4 ms·

I don’t think it’s valid; you would have consumed food and drink either way. Plus, you need to verify the output of the LLM anyway.

godot 2y ago
If it takes you 5 minutes to verify the output of the LLM vs 3 hours to do the research work to come to an answer, you saved 2h55m of human time. You would use the 2h55m to do another task. I feel like it is indeed a valid comparison of energy usage.
- relaxing 2y ago
  How did we go from energy consumed to human time? The caloric needs of a human are minuscule compared to the electricity converted to waste heat to train and operate an LLM.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > How did we go from energy consumed to human time? Directly. Energy is consumed by humans over time. That time may be spent on doing tasks. Spending that time doing task increases energy consumption over baseline (though humans have substantial energy storage, so, for tasks shorter than couple hours, the cost is usually paid after such tasks). > The caloric needs of a human are minuscule compared to the electricity converted to waste heat to train and operate an LLM. The costs of operating: not really, and that's the whole point of comparison. Sure, humans are energy-efficient in some aspects - but the brains can only do so much. There's plenty of work that LLMs do faster and better than humans, so much better that no human can match them. And speed means more tasks, so energy use per task is lower. Also, if you're talking about cost of operating LLMs in general - i.e. keeping them running and doing arbitrary work, you really need to compare it against costs of keeping a human alive and available to do the work. So it's not just food, but also hygiene - including e.g. delivering water, heating water for laundry and showers, etc. - and similar consumables. As for training costs, that must be a joke. Do you know how much it costs to train a human? Energy or otherwise? As a parent of three kids I'll tell you: a lot. If you include the energy a human uses from birth to ~18, and then energy used while they're trained for whatever jobs you want to compare against AI, then the comparison gets even worse for humans.
    - relaxing 2y ago
      The humans already exist. We’re neither creating nor destroying them for the purpose of doing an LLM equivalent task, nor am I bathing or clothing myself to think up an answer to something, and evaluating the problem as though we are is a sick joke. This is the most unserious argument in favor of AI I’ve seen to date.
      - godot 2y ago
        The scenario is a task needs to be done. Whether it's for business, personal, whatever. It's a task. It needs to be done somehow. It can be done by a human, or by AI. We are calculating the cost of doing this task. I don't know how else we can be more clear. Honestly I'm very unconvinced by this article author's sense of need to calculate the energy cost of the LLM as an argument against it. But if we're using it as an argument, it's only fair to compare how else the task can be completed (i.e. by the human) and what it would cost. What is there to not understand about this comparison?
      - TeMPOraL 2y ago
        > We’re neither creating nor destroying them for the purpose of doing an LLM equivalent task Sure, so drop the training costs on both sides. Imagine company sends you on a business trip to a different country, for a month-long stay. Okay, you exist and have to eat and sleep anyway, but I can't imagine you accepting this as an argument from your employer - "we don't need to reimburse your hotel or food or other expenses, after all, we're neither creating nor destroying you for purpose of this assignment, and you'll be eating and sleeping and bathing anyway".
        relaxing 2y ago
        No, we don’t have to create an LLM to do a task. That’s a choice with costs we can evaluate. If you really don’t understand how corporate travel arrangements work, I’ll clue you in: Your employer reimburses your hotel even though you’d be sleeping anyway because your place to sleep doesn’t exist in the place they’re sending you. They pay your meals because eating out is more expensive than eating at home and your food and kitchen at home doesn’t exist in the place they’re sending you and also traveling is a pain so you deserve to treat yourself a little. They don’t generally reimburse your laundry costs unless you have stay more days than one can reasonably carry clean clothes for in a standard suitcase. Your bathing needs come free with the hotel. I hope this helps you navigate the strange and confusing world we live in.

godot 2y ago

If it takes you 5 minutes to verify the output of the LLM vs 3 hours to do the research work to come to an answer, you saved 2h55m of human time. You would use the 2h55m to do another task. I feel like it is indeed a valid comparison of energy usage.

relaxing 2y ago
How did we go from energy consumed to human time? The caloric needs of a human are minuscule compared to the electricity converted to waste heat to train and operate an LLM.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  > How did we go from energy consumed to human time? Directly. Energy is consumed by humans over time. That time may be spent on doing tasks. Spending that time doing task increases energy consumption over baseline (though humans have substantial energy storage, so, for tasks shorter than couple hours, the cost is usually paid after such tasks). > The caloric needs of a human are minuscule compared to the electricity converted to waste heat to train and operate an LLM. The costs of operating: not really, and that's the whole point of comparison. Sure, humans are energy-efficient in some aspects - but the brains can only do so much. There's plenty of work that LLMs do faster and better than humans, so much better that no human can match them. And speed means more tasks, so energy use per task is lower. Also, if you're talking about cost of operating LLMs in general - i.e. keeping them running and doing arbitrary work, you really need to compare it against costs of keeping a human alive and available to do the work. So it's not just food, but also hygiene - including e.g. delivering water, heating water for laundry and showers, etc. - and similar consumables. As for training costs, that must be a joke. Do you know how much it costs to train a human? Energy or otherwise? As a parent of three kids I'll tell you: a lot. If you include the energy a human uses from birth to ~18, and then energy used while they're trained for whatever jobs you want to compare against AI, then the comparison gets even worse for humans.
  - relaxing 2y ago
    The humans already exist. We’re neither creating nor destroying them for the purpose of doing an LLM equivalent task, nor am I bathing or clothing myself to think up an answer to something, and evaluating the problem as though we are is a sick joke. This is the most unserious argument in favor of AI I’ve seen to date.
    - godot 2y ago
      The scenario is a task needs to be done. Whether it's for business, personal, whatever. It's a task. It needs to be done somehow. It can be done by a human, or by AI. We are calculating the cost of doing this task. I don't know how else we can be more clear. Honestly I'm very unconvinced by this article author's sense of need to calculate the energy cost of the LLM as an argument against it. But if we're using it as an argument, it's only fair to compare how else the task can be completed (i.e. by the human) and what it would cost. What is there to not understand about this comparison?
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      > We’re neither creating nor destroying them for the purpose of doing an LLM equivalent task Sure, so drop the training costs on both sides. Imagine company sends you on a business trip to a different country, for a month-long stay. Okay, you exist and have to eat and sleep anyway, but I can't imagine you accepting this as an argument from your employer - "we don't need to reimburse your hotel or food or other expenses, after all, we're neither creating nor destroying you for purpose of this assignment, and you'll be eating and sleeping and bathing anyway".
      - relaxing 2y ago
        No, we don’t have to create an LLM to do a task. That’s a choice with costs we can evaluate. If you really don’t understand how corporate travel arrangements work, I’ll clue you in: Your employer reimburses your hotel even though you’d be sleeping anyway because your place to sleep doesn’t exist in the place they’re sending you. They pay your meals because eating out is more expensive than eating at home and your food and kitchen at home doesn’t exist in the place they’re sending you and also traveling is a pain so you deserve to treat yourself a little. They don’t generally reimburse your laundry costs unless you have stay more days than one can reasonably carry clean clothes for in a standard suitcase. Your bathing needs come free with the hotel. I hope this helps you navigate the strange and confusing world we live in.