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Use of LLMs/AI costs energy, and the public is indirectly paying for it one way or another. Generalizing somewhat but focusing on a single company: https://ww

Use of LLMs/AI costs energy, and the public is indirectly paying for it one way or another. Generalizing somewhat but focusing on a single company: https://www.statista.com/statistics/788540/energy-consumption-of-google/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/788540/energy-consumptio... In 2022, Google consumed 22.3G Watt-Hours of energy. Total electricity consumption by humanity: https://www.statista.com/statistics/280704/world-power-consumption/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/280704/world-power-consu... In 2022, it was 26T Watt-Hours. Now, Google is a single company, and if we extrapolate with some cocktail-napkin math, let's say that similar tech giants put together consume, say, 20x Google? 50x Google? So between 2% and 6% of all human electricity consumption. I realize that's not broken down for AI, but I'm sure if we do break it down we'll find that's an increasing fraction. In this article: https://cse.engin.umich.edu/stories/power-hungry-ai-researchers-evaluate-energy-consumption-across-models https://cse.engin.umich.edu/stories/power-hungry-ai-research... the quoted figure is 2% of US electricity usage.

marinmania 2y ago
For what it's worth energy and electricity consumption are not the same. Fuel (for autos, planes, heating oil, etc.) would be included in energy consumption but not electrical. I'm having trouble finding reliable data quickly, but looks like 35% of energy consumption in the world is electrical. It's still an increasing fraction as you say, but it seems like a doubling or quadrupling of energy used for AI would probably have much less of an impact than the share of the population using ice-cars changing a few percentage points.
- einpoklum 2y ago
  That's a good point, I'm not sure whether the energy use stats I linked really cover non-electricity fuel use. Maybe they do, but then there's the question of how much of _Google_'s energy use is non-electric, as opposed to everybody's consumption.
coliveira 2y ago
The big problem with modern tech is the increasing separation between energy use and its results. In the past, one would buy several gallons of gasoline to burn in a car. Nowadays a similar amount of the energy is spent far away and only the results (Google search of ChatGPT results) are seen.
edmundsauto 2y ago
It's not so much about using energy - everything uses energy! Crypto, for example, uses around 70TWh. Assuming Meta + Google + Amazon use similar amounts of energy, there's a lot more value produced than in crypto mining. My point is its impossible to evaluate energy usage without considering benefits. For example, heating is one of the world's biggest consumers of energy - what % is due to people not wanting to wear a sweater inside?
deleted 2y ago
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sebastiennight 2y ago
I think you're reading both numbers incorrectly. The numbers on the Statista graphs are in U.S. notation: 22,000 means 22 thousand. (in some other countries it would mean 22) So Google consumed 22 TWh. (tera, not giga) And humanity consumed 26,000 TWh or 26 PWh. (peta) The ratio remains the same though.

marinmania 2y ago

For what it's worth energy and electricity consumption are not the same. Fuel (for autos, planes, heating oil, etc.) would be included in energy consumption but not electrical. I'm having trouble finding reliable data quickly, but looks like 35% of energy consumption in the world is electrical. It's still an increasing fraction as you say, but it seems like a doubling or quadrupling of energy used for AI would probably have much less of an impact than the share of the population using ice-cars changing a few percentage points.

einpoklum 2y ago
That's a good point, I'm not sure whether the energy use stats I linked really cover non-electricity fuel use. Maybe they do, but then there's the question of how much of _Google_'s energy use is non-electric, as opposed to everybody's consumption.

coliveira 2y ago

The big problem with modern tech is the increasing separation between energy use and its results. In the past, one would buy several gallons of gasoline to burn in a car. Nowadays a similar amount of the energy is spent far away and only the results (Google search of ChatGPT results) are seen.

edmundsauto 2y ago

It's not so much about using energy - everything uses energy! Crypto, for example, uses around 70TWh. Assuming Meta + Google + Amazon use similar amounts of energy, there's a lot more value produced than in crypto mining. My point is its impossible to evaluate energy usage without considering benefits. For example, heating is one of the world's biggest consumers of energy - what % is due to people not wanting to wear a sweater inside?

deleted 2y ago

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sebastiennight 2y ago

I think you're reading both numbers incorrectly. The numbers on the Statista graphs are in U.S. notation: 22,000 means 22 thousand. (in some other countries it would mean 22) So Google consumed 22 TWh. (tera, not giga) And humanity consumed 26,000 TWh or 26 PWh. (peta) The ratio remains the same though.