4 ms·

When Alcoa built their aluminum plant in Tennessee in the early part of the 20th century they had to build a series of hydroelectric dams to power the plant. Th

by bwanab 2y ago

When Alcoa built their aluminum plant in Tennessee in the early part of the 20th century they had to build a series of hydroelectric dams to power the plant. They were using far more power than nearby Knoxville. The headline is clickbait. Nothing to see here.

i80and 2y ago
I don't think you're making a case for it being clickbait; it sounds more like you're affirming the factuality of the headline?
- loeg 2y ago
  Clickbait doesn't mean non-factual.
croes 2y ago
How many plants did they built? And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. It’s even disputable if the really raise efficiency of people.
- alchemist1e9 2y ago
  > And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. What’s the reasoning behind that assertion?
  - unholythree 2y ago
    I guess you could argue back in 1776 AI and aluminum had a roughly equal impact, only for aluminum to over take AI and become far more important by the early 20th century… Pedantic sarcasm of course.
  - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
    Occam's razor? Outside of techno optimist communities made up of people whose livelihood depends on believing in it, AI has become synonymous with slop, hallucination, cheating, and offloading of human labor to shitty bots with cool tech demos but they fall apart going from cursory to sophisticated use.
    - alchemist1e9 2y ago
      With any understanding of markets the Occam’s razor should be the other way around. Basically humanity doesn’t need a centralized planning committee to determine what is or isn’t useful for them, instead they can just spend their money/assets in a free market economy and express their individual needs and wants. If global governments/society is concerned with externalities of energy consumption they can make regulations and impose taxes/costs on energy sources with undesirable externalities. However they should NEVER as in NEVER decide what use of energy is “good” what is “bad”, there is no such concept, markets will handle preferences and allocations for the system, no centralized planning needed. If AI is still demanded even with increased overall energy costs then it’s because it provides a value and no ivory tower critic can claim they are enlightened and need to decide for all of us.
      - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
        In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. With any understanding of the real world, "demand" can be seen to be artificially manufactured. The "demand" for smart TVs reflected in the long term phasing out of non smart TVs is the result of the will of the manufacters and docility of consumers. The same playbook will have nearly all of us eventually using "AI" PCs whether we want to or not.
  - croes 2y ago
    When they built the aluminum plant did they already know if aluminum is useful? That not the case for AI, especially the current type of AI. They are convenient but if that leads to more efficiency is in dispute.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Comparing the current use of aluminium in wide range of products. Compared to current and even some future uses of AI. It is in general very useful material. And somewhat even one of the enablers for this level of AI as lot of power transmission cables are made out of it. It is better for purpose as even if the cables are thicker they weigh less for same power capacity.
- Majromax 2y ago
  > And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. It's not like these data centers or the power to run them are free, or being paid for out of public generosity. If AI proves to be over-hyped, then the private-sector backers of these ventures will lose their investments, and life will go on. Frankly, I'd expect that fate for half of the projects in this article (if not cancelled before completion) just because of the "gold rush" dynamics at play.
  - croes 2y ago
