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FTA: > Many large companies, which can train thousands upon thousands of models daily, are taking the issue seriously. No they don't. Because: > Continuing t

by wiz21c 4y ago

FTA: > Many large companies, which can train thousands upon thousands of models daily, are taking the issue seriously. No they don't. Because: > Continuing to build larger and more computationally intensive deep learning networks is not a sustainable path to building intelligent machines. If they'd care, they would evaluate how they threaten humanity's future by emitting more CO2 versus how they improve humanity's future with the services they provide. Instead, they start from the idea that their services are a non negotiable absolute net positive (TBH it's obvious since it's their raison d'être)) and that CO2 is a negative that can be managed. Whereas, to me, it's the opposite: CO2 is an absolute non negotiable negative and the services might be changed or removed.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
You are ignoring that all major cloud providers are aiming to be carbon neutral in the next few years and regularly publish their progress on that front. They take this very serious because people keep asking them about this and they don't like it when they have to give answers people won't like. Most companies at this point are well aware that they don't have forever to clean up their act. And most of the big tech companies have actually been very pro-active on this front for quite some time. Pretty much all new data centers are powered using renewables. Not because it's cleaner but because it's cheaper. If your main consumable is a lot of electricity, you are going to want to source it cheaply. Which these days means the same as using renewables. Mostly that's a mix of them generating their own power and supplementing that with renewable energy on the local market. That has been the case for quite a few years, which is why companies like Google and Amazon figured out that they were also helping themselves financially by pushing hard for carbon neutral well over a decade ago. So, whatever goes on in those newer data centers is pretty much not emitting any co2. Aside of course from manufacturing of hardware and construction of the site, which would be a separate topic. Some of the older data centers are still powered via coal/gas plants, especially in the US. Those will likely clean up their act in the next few years. All the big cloud providers have announced roadmaps for becoming carbon neutral. Once that is done, data centers will use a lot of energy that is generated sustainably. That doesn't mean that there aren't issues around this. E.g. the Netherlands is reluctant to host more data centers because they are claiming all the sustainable energy that is available in the local market and they have to worry about powering the rest of the country in a sustainable way too. And since that costs a lot of money, having Facebook or Google then get subsidized to use all of the newly available wind power looks a bit bad. But all that means is that there's a lot of healthy demand for clean power that short term outstrips supply. Lots of companies are working to tap into that rapidly growing market. Which is good news for our planet. Any market that supplies a lot of clean & cheap energy can expect to see businesses trying to make use of that. Especially energy intensive businesses like data centers. So, there's a great incentive for governments around the world to make that happen. So, perhaps the wrong reflex is to argue that we should all become Luddites to reduce demand on renewable energy. The right response is to argue for sourcing your cloud services sustainably. Most cloud providers can probably tell you which of their data centers are clean and which aren't. They might not be very vocal about dirtier ones but you can choose which regions you host in and which ones you skip and make some educated guesses. Interesting way to nudge them a little harder. That's on you, not them. Not a lot of companies do that yet. But they could. And IMHO they should.

by wiz21c 4y ago

jillesvangurp 4y ago

You are ignoring that all major cloud providers are aiming to be carbon neutral in the next few years and regularly publish their progress on that front. They take this very serious because people keep asking them about this and they don't like it when they have to give answers people won't like. Most companies at this point are well aware that they don't have forever to clean up their act. And most of the big tech companies have actually been very pro-active on this front for quite some time. Pretty much all new data centers are powered using renewables. Not because it's cleaner but because it's cheaper. If your main consumable is a lot of electricity, you are going to want to source it cheaply. Which these days means the same as using renewables. Mostly that's a mix of them generating their own power and supplementing that with renewable energy on the local market. That has been the case for quite a few years, which is why companies like Google and Amazon figured out that they were also helping themselves financially by pushing hard for carbon neutral well over a decade ago. So, whatever goes on in those newer data centers is pretty much not emitting any co2. Aside of course from manufacturing of hardware and construction of the site, which would be a separate topic. Some of the older data centers are still powered via coal/gas plants, especially in the US. Those will likely clean up their act in the next few years. All the big cloud providers have announced roadmaps for becoming carbon neutral. Once that is done, data centers will use a lot of energy that is generated sustainably. That doesn't mean that there aren't issues around this. E.g. the Netherlands is reluctant to host more data centers because they are claiming all the sustainable energy that is available in the local market and they have to worry about powering the rest of the country in a sustainable way too. And since that costs a lot of money, having Facebook or Google then get subsidized to use all of the newly available wind power looks a bit bad. But all that means is that there's a lot of healthy demand for clean power that short term outstrips supply. Lots of companies are working to tap into that rapidly growing market. Which is good news for our planet. Any market that supplies a lot of clean & cheap energy can expect to see businesses trying to make use of that. Especially energy intensive businesses like data centers. So, there's a great incentive for governments around the world to make that happen. So, perhaps the wrong reflex is to argue that we should all become Luddites to reduce demand on renewable energy. The right response is to argue for sourcing your cloud services sustainably. Most cloud providers can probably tell you which of their data centers are clean and which aren't. They might not be very vocal about dirtier ones but you can choose which regions you host in and which ones you skip and make some educated guesses. Interesting way to nudge them a little harder. That's on you, not them. Not a lot of companies do that yet. But they could. And IMHO they should.