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If you look at the arguments for/against resource consumption for bitcoin, a lot of the same arguments hold true- that actually we don’t necessarily have a defi
by awongh 2y ago
If you look at the arguments for/against resource consumption for bitcoin, a lot of the same arguments hold true- that actually we don’t necessarily have a deficit of power production. We have an energy capacity problem and distribution problem.
I wonder how much of this over supply can be taken up with AI training and how much that would change the calculations.
- macrolime 2y agoIt's not really all that useful for AI training. The reason why energy is a problem for AI training is that you need a lot of compute at one place, distributing backpropagation doesn't work that well. When the energy problems hit, it's when the datacenter need exceeds the capacity of nearby power plants. If we want an alternative I think we'd need to try alternative training algorithms that are easier to distribute. Predictive coding for example can approximate backprop, but requires more compute. Something in that direction might work https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.04182 https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.04182