    What happens to the power plants they built or revived?
    - Lerc 2y ago
      If AI fizzles out and the investors lose everything, then I guess a group of the worlds wealthiest individuals have built a lot of infrastructure projects at no benefit to themselves. I'm prepared to take that risk.
      - croes 2y ago
        If some of these projects are nuclear power plants that’s a huge risk.
        Lerc 2y ago
        Then contest the development of nuclear power plants, not the generation of electricity in general.
- adventured 2y ago
  You're negating the value and requirement of economic laddering. You can't just jump from nascent AI to hyper useful AI / AGI, without going through all the steps from A to Z. Those steps are certain to be filled with failed experiments, 'wastefulness' (which isn't actually all wastefulness; for the process to be all waste, we'd all have to be omnipotent gods that knew better each step of the way). It'd be like pretending you could jump straight to fusion (or advanced solar et al) and never have bothered with fossil fuels. Truly economically and technologically impossible.
- Lerc 2y ago
  >And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. The utility argument holds no water for me. I don't think it should be acceptable to assume the future worth(or lack of) of anything when there are a range of opinions on the issue. This holds equally for AI and Cryptocurrency which both get criticized for having a lack of utility. Nobody knows the future utility, in both issues there are people who sincerely believe that they will be world changing. They might be wrong, but it should not be up to individuals, or even the majority, to bluntly declare a different worth and then categorize the process a waste. By all means make arguments on the long term environmental impact of proposed mechanisms used to achieve those goals, but if your goal is to convince someone else then you have to consider those impacts relative to what they believe are the benefits. Electricity use, and indeed water use, frequently gets asserted as a big number with the implication of environmental damage. If the electricity is generated cleanly or the water is not rendered otherwise unusable, then the may be negligible environmental impact.
  - zekrioca 2y ago
    Would you accept a datacenter to use your potable water and then release it for you to take a shower? Would you drink any kind of water [1]? Electricity and water are today’s main issues, but there are many indirect others like noisy neighborhoods, pollutants from diesel generators, etc. These infrastructures will start to use great portions of earth’s resources, saturating it to the point people will need to be making complex choices coming forward. [1] https://youtu.be/9H8mbIp01sg https://youtu.be/9H8mbIp01sg
    - Lerc 2y ago
      >Would you accept a datacenter to use your potable water and then release it for you to take a shower? Would you drink any kind of water If it were deemed safe by experts in the field certainly. If if were deemed unsafe, certainly not. That's all I'm asking for here, is for decisions and arguments based upon the actual impact, not by assumption that water or electricity supply is uniform and by implication, bad.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Given I have no idea what the water is used for, I would defer to an expert. If it goes through copper pipes, picks up heat, then leaves… my expectation is that this is fine, and I could drink it without further processing. Perhaps even insulate the pipes then it's a free source of pre-heated water and we can save energy. If the exit pipes cross-connect with the staff sewage lines, then it needs full processing like any other waste water stream. Without having someone actually look at the setup, I'm not going to know which it is, and there's likely a lot of other possible configurations besides those two.
almost_usual 2y ago
> For context, a data center campus with peak demand of one gigawatt is roughly equivalent to the average annual consumption of about 700,000 homes, or a city of around 1.8 million people

