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[ PRIVACY Forum ] Script from my radio report yesterday on Big Tech
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (PRIVACY Forum mailing list)
Tue Aug 27 09:36:31 2024
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2024 06:25:56 -0700
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This is the script of my national radio report yesterday discussing
Big Tech hypocrisies regarding the massive use of electricity by their
AI systems. As usual, there were very minor wording variations from
this script as I presented this report live.
- - -
So if you didn't already feel that there was enough hypocrisy to go
around from Big Tech when it came to their promises about how AI --
especially generative AI -- is going REVOLUTIONIZE our world in
positive ways, while so far it's turning out to be more of a
mediocrity machine at best, here's another aspect of AI hypocrisy to
add to that growing pile.
AI, and again especially generative AI, is incredibly consumptive of
electricity. A generative AI query can easily use ten times the power
of a single simple Google Search (assuming no generative AI component
like those awful Google Search AI Overviews that I've discussed in the
past). That's because AI is computationally expensive, that means more
CPUs in more data centers and the power for these has to come from
somewhere. And of course there's competition for power from ever more
air conditioners and heat pumps, and cryptocurrency mining and EVs and
the list goes on and on.
And remember the important points about electricity availability. How
much are we generating? How are we generating it? Where are we
generating it? When are we generating it? How are we storing it (if at
all)? And do we have a way to get it from where it's being generated
and/or stored to where it's needed when it's needed. And each of these
questions sets up a whole list of related questions.
But now it seems that at least some of these Big Tech firms who long
have championed clean energy for their data centers, are so desperate
for power for their AI systems, that they're getting less choosy about
what kind of power they're getting and how it's generated. Some have
been making a variety of claims about upcoming new power sources for
their data centers like super small nuclear plants or new geothermal
energy sources or even nuclear fusion. Let's just charitably say that
these seem to mostly be somewhat speculative technologies in terms of
going online in the sorts of time frames that are being suggested by
these firms.
In the meantime, there seems to be an attitude that generative AI is
so important that, ya' know if you have to use even more traditional
energy sources now, well, there's time for clean energy later. Like,
when a fusion power plant actually exists.
The point -- at least the point I want to make right now -- is that
this is yet another example of how Big Tech's obsession with
generative AI, something that pretty much nobody asked for, is
basically causing more problems for society than the so-called
solutions that the firms claim. It seems poised to make our lives even
more complicated by putting so much strain on a fundamental resource
like the availability of affordable electricity.
And the firms are so desperate not to lose the AI hype race, that it
seems they'll do pretty much anything, no matter how much it
negatively impacts society at large, to keep churning out ever more
generative AI misinformation and other AI-generated garbage. Their PR
departments can churn out press releases until doomsday about how it's
all worth it because AI is going to make all our lives so wonderful,
but we can all be excused for being highly skeptical of those claims
given especially the recent history of Big Tech's behaviors.
But hey, at least when the lights start to dim and we're shivering in
the cold or sweating in the heat because AI is sucking up so much
power, at least we may have the ability to ask Big Tech AI why that's
happening, and then watch as it spews out an incorrect, self-serving
response. One thing we can depend on though, is that the very well
paid Big Tech CEOs ... will still be smiling.
- - -
L
- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
PRIVACY Forum: https://www.vortex.com/privacy-info
Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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