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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
We hear plenty of legitimate concerns regarding the new wave of generative AI, from the human jobs it could replace to its potential for creating misinformation. But one area that often gets overlooked is the sheer amount of energy these systems use. In the not-so-distant future, the technology could be consuming the same amount of electricity as an entire country.
Alex de Vries, a researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, authored 'The Growing Energy Footprint of Artificial Intelligence,' which examines the environmental impact of AI systems.
De Vries notes that the training phase for large language models is often considered the most energy-intensive, and therefore has been the focus of sustainability research in AI.
Following training, models are deployed into a production environment and begin the inference phase. In the case of ChatGPT, this involves generating live responses to user queries. Little research has gone into the inference phase, but De Vries believes there are indications that this period might contribute significantly to an AI model's life-cycle costs.
According to research firm SemiAnalysis, OpenAI required 3,617 Nvidia HGX A100 servers, with a total of 28,936 GPUs, to support ChatGPT, implying an energy demand of 564 MWh per day. For comparison, an estimated 1,287 MWh was used in GPT-3's training phase, so the inference phase's energy demands were considerably higher.
Google, which reported that 60% of AI-related energy consumption from 2019 to 2021 stemmed from inference, is integrating AI features into its search engine. Back in February, Alphabet Chairman John Hennessy said that a single user exchange with an AI-powered search service "likely costs ten times more than a standard keyword search."
[...] "It would be advisable for developers not only to focus on optimizing AI, but also to critically consider the necessity of using AI in the first place, as it is unlikely that all applications will benefit from AI or that the benefits will always outweigh the costs," said De Vries.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by melyan on Sunday October 15 2023, @05:56AM (4 children)
s/crypto/ai
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Sunday October 15 2023, @07:54AM (3 children)
Yes, both are extremely power hungry. But it would have been more helpful if you wrote the numbers side-by-side.
(Score: 0) by melyan on Sunday October 15 2023, @08:41AM (1 child)
Probably similar. We had the same freak-out for both. AI seems to have more power to make change--for good or bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 16 2023, @06:48AM
In contrast lots of crypto stuff is intentionally supposed to be inefficient. Proof of work requires that the work ain't easy.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 17 2023, @03:44PM
Crypto is less likely rise up against humanity if we try to curb its power appetite.
Don't put a mindless tool of corporations in the white house; vote ChatGPT for 2024!
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Sunday October 15 2023, @07:44AM (1 child)
What's the conversion factor to units of Library of Congress?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday October 15 2023, @04:35PM
That depends on if you just burn the books or process them to fusion fuel.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 15 2023, @09:09AM
Ireland could probably have cheaper and more plentiful energy if the companies running said AIs weren't all fiscally headquartered in Ireland where... they pay next to no taxes.
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Sunday October 15 2023, @09:53AM (2 children)
Tell Ireland to use less electricity. Do I win?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 15 2023, @03:24PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 17 2023, @07:14PM
What if we removed Ireland and replaced it with AI. Probably an improvement right.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Sunday October 15 2023, @04:58PM
"Entire Electricity Consumption Of Ireland"
And that is just the power used by their AI hype generation machine!!
But really, what justifies all this AI power usage? "We do what we must, because we can?"... Oh, I.