by bwanab 2y ago

i80and 2y ago

I don't think you're making a case for it being clickbait; it sounds more like you're affirming the factuality of the headline?

loeg 2y ago
Clickbait doesn't mean non-factual.

croes 2y ago

How many plants did they built? And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. It’s even disputable if the really raise efficiency of people.

alchemist1e9 2y ago
> And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. What’s the reasoning behind that assertion?
- unholythree 2y ago
  I guess you could argue back in 1776 AI and aluminum had a roughly equal impact, only for aluminum to over take AI and become far more important by the early 20th century… Pedantic sarcasm of course.
- add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
  Occam's razor? Outside of techno optimist communities made up of people whose livelihood depends on believing in it, AI has become synonymous with slop, hallucination, cheating, and offloading of human labor to shitty bots with cool tech demos but they fall apart going from cursory to sophisticated use.
  - alchemist1e9 2y ago
    With any understanding of markets the Occam’s razor should be the other way around. Basically humanity doesn’t need a centralized planning committee to determine what is or isn’t useful for them, instead they can just spend their money/assets in a free market economy and express their individual needs and wants. If global governments/society is concerned with externalities of energy consumption they can make regulations and impose taxes/costs on energy sources with undesirable externalities. However they should NEVER as in NEVER decide what use of energy is “good” what is “bad”, there is no such concept, markets will handle preferences and allocations for the system, no centralized planning needed. If AI is still demanded even with increased overall energy costs then it’s because it provides a value and no ivory tower critic can claim they are enlightened and need to decide for all of us.
    - add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
      In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is. With any understanding of the real world, "demand" can be seen to be artificially manufactured. The "demand" for smart TVs reflected in the long term phasing out of non smart TVs is the result of the will of the manufacters and docility of consumers. The same playbook will have nearly all of us eventually using "AI" PCs whether we want to or not.
- croes 2y ago
  When they built the aluminum plant did they already know if aluminum is useful? That not the case for AI, especially the current type of AI. They are convenient but if that leads to more efficiency is in dispute.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  Comparing the current use of aluminium in wide range of products. Compared to current and even some future uses of AI. It is in general very useful material. And somewhat even one of the enablers for this level of AI as lot of power transmission cables are made out of it. It is better for purpose as even if the cables are thicker they weigh less for same power capacity.
Majromax 2y ago
> And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. It's not like these data centers or the power to run them are free, or being paid for out of public generosity. If AI proves to be over-hyped, then the private-sector backers of these ventures will lose their investments, and life will go on. Frankly, I'd expect that fate for half of the projects in this article (if not cancelled before completion) just because of the "gold rush" dynamics at play.
- croes 2y ago
  What happens to the power plants they built or revived?
  - Lerc 2y ago
    If AI fizzles out and the investors lose everything, then I guess a group of the worlds wealthiest individuals have built a lot of infrastructure projects at no benefit to themselves. I'm prepared to take that risk.
    - croes 2y ago
      If some of these projects are nuclear power plants that’s a huge risk.
      - Lerc 2y ago
        Then contest the development of nuclear power plants, not the generation of electricity in general.
adventured 2y ago
You're negating the value and requirement of economic laddering. You can't just jump from nascent AI to hyper useful AI / AGI, without going through all the steps from A to Z. Those steps are certain to be filled with failed experiments, 'wastefulness' (which isn't actually all wastefulness; for the process to be all waste, we'd all have to be omnipotent gods that knew better each step of the way). It'd be like pretending you could jump straight to fusion (or advanced solar et al) and never have bothered with fossil fuels. Truly economically and technologically impossible.
Lerc 2y ago
>And aluminum has more benefits than these AIs. The utility argument holds no water for me. I don't think it should be acceptable to assume the future worth(or lack of) of anything when there are a range of opinions on the issue. This holds equally for AI and Cryptocurrency which both get criticized for having a lack of utility. Nobody knows the future utility, in both issues there are people who sincerely believe that they will be world changing. They might be wrong, but it should not be up to individuals, or even the majority, to bluntly declare a different worth and then categorize the process a waste. By all means make arguments on the long term environmental impact of proposed mechanisms used to achieve those goals, but if your goal is to convince someone else then you have to consider those impacts relative to what they believe are the benefits. Electricity use, and indeed water use, frequently gets asserted as a big number with the implication of environmental damage. If the electricity is generated cleanly or the water is not rendered otherwise unusable, then the may be negligible environmental impact.
- zekrioca 2y ago
  Would you accept a datacenter to use your potable water and then release it for you to take a shower? Would you drink any kind of water [1]? Electricity and water are today’s main issues, but there are many indirect others like noisy neighborhoods, pollutants from diesel generators, etc. These infrastructures will start to use great portions of earth’s resources, saturating it to the point people will need to be making complex choices coming forward. [1] https://youtu.be/9H8mbIp01sg https://youtu.be/9H8mbIp01sg
  - Lerc 2y ago
    >Would you accept a datacenter to use your potable water and then release it for you to take a shower? Would you drink any kind of water If it were deemed safe by experts in the field certainly. If if were deemed unsafe, certainly not. That's all I'm asking for here, is for decisions and arguments based upon the actual impact, not by assumption that water or electricity supply is uniform and by implication, bad.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Given I have no idea what the water is used for, I would defer to an expert. If it goes through copper pipes, picks up heat, then leaves… my expectation is that this is fine, and I could drink it without further processing. Perhaps even insulate the pipes then it's a free source of pre-heated water and we can save energy. If the exit pipes cross-connect with the staff sewage lines, then it needs full processing like any other waste water stream. Without having someone actually look at the setup, I'm not going to know which it is, and there's likely a lot of other possible configurations besides those two.

almost_usual 2y ago

> For context, a data center campus with peak demand of one gigawatt is roughly equivalent to the average annual consumption of about 700,000 homes, or a city of around 1.8 million people