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> There is so much interesting stuff going on in GPU compute that isn't crypto. There's a lot of stuff that isn't any better than crypto either, deepfakes, pro
by Grimburger 4y ago
> There is so much interesting stuff going on in GPU compute that isn't crypto.
There's a lot of stuff that isn't any better than crypto either, deepfakes, producing hundreds of thousands stable diffusion pics of the same scene.
Much of this is still a garbage fire of greenhouse gases and e-waste, used GPU prices won't change that. Many ml advances are simply more compute and bigger models in the end.
- iforgotpassword 4y agoBy that logic you can include gaming in there as well. Thousands of people re-playing the same scenes over and over again, instead of just watching a let's play of the first person that bought the game. I guess the only reasonable uses for GPUs are cancer research etc.
- yaddaor 4y agoPlease provide a citation to a well researched study for that claim.
- WHATDOESIT 4y agoIf Google banned you it's still possible to use DuckDuckGo, or you could try out a VPN.
- Dma54rhs 4y agoPC gaming alone has bigger carbon footprint than crypto mining so objectively yes they are both anti environmental activities.
- wruza 4y agoPretty sure if I wasn’t gaming these few hours per week, my carbon footprint would be much higher. E.g. 2kWh is only 8 miles on an efficient EV and probably less than 4 miles on ICE. We have to measure avoidable costs in this case, not essential.
- switchers 4y agoRunning cards at full pelt 24/7 vs at most a few hours a day? Doubtful.
- Dma54rhs 4y agoThere have been see scientific prayers on power us usage snd PC gaming (only) and it comes similar to crypto usage. There are not many things that take tons of energy - heating, cooling, crypto, gaming etc.
- ben_w 4y agoLot of gamers, and the displays add a few more watts each to the total. Fermi estimate: 10 million latest Xboxes, used for 1 hour per day. Power estimates seem to vary from 120 W to 315 W, let's say 200 W including display. That's 2 GWh/day. Probably similar for Playstation, or at least close enough for a Fermi estimate. I'm going to guess similar for PC gaming also. Smartphones are what, about 1 W? But a few billion of them? 1 hour per day makes that another GWh/day? So probably about 7 GWh/day for Xbox + Playstation + PC + mobile, 2.5 TWh/year. Bitcoin is estimated to use 131 TWh/year according to Wikipedia. Yeah, you're right, it's not even close.
- iforgotpassword 4y agoI'd be surprised if it's actually more than crypto; while there are way more gamers than crypto miners, they don't game 24/7, don't have a dozen GPUs per rig etc. Anyways my main point was that a lot of things people do for fun are more or less directly bad for the environment, like for example creating dozens of silly images with stable diffusion. But it's still better than crypto mining imo, as doing "fun things" usually benefits you/your mental health.
- renewiltord 4y agoAnd we haven't even started talking about dog owners yet.
- Dalewyn 4y agoI'm upvoting this because, at the end of the day, this is brutally accurate. Gaming is not an activity that produces something, likewise any form of entertainment for that matter. So in the sense that nothing comes from the electricity and time used, gaming is an "anti-environmental" activity. I personally don't agree with any of this notion, because life is worthless if we can't accept life is pointless, but if we are striving for a world where consumption must always produce something then gaming is one of many things that must be eliminated.
- Grimburger 4y ago> By that logic you can include gaming in there as well. But I sorta do... excessive gaming is a waste of human potential and GPU's. I honestly regret spending a lot of my teen years playing games, I know that sounds ultra-boomer but the only thing games ever actually did for me was learning how to mod them and getting programming experience from that, something that simply doesn't exist on consoles and sadly many of the most popular games on Earth. For a time/experience ratio that's not the best way to go about it. I would have been better off surfing and chasing girls with a bit of coding on the side. If I could go back in time for ten minutes I would berate younger me for spending too long on an xbox, likely to the mocking amusement of my younger self.
- iforgotpassword 4y ago> excessive gaming is a waste of human potential and GPU's. A lot of things humans do don't produce anything, but are just done for fun and are unfortunately bad for the environment. That would even apply to surfing if you want, it produces plastic waste in the end. > but the only thing games ever actually did for me was learning how to mod them and getting programming experience from that Isn't that just a case of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence"? You're dismissing the fact that it lead you to learn programming, which is a valuable skill for many careers. Are you sure younger you would have been the surfer dude? I think there is nothing wrong with just not being that extroverted as a teen, not being the cool guy girls flock to. That's not something you just decide to be. Now you can obviously say it would have been better to be the cool dude and be really good at coding at the same time, but that's just hindsight and assuming an ideal outcome, and that's just not how it usually works. there's probably a lot of people in their 40s who have partied way too much, had girls and enjoyed life and now regret not having been more of a nerd instead because being in IT seems the foolproof way of making a lot of money, while they struggle. And just for fun, let's imagine you'd have gone surfing once a week as a teen and taken the car to the beach, how much would an half hour car ride mean for environmental impact, compared to a gaming rig at 300W?
- visarga 4y ago> producing hundreds of thousands stable diffusion pics of the same scene Why are you twisting reality? People don't generate hundreds of thousands of stable diffusion pics of the same scene. Instead they generate dozens to hundreds of images carefully tweaking the prompt and the starter image.
- sacrosancty 4y agoIf you say something's bad, you imply something else is good. So can you identify some contrasting technologies which didn't start out as a "garbage fire of greenhouse gasses and e-waste" or the appropriate equivalent? Are you wanting a world contains only those born perfect technologies?
- behnamoh 4y agoI don't know why you're being downvoted. At least the last part is totally true; advance in ML is unfortunately just bigger models, more data, and more compute. But doing ML won't necessarily boost GPU sales because most deep learning work is shifted to the cloud.
- fennecfoxen 4y agoYou do understand that the computers they use for cloud-based deep learning have GPUs in them, right?
- mrshadowgoose 4y agoYou're not going to get very far trying to impose your subjective perspective of usefulness on other people's use of energy. Energy is one of the foundational pillars of modern society, and other people are going to use it for all sorts of things, including activities that you don't like (but that are liked by others). I'd suggest focusing your irritation on advocating for universally clean generation of energy. Regardless of how much energy each of us uses, and regardless of what we use it for (even if it's something that you consider to be "useless"), most of us seem to agree that we don't want to pollute our air and ruin our planet. However, the moment you start attacking things that make other people happy, you are risking losing support for that fundamental goal.
- mr_toad 4y ago> universally clean generation of energy There’s no such thing as completely green energy. Even wind turbines use materials that need mining, refining, transportation etc.
- mrshadowgoose 4y agoSure it is. Any polluting process can be unwound with the correct application of energy.