nor politicians who have forgotten who their customers are and struggle to keep up with the complexities of the modern world.
But in time, and after some real pains, people can come together and will fix this. Just like we have a chance of fixing climate change (not without some huge pains first), and how we helped the ozone hole, and making it through all kinds of medical downers, unfortunately too late for some along the way. The people (in plural) are stronger than any one group of greedy and unempathetic biomasses.
An interesting, albeit minuscule example are the self checkout lanes. Expensive machines, thought to be magic cost savers, are currently retired from many retail stores, or relegated to overflow/backup status, because the technology didn’t deliver and didn’t account for human elements sufficiently. Humans are wonderfully complex things. Underestimating this usually ends up in tears.
But we’re straying into political points of view, so I’ll stop and get back to a technology view of the topic.
Then there’s there issue of exorbitant water use needed so that everyone on the planet can make a believable deep-fake.
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First it was bitcoin’s GPU farms, now it’s ML farms. Any gains in energy efficiency immediately offset so some truly dull people can become even more rich while also not delivering any benefits to the society.
It’s such multifaceted trash.
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I saw that, the idea that many many companies would be building data centers that require extensive cooling in the hottest part of the country never even occurred to me.
I clearly do not know how to business.
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Well, this just took another dimension. Amazon just signed a $650M deal to buy a data center originally built by a nuclear power company. It’s located next door to the 2.5GW Susquehana nuke plant. The data center is currently designed up to 425MW, but could have as much as 965MW available from the nuke plant, or about 40% of its capacity.
If that’s one of the extra taxes we pay for all these AI short-cuts, I think we may have to reconsider the environmental impact. Flame artists enjoying methane taxed steaks and doing it old-school is probably still more environmentally friendly.
There were days were they used to build data centers in Western Washington powered by hydro.
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Are you just coming at it from a terms of overall power usage? Because nuclear is pretty clean, no?
Fair question and challenge.
Yes, this was based on overall power usage. Nuclear generally is more climate neutral than some other sources. However people using AI tools don’t ask which power source is underlying their answer and forgoing the convenience if they don’t get green choices they might prefer.
I think we should add the power consumption in total to the list of concerns associated with unquestioning celebration of AI tools as a big step forward.
Not the least that power consumption is an indicator for electronic circuitry usage with has other environmental consequences. Not that we would nor should forgo them, but a huge spike is worth at least looking at the data to make informed decisions.
One comparison we have data for is the operating cost of a search query. Most data sources peg AI search results at 10x the cost of traditional Google searches with present technology. Not certain if this includes the initial training, or is just the inference.
Remember when cryptominers tapped a huge portions of Iceland’s power grid and GPUs were insanely expensive and hard to find. Far in the rearview mirror. But distortions like that have unexpected consequences. Think AirBnB and rent prices.
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Master Fincher speaks.
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** for now **
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WaPo today: https://wapo.st/3IqeK6P
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Hmmm… maybe the AI can turn humans into batteries? And then have them sort of ‘dream’ like they are actually living in a world. That world is obviously created by the AI… … .
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I mean, here we are, right? So easy, even middle schoolers can use it! Beverly Hills middle school rocked by AI-generated nude images of students
And the AI election begins.
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We’re fucked when AI stops using The Simpsons for finger and hand reference.
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. . . and to think we were outraged when the first industry to adopt the internet was porn. Those days seem so innocent now.
The person creating and distributing this type of fake image needs to be punished.
The more it’s tolerated, the more it will happen.
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