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> The important thing to remember, though, is that there are economic limits involved in the total energy use for this kind of technology. With bitcoin mining,

> The important thing to remember, though, is that there are economic limits involved in the total energy use for this kind of technology. With bitcoin mining, for instance, the total energy usage has jumped up and down over time, tracking pretty closely with the price of bitcoin. When bitcoin is less valuable, miners are less willing to spend a lot of electricity chasing lower potential profits. That's why alarmist headlines about bitcoin using all the world's energy by 2020 never came to pass (to say nothing of efficiency gains in mining hardware). > A similar trend will likely guide the use of generative AI as a whole, with the energy invested in AI servers tracking the economic utility society as a whole sees from the technology. This comparison is inappropriate. Cryptocurrency was and is mainly an object of speculation, not of intrinsic economic value. I'm contrast, AI has clearly a lot of economic value, and that value increases with time, since it gets better with time. Moreover, the rate of improvement over the last few years have been staggering. Things that seemed far out of reach science fiction technology ten years ago are now unremarkable reality. So there are solid empirical grounds to expect that progress in the coming 10 years will be transformative as well. Nothing like that was or is the case for cryptocurrency.

troupo 2y ago
> I'm contrast, AI has clearly a lot of economic value It's clear it has some economic value. It's not yet clear if it has a lot of it. So far the only economic value it has has been inflation the valuation and stock of any company that has word AI in it
- amarant 2y ago
  This is just plain wrong. Autonomous taxis are operating in several cities, I know of several companies that use AI to detect and fix bugs in code, and at least one that is currently experimenting with completely automating the process of updating dependencies, and using AI to do any necessary changes when new dependency versions contain breaking changes. Those are just a few things off the top of my head, and we're already talking millions if not billions of dollars in actual value, actual services rendered to society with zero speculation involved.
  - lwranx 2y ago
    Detect and fix bugs? Sounds like snake oil. Even compilers analyzers are full of false positive warnings, LLMs are even worse.
    - amarant 2y ago
      I've personally verified and approved a actual bugfix made by a LLM. Wasn't the trickiest nor most severe bug I've ever seen, but it had slipped through the cracks in our testing and review process, and the LLM caught it. Nothing snake oily here. Also: What compiler are you using that's giving you false positive warnings? I have never heard of a false positive warning nor error from a compiler, but perhaps you're using some weird tooling I'm not familiar with?
  - troupo 2y ago
    > Autonomous taxis are operating in several cities So, some economic value. BTW are those companies profitable at all? Or are they like Uber: losing billions of dollars every year with no chance of ever turning a profit? Though I will agree that decades-old and decades-long research into computer vision and traffic modelling is finally paying off a bit in automotive industry. > AI to detect and fix bugs in code, and at least one that is currently experimenting So, unverifiable claims and experiments > Those are just a few things off the top of my head Those "few things" are exactly two things, and are evidence of some highly disputable economic value. Not evidence of a lot of economic value.
    - cubefox 2y ago
      > > Autonomous taxis are operating in several cities > So, some economic value. BTW are those companies profitable at all? Or are they like Uber: losing billions of dollars every year with no chance of ever turning a profit? AI taxis mean that there are no wages for the driver. The AI driver is basically a slave. The cost of developing the AI may be quite high, or the increased cost for the cars (more sensors), but those things probably scale better than wages for us humans.
  - advael 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
chii 2y ago
> Cryptocurrency was and is mainly an object of speculation, not of intrinsic economic value. i say this is not correct. What is "intrinsic" value? I argue that if people want it, then it has intrinsic value.
- FerretFred 2y ago
  That intrinsic value recently enabled me to spend some Bitcoin on a new tablet device. Works for me!
  - abenga 2y ago
    This just means you passed something intrinsically worthless on to another person in exchange for a useful good. There is a name for this in economic theory, but it's a bit of an insult.
    - chii 2y ago
      > There is a name for this in economic theory, but it's a bit of an insult. calling it money is no insult.
- latexr 2y ago
  > I argue that if people want it, then it has intrinsic value. In other words, what you’re arguing is “if it has extrinsic value, then it has intrinsic value”. Which would break the point of the distinction. Intrinsic value is the exact opposite of what you’re saying, it’s something having value by itself.

troupo 2y ago

> I'm contrast, AI has clearly a lot of economic value It's clear it has some economic value. It's not yet clear if it has a lot of it. So far the only economic value it has has been inflation the valuation and stock of any company that has word AI in it

amarant 2y ago
This is just plain wrong. Autonomous taxis are operating in several cities, I know of several companies that use AI to detect and fix bugs in code, and at least one that is currently experimenting with completely automating the process of updating dependencies, and using AI to do any necessary changes when new dependency versions contain breaking changes. Those are just a few things off the top of my head, and we're already talking millions if not billions of dollars in actual value, actual services rendered to society with zero speculation involved.
- lwranx 2y ago
  Detect and fix bugs? Sounds like snake oil. Even compilers analyzers are full of false positive warnings, LLMs are even worse.
  - amarant 2y ago
    I've personally verified and approved a actual bugfix made by a LLM. Wasn't the trickiest nor most severe bug I've ever seen, but it had slipped through the cracks in our testing and review process, and the LLM caught it. Nothing snake oily here. Also: What compiler are you using that's giving you false positive warnings? I have never heard of a false positive warning nor error from a compiler, but perhaps you're using some weird tooling I'm not familiar with?
- troupo 2y ago
  > Autonomous taxis are operating in several cities So, some economic value. BTW are those companies profitable at all? Or are they like Uber: losing billions of dollars every year with no chance of ever turning a profit? Though I will agree that decades-old and decades-long research into computer vision and traffic modelling is finally paying off a bit in automotive industry. > AI to detect and fix bugs in code, and at least one that is currently experimenting So, unverifiable claims and experiments > Those are just a few things off the top of my head Those "few things" are exactly two things, and are evidence of some highly disputable economic value. Not evidence of a lot of economic value.
  - cubefox 2y ago
    > > Autonomous taxis are operating in several cities > So, some economic value. BTW are those companies profitable at all? Or are they like Uber: losing billions of dollars every year with no chance of ever turning a profit? AI taxis mean that there are no wages for the driver. The AI driver is basically a slave. The cost of developing the AI may be quite high, or the increased cost for the cars (more sensors), but those things probably scale better than wages for us humans.
- advael 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

chii 2y ago

> Cryptocurrency was and is mainly an object of speculation, not of intrinsic economic value. i say this is not correct. What is "intrinsic" value? I argue that if people want it, then it has intrinsic value.

FerretFred 2y ago
That intrinsic value recently enabled me to spend some Bitcoin on a new tablet device. Works for me!
- abenga 2y ago
  This just means you passed something intrinsically worthless on to another person in exchange for a useful good. There is a name for this in economic theory, but it's a bit of an insult.
  - chii 2y ago
    > There is a name for this in economic theory, but it's a bit of an insult. calling it money is no insult.
latexr 2y ago
> I argue that if people want it, then it has intrinsic value. In other words, what you’re arguing is “if it has extrinsic value, then it has intrinsic value”. Which would break the point of the distinction. Intrinsic value is the exact opposite of what you’re saying, it’s something having value by itself.