4 ms·

If you think this is bad, wait until AI compute becomes mainstream.

ceejayoz 3y ago
Vastly different scenario. My AI being super power efficient doesn't harm yours; there's a shared incentive to make it as cheap and low-power usage as possible. We're not scrabbling to take a share of a limited pie as we would over a block reward. Proof-of-work cryptocurrency power usage/efficiency is a zero-sum game in a way AI is not.
- Timber-6539 3y ago
  There's no evidence that AI is getting more power efficient or that it will in the future. It's still new tech that we haven't tested to the limit. Current indications lend to AI going more cloud/enterprise (centralized) than local (decentralized) where it will continue to increase energy demands to data centers that were already power hungry before AI. The Bitcoin miners and AI compute scenarios are more alike than you think.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > There's no evidence that AI is getting more power efficient or that it will in the future. Model optimization is absolutely a thing; faster models are desireable, and GPUs are in short supply. And, again, my model getting optimized doesn't hurt you. If I make a faster or more efficient Bitcoin miner, that directly reduces your profits, because all miners are competing for a fixed pile of rewards.
    - Timber-6539 3y ago
      Just because AI-specific GPUs are in short supply today doesn't make your argument stronger. You are complicating the comparison with the incentives for Bitcoin mining. It is irrelevant to the fact that it is today consuming more power than ever due to the increase in demand of the commodity. In the same comparison, the same increase in demand is what's going to 3x today's energy use for AI and probably even surpass Bitcoin's in the future.
      - ceejayoz 3y ago
        In Bitcoin, the computation being challenging is key to the product. In AI, it's an inconvenience to be optimized away if at all possible. If someone figures out how to make AI models run on an iPhone with zero battery use, everyone goes "yay!", not "oh no our entire financial system collapsed". AI and Bitcoin may both use a lot of power, but there's a vast difference in whether they want to. (There's also a difference in how useful they are, but that's a separate argument.)
        Timber-6539 3y ago
        > If someone figures out how to make AI models run on an iPhone with zero battery use, everyone goes "yay!" This is what I call wishful thinking. I never said Bitcoin and AI have similar energy use patterns which is the argument you are keen to make. My original argument was that AI usage is going to be worse than Bitcoin in the long run. With some AI farms using ~3000W per server, it's a no-brainer where this is all headed. Add in the fact that AI has so far proven to be more popular at launch than Bitcoin. Just because you can optimize models doesn't mean that people won't want or need bigger better models to train/use.

Vastly different scenario. My AI being super power efficient doesn't harm yours; there's a shared incentive to make it as cheap and low-power usage as possible. We're not scrabbling to take a share of a limited pie as we would over a block reward. Proof-of-work cryptocurrency power usage/efficiency is a zero-sum game in a way AI is not.

Timber-6539 3y ago
There's no evidence that AI is getting more power efficient or that it will in the future. It's still new tech that we haven't tested to the limit. Current indications lend to AI going more cloud/enterprise (centralized) than local (decentralized) where it will continue to increase energy demands to data centers that were already power hungry before AI. The Bitcoin miners and AI compute scenarios are more alike than you think.
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > There's no evidence that AI is getting more power efficient or that it will in the future. Model optimization is absolutely a thing; faster models are desireable, and GPUs are in short supply. And, again, my model getting optimized doesn't hurt you. If I make a faster or more efficient Bitcoin miner, that directly reduces your profits, because all miners are competing for a fixed pile of rewards.
  - Timber-6539 3y ago
    Just because AI-specific GPUs are in short supply today doesn't make your argument stronger. You are complicating the comparison with the incentives for Bitcoin mining. It is irrelevant to the fact that it is today consuming more power than ever due to the increase in demand of the commodity. In the same comparison, the same increase in demand is what's going to 3x today's energy use for AI and probably even surpass Bitcoin's in the future.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      In Bitcoin, the computation being challenging is key to the product. In AI, it's an inconvenience to be optimized away if at all possible. If someone figures out how to make AI models run on an iPhone with zero battery use, everyone goes "yay!", not "oh no our entire financial system collapsed". AI and Bitcoin may both use a lot of power, but there's a vast difference in whether they want to. (There's also a difference in how useful they are, but that's a separate argument.)
      - Timber-6539 3y ago
        > If someone figures out how to make AI models run on an iPhone with zero battery use, everyone goes "yay!" This is what I call wishful thinking. I never said Bitcoin and AI have similar energy use patterns which is the argument you are keen to make. My original argument was that AI usage is going to be worse than Bitcoin in the long run. With some AI farms using ~3000W per server, it's a no-brainer where this is all headed. Add in the fact that AI has so far proven to be more popular at launch than Bitcoin. Just because you can optimize models doesn't mean that people won't want or need bigger better models to train/use.