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Is it possible that after 3-4 years of performance optimizations, both algorithmic and in hardware efficiency, it will turn out that we didn’t really need all o
by odyssey7 2y ago
Is it possible that after 3-4 years of performance optimizations, both algorithmic and in hardware efficiency, it will turn out that we didn’t really need all of the nuclear plants we’re currently in the process of setting up to satisfy the power demands of AI data centers?
- lm28469 2y agoIt's called the rebound effect, at no point in modern history efficiency reduced our energy needs, we just use the extra energy to either run more of the same thing or run other things
- ndr 2y agoWirth's law: software is getting slower more rapidly than hardware is becoming faster. I think there's the energy parallel: Software is becoming more energy-hungry faster than algorithms are becoming efficient. So we'll still need the energy.
- thom 2y agoWhat if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?
- huijzer 2y agoI guess power demands will slowly grow. The same happened with compute in general. Compared to 1960, we have several orders of magnitude more compute but also several orders of magnitude more efficient compute. Data centers are currently about 0.4% of total energy use (electricity is about 20% of total energy use and of the electricity about 2% goes to data centers, so 20% * 2% = 0.4%).
- amelius 2y agoNo idea, but it may also turn out that OpenAI has no moat, which is more interesting.
- hoseja 2y agoThen you can simply have more AI in the data centres.
- hagbard_c 2y agoThat'd give a lot of extra power which can be used for other - and probably better - purposes so I'd say let them build those plants. The more power available the better after all?
- Blemokolo 2y ago[dead]
- narrator 2y agoJevons Paradox will take care of it[1]. The more efficiently a resource is used, the more demand there is for it. The grave implication of Jevons paradox is that the fundamental conflict between sustainability and economic progress is not resolved solely by using resources more efficiently. It's a theory of supply chain constraints essentially. Once a resource is used more efficiently, its use is increased until the next most economically constrained resource hits its economically useful limit. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- the8472 2y agoWe don't even know a tighter lower bound for matrix multiplies than O(n²). Naive is O(n³), strassen is O(n^2.8). And those are simple, low-level kernels. At the higher level we also do not know tight lower bounds. But we do know some loose bounds from nature, e.g. how much data and energy a human consumes over its lifetime.
- NhanH 2y agoIt seems (feels?) likely that demand for LLM is elastic, especially when it comes to specialized niche. Less power requirements just mean we run more of them in parallel for stuffs, so the power needs is gonna be growing anyway.
- groceryheist 2y agoIf we're "lucky" (in an AI-optimist sense) we'll need the nuclear plants despite efficiency increases.
- Trasmatta 2y agoAre we setting up nuclear plants for AI data centers? If so, I see that as a win all around. We need to rely more on nuclear power, and I'll take whatever we can get to push us in that direction.
- boringg 2y agoHow else will we get manufacturing gains for a mars base nuclear system?
- fragmede 2y agoJevons paradox says as things get more efficient, usage goes up. In this case, even if AI data centers don't pan out, I think we'll still find use for the electricity they generate.
- tbrownaw 2y agoNo, as the things using that power get better (newer models keep getting less garbagey) and cheaper (faster hardware and more efficient use of power), people will keep coming up with more things to use them for.
- TkTech 2y agoNo, not really. AWS getting more power and space efficient chips didn't reduce total power demand, they just added more cores. Even if the data centers didn't keep up with available capacity, energy demanding industry move to and expand with sources of power, like aluminum production.
- _aavaa_ 2y agoNobody is building nuclear power plants for data centres. A few people have signed some paperwork saying that they would buy electricity from new nuclear plants if they could deliver it at a certain price, a price mind you that has not been done before. Others are trying to restart an existing reactor at three mile island (a thing that has never been done before, and likely won't be done now since the reactor was shut down due to being too expensive to run). And certainly nobody is building one in the next 3-4 years; they'd be lucky to finish the paperwork in that time. What is actually going to power them is solar, wind, and batteries: https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/10/24317888/googles-data-center-solar-wind-renewable-energy-intersect-partnership https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/10/24317888/googles-data-ce...
- aitchnyu 2y agoCould be a good candidate for factobattery. Overbuild the system, run them at full speed at peak solar generation, then underclock them at night. https://www.moderndescartes.com/essays/factobattery/ https://www.moderndescartes.com/essays/factobattery/
- ForHackernews 2y agoThis is a really interesting idea! Of course, in practice that will just mean crypto-token mining rather than anything useful.
- numpad0 2y agoThen why no one seem to be doing it?
- adelpozo 2y agoOr solar in space, which some have already heard of Lumen Orbit https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/lumen-orbit https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/lumen-orbit
- cratermoon 2y agoSpace-based solar power contains little intrinsic advantage that we can get “only from space.” It looks like a wash at best, and the astronomers would say “don’t bother.” https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/03/space-based-solar-power/
- sbierwagen 2y agoCongrats, you have independently reinvented the Hardware Overhang hypothesis: that early AGI could be very inefficient, undergo several optimization passes, and go from needing a datacenter of compute to, say, a single video game console's worth: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/75dnjiD8kv2khe9eQ/measuring-hardware-overhang https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/75dnjiD8kv2khe9eQ/measuring-... In that scenario, you can go from 0 independent artificial intelligences to tens of millions of them, very quickly.
- UltraSane 2y agoit would seem perfectly reasonable to expect the first AIs to be very unoptimized and if the AIs are any good they will be able to optimize themselves a lot and even help design ASICs to help run them.
- philipswood 2y agoThanks for sharing. Worth its own submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/newest https://news.ycombinator.com/newest
- ilaksh 2y agoI think they can easily eat up the new capacity with larger multimodal models that ground language on video.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mvkel 2y agoYou have it flipped. But it's both. AI compute is measured in gigawatts, not gigaflops. It's "how any gigawatts of compute can we get allocated?" Not "How much compute can we fit inside of a gigawatt?" There's no such thing as "enough"
- owenpalmer 2y agoNo. This is a classic case of Jevon's paradox. Increased efficiency in resource use can lead to increased consumption of that resource, rather than decreased consumption. Example: 1. To decrease total gas consumption, more fuel efficient vehicles are invented. 2. Instead of using less gas, people drive more miles. They take longer road trips, commute farther for work, and more people can now afford to drive. 3. This increased driving leads to higher overall gasoline consumption, despite each car using gas more efficiently.
- baq 2y agoSee also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- bonoboTP 2y agoHow do you argue that demand was induced as opposed to existing demand served?
- oblio 2y agoOk, not maybe instead of calling it "induced", call it "latent demand" if you prefer. People will do whatever's more convenient, so if you make driving far more convenient than everything else ("cheaper"/"more available"), they will drive. However convenience should not be the only factor for social decisions. To take this to extremes, it would be much more convenient for J. Doe to steal a car than to buy it, so we definitely do not want to make theft convenient.
- michaelhoney 2y agoYes, the term is a bit clumsy. The way I think of it, people have desires (to drive on the highway), but are dissuaded from doing so by disincentives (it’s too busy). Adding a lane reduces the disincentive, so that latent desire is satisfied, until it reaches a new equilibrium.
- 2y ago
- m463 2y agoDon't you think people will just add better models to meet available memory? If we run 7B now, why wouldn't we run 700b with memory optimizations?