5 ms·

Another way to look at this is just how efficient the human brain is for the same amount of computation. On one hand, we have racks of servers (1920 CPUs and 2

by mizzao 11y ago

Another way to look at this is just how efficient the human brain is for the same amount of computation. On one hand, we have racks of servers (1920 CPUs and 280 GPUs) [1] using megawatts (gigawatts?) of power, and on the other hand we have a person eating food and using about 100W of power (when physically at rest), of which about 20W is used by the brain. [1] http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21694540-win-or-lose-best-five-battle-contest-another-milestone http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2169454...

Drdrdrq 11y ago
Sure, but AlphaGo will probably evolve much faster. In a few years it will run on much smaller devices, as happened to chess programs.
- WoodenChair 11y ago
  Exactly - the watts comparison is a bad one. Stockfish running on an iPhone (~5 watts?) can play world class chess.
  - hajile 11y ago
    A single A15 core at around 1Ghz has more Gflops of power than deep blue had across it's whole system (11.38Gflops). 1920 CPUs (a 4-core haswell from 2013 is around 170Gflops). 280 GPUs (previous gen Nvidia K series peaks at around 5200GFLOPS). That's 1,782,400Gflops or around 150,000x more processing power. If they were running latest-gen hardware, then the would be closer to 200,000x faster. Given that Moore's law is slowing down and the size of the system, we're a long way from considering putting that in a smartphone.
Bud 11y ago
Definitely not anything close to gigawatts: ALL of Google (not DeepMind, but the entire company) uses only about 260 megawatts. Probably on the order of one megawatt or so. http://inhabitat.com/infographic-how-much-energy-does-google-use/ http://inhabitat.com/infographic-how-much-energy-does-google...
- Tempest1981 11y ago
  Still, wow! And a human is using 100W or so: (~400 max) https://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2012/07/31/understanding-energy-part-1/ https://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2012/07/31/underst...
  - zkhalique 11y ago
    And don't forget, the human grows organically from a complex system of DNA that also codes for way more than playing Go! And is able to perform a lot of tasks very efficiently, including cooperating together on open ended activities.
    - eru 11y ago
      On the other hand, they've only been working on Alphago for two years.
    - rabidrat 11y ago
      And building an AI that can play better than itself :)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ec109685 11y ago
We need to keep our brain running 24x7x365, though, so in the long run, deep mind is more efficient.
userbinator 11y ago
We can estimate the power consumption: 1920 CPUs as in cores, or physical packages? If the latter they are ~100W each, so that's 192kW; if it's the former, depending on how many cores per package, a fraction of that. The GPUs are likely to be counting physical packages (and not cores, which is much more) and they draw 300-400W each, for a total of ~300kW. Add a bit of overhead and I'd say 500kW (half a megawatt) is a good rough estimate.
- mortehu 11y ago
  The figures quoted for the cluster are about 25 times higher than those quoted for a single machine, so I would guess the cluster consists of 25 machines. 20 kW, or 166 amperes at 120 volts, per machine seems a bit high to me.
CydeWeys 11y ago
People are focusing way too much on the current hardware that AlphaGo happens to be running on. AlphaGo is still a very new program (two years since inception). It will get significantly better with more training, or, equivalently, it will stay at the same strength while running on much less hardware. Don't read too much into what one particular snapshot in its development cycle looks like. Humanity has had hundreds of millions of years to maximize the efficiency of the brain. AlphaGo has had two years. It's not a fair comparison, and more importantly, it's not instructive as to what the future potential of AI algorithms looks like.
kindiana 11y ago
It should use less that 0.5 megawatt, 1920 * 150W (High end server CPU) + 280 * 300W (Nvidia Tesla cards)

by mizzao 11y ago

Drdrdrq 11y ago

Sure, but AlphaGo will probably evolve much faster. In a few years it will run on much smaller devices, as happened to chess programs.

WoodenChair 11y ago
Exactly - the watts comparison is a bad one. Stockfish running on an iPhone (~5 watts?) can play world class chess.
- hajile 11y ago
  A single A15 core at around 1Ghz has more Gflops of power than deep blue had across it's whole system (11.38Gflops). 1920 CPUs (a 4-core haswell from 2013 is around 170Gflops). 280 GPUs (previous gen Nvidia K series peaks at around 5200GFLOPS). That's 1,782,400Gflops or around 150,000x more processing power. If they were running latest-gen hardware, then the would be closer to 200,000x faster. Given that Moore's law is slowing down and the size of the system, we're a long way from considering putting that in a smartphone.

Bud 11y ago

Definitely not anything close to gigawatts: ALL of Google (not DeepMind, but the entire company) uses only about 260 megawatts. Probably on the order of one megawatt or so. http://inhabitat.com/infographic-how-much-energy-does-google-use/ http://inhabitat.com/infographic-how-much-energy-does-google...

Tempest1981 11y ago
Still, wow! And a human is using 100W or so: (~400 max) https://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2012/07/31/understanding-energy-part-1/ https://sustainability.blogs.brynmawr.edu/2012/07/31/underst...
- zkhalique 11y ago
  And don't forget, the human grows organically from a complex system of DNA that also codes for way more than playing Go! And is able to perform a lot of tasks very efficiently, including cooperating together on open ended activities.
  - eru 11y ago
    On the other hand, they've only been working on Alphago for two years.
  - rabidrat 11y ago
    And building an AI that can play better than itself :)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

ec109685 11y ago

We need to keep our brain running 24x7x365, though, so in the long run, deep mind is more efficient.

userbinator 11y ago

We can estimate the power consumption: 1920 CPUs as in cores, or physical packages? If the latter they are ~100W each, so that's 192kW; if it's the former, depending on how many cores per package, a fraction of that. The GPUs are likely to be counting physical packages (and not cores, which is much more) and they draw 300-400W each, for a total of ~300kW. Add a bit of overhead and I'd say 500kW (half a megawatt) is a good rough estimate.

mortehu 11y ago
The figures quoted for the cluster are about 25 times higher than those quoted for a single machine, so I would guess the cluster consists of 25 machines. 20 kW, or 166 amperes at 120 volts, per machine seems a bit high to me.

CydeWeys 11y ago

People are focusing way too much on the current hardware that AlphaGo happens to be running on. AlphaGo is still a very new program (two years since inception). It will get significantly better with more training, or, equivalently, it will stay at the same strength while running on much less hardware. Don't read too much into what one particular snapshot in its development cycle looks like. Humanity has had hundreds of millions of years to maximize the efficiency of the brain. AlphaGo has had two years. It's not a fair comparison, and more importantly, it's not instructive as to what the future potential of AI algorithms looks like.

kindiana 11y ago

It should use less that 0.5 megawatt, 1920 * 150W (High end server CPU) + 280 * 300W (Nvidia Tesla cards)