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>“With climate change, it’s very easy to recommend what you should do: you just stop burning carbon. If you do that, eventually things will be okay. For this it

by Imnimo 3y ago

>“With climate change, it’s very easy to recommend what you should do: you just stop burning carbon. If you do that, eventually things will be okay. For this it’s not at all clear what you should do.” If we accept (I don't, but for the sake of argument) that AI is a catastrophic danger, isn't the answer equally as easy? You just stop burning carbon and you just stop training AI.

jl6 3y ago
Equally easy is one way of saying it. Equally hard is another.
goatlover 3y ago
Yes, but the "just stopping" is the equally hard part. How do you get the world to do that?
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  The world is virtually dependent on burning carbon right now, so it' difficult to work around. The world really doesn't need AI, so if we already see it as a catastrophic risk, it doesn't make sense to forge ahead with it.
  - nuancebydefault 3y ago
    It is easier to stop burning carbon than stop training of AI models. If you stop burning carbon, you fall back on other types of energy. In the long term, you will win. If you stop training AIs, another company or state will keep on training AI and will outsmart you, you will be poor or get oppressed in the long term. In other words, no matter how loud influential people say 'stop!', the AI race is an unstoppable evolution.
    - Capricorn2481 3y ago
      You're talking about how a business with profit motive looks at these things. I'm talking about how a society is going to look at the value of AI vs where we get our power. AI is a tool that is, so far, only wielded by big companies that have harvested enough data to make it worthwhile, and they'll give us a fraction of it as long as we pay. Electricity is foundational to our society, and so it's difficult to find alternative energy sources that can support us. We could do away with AI right now and be fine.
    - drewcoo 3y ago
      > If you stop burning carbon, you fall back on other types of energy. In the long term, you will win. That's quite altruistic. > If you stop training AIs, another company or state will keep on training AI and will outsmart you, you will be poor or get oppressed in the long term. Competition trumps altruism with AI? Why not with burning fossil fuels? If you stop burning fossil fuels, you're going to use more expensive systems instead. Why wouldn't some competitor continue to use cheap fossil fuels and outcompete you? When you need more electricity, you'll buy it from the cheap, dirty players, right?
      - nuancebydefault 3y ago
        On the short term, dirty means cheap. But on the longer term the renewable resources will be cheapest. Renewable has a big up-front cost. The huge infrastructure and logistics for fossil burning energy production is already in place.
kordlessagain 3y ago
Data center power costs are expected to triple in the next 5 years, likely due to advanced CPU/GPU/tensor usage. These things are linked. Anything that burns power will likely have margins and people will never ever give up potential margins.

by Imnimo 3y ago

jl6 3y ago

Equally easy is one way of saying it. Equally hard is another.

goatlover 3y ago

Yes, but the "just stopping" is the equally hard part. How do you get the world to do that?

Capricorn2481 3y ago
The world is virtually dependent on burning carbon right now, so it' difficult to work around. The world really doesn't need AI, so if we already see it as a catastrophic risk, it doesn't make sense to forge ahead with it.
- nuancebydefault 3y ago
  It is easier to stop burning carbon than stop training of AI models. If you stop burning carbon, you fall back on other types of energy. In the long term, you will win. If you stop training AIs, another company or state will keep on training AI and will outsmart you, you will be poor or get oppressed in the long term. In other words, no matter how loud influential people say 'stop!', the AI race is an unstoppable evolution.
  - Capricorn2481 3y ago
    You're talking about how a business with profit motive looks at these things. I'm talking about how a society is going to look at the value of AI vs where we get our power. AI is a tool that is, so far, only wielded by big companies that have harvested enough data to make it worthwhile, and they'll give us a fraction of it as long as we pay. Electricity is foundational to our society, and so it's difficult to find alternative energy sources that can support us. We could do away with AI right now and be fine.
  - drewcoo 3y ago
    > If you stop burning carbon, you fall back on other types of energy. In the long term, you will win. That's quite altruistic. > If you stop training AIs, another company or state will keep on training AI and will outsmart you, you will be poor or get oppressed in the long term. Competition trumps altruism with AI? Why not with burning fossil fuels? If you stop burning fossil fuels, you're going to use more expensive systems instead. Why wouldn't some competitor continue to use cheap fossil fuels and outcompete you? When you need more electricity, you'll buy it from the cheap, dirty players, right?
    - nuancebydefault 3y ago
      On the short term, dirty means cheap. But on the longer term the renewable resources will be cheapest. Renewable has a big up-front cost. The huge infrastructure and logistics for fossil burning energy production is already in place.

kordlessagain 3y ago

Data center power costs are expected to triple in the next 5 years, likely due to advanced CPU/GPU/tensor usage. These things are linked. Anything that burns power will likely have margins and people will never ever give up potential margins.