4 ms·
The math is just wrong though. To train a brain to be competent in a classification task it takes 20W rms for years on end for the individual + all of the watt
by AndrewKemendo 7y ago
The math is just wrong though.
To train a brain to be competent in a classification task it takes 20W rms for years on end for the individual + all of the wattage from the parents, grandparents, teachers etc... that are training the individual for those years. Very hard to determine the power allocation used for a specific human being trained on a narrow task for eg. object classification, but that doesn't mean it's not the comparable measure.
Comparing training of a single model to the "instant power" draw of the brain is not just over simplistic, the scale and time periods are wrong.
- mirrorsedge 7y agoI agree. Using watts, which are energy (joules) per unit time (second), to measure the energy consumption of training a model is the wrong unit to begin with. One cannot measure the total energy consumption of something without knowing both the wattage and the time spent running at that voltage. While training a neural network is often done from scratch or a pre-trained model with a known training time, the brain of a human being does not start developing from zero their birth. Measuring the amount of energy spent on a specific human being trained on a task would also have to account for the billions of years of evolution that lead up to the present-day structure of the human brain. It would be very hard but also very interesting to approximate the energy spent on this, but it may not be relevant to machine learning as the processing power scales and time periods are completely different than those involved in the development of the human brain.
- Invictus0 7y ago> Measuring the amount of energy spent on a specific human being trained on a task would also have to account for the billions of years of evolution that lead up to the present-day structure of the human brain. That's completely ridiculous. It's like saying that to measure the energy used by a computer on a task, you have to start by measuring the entire energy usage of the human race since the invention of the transistor.
- Invictus0 7y ago8 year olds can accomplish pretty much any classification task. 20W * 3.154E7 seconds in a year * 8 years / 3600 seconds per hour gives about 70 kilowatt-hours, which would cost about $14 from the grid at $0.20/kwh. Our AI is nowhere near the intelligence of an 8 year old, who can presumably also do more things than just decide if a photo depicts a bus or an avocado.
- Tade0 7y agoI think your math is off. 8 years at 20W is: 0.02kW * 24h * 365.25 * 8 = 1 402.56kWh
- Invictus0 7y agoYup, you're correct, forgot to multiply by the 20W. Still only about 1.5X average American monthly electricity usage.
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoOur AI is nowhere near the intelligence of an 8 year old, who can presumably also do more things than just decide if a photo depicts a bus or an avocado. Indeed, but at least you describe a slightly more accurate possible representation.
- Tade0 7y agoAlso it's important to note that the energy consumed by the brain is really really dirty, considering it's taken from sugars, which require farming to produce.
- romaniv 7y agoI'm willing to bet this will be used as one of the arguments in a corporate push for global automation in ~10 years.