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Artificial Intelligence is exciting—the technological breakthrough that took over our lives shows no signs of s...
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This topic is so close to me, wrote couple of articles . Sharing the link here
DarkSIDE of AI : Power Hungry process
Bala Madhusoodhanan ・ Jun 24 '24
Carbon-Aware Software Development
Bala Madhusoodhanan ・ Oct 7 '24
Nice! I didn't even go into the cost of training the models, as you did. Great perspective, I think we should try to raise awareness of this topic in the community.
I think there were some news not that long ago about Big Tech making plans to build nuclear power plants to supply electricity for AI? Am I wrong?
Haven't heard anything about it, but I don't like it already (surely I'll find a solid reason not to like it in the future).
Well, I might be wrong, don't remember where I got that from and I feel too lazy to search...
Anyway, you guys seem interested in the topic, I had this (somewhat related) idea about a post, but I'm not that good at writing... I think you might be better prepared to write about it, so, I'll share it here - in case you might want to take it further (cos I most probably won't :)
Just a bit of a warning - this is what my cynical mind's been telling me for the past year or so... :)
Essentially what we're seeing with GenAI (Nuclear power plants or not) is Wall Street to the fullest.
If you've got some billions, and a deep understanding of Wall Street you can do a couple of things:
In that respect - I strongly believe there are a few very Wall-Street-smart people behind GenAI who've realized the world is ready for AI stock. And they don't have a problem to burn billions subsidizing AI startups (including subsidizing the cost of each request), or to engage all the internet tabloids and influencers who this is the next big thing that will revolutionize everything.
Because they know that whatever goes down the drain of an unprofitable enterprise will be recovered many times over if they can convince Wall Street traders that indeed - if they buy shares now there will be much higher demand for the stock in the future.
Just raise expectations through exposure on all sorts of media, subsidize all costs - so that users don't have to think is this really worth it? - get traction, make bold statements like we've got this better than others, because we'll invest another 50 billion. ... and so on... Everything you can possibly do to show your shares will be selling higher in the future.
Favourite example of mine - the previous 'next big thing' - companies like Uber. Last time I checked - some $33bln have gone down the drain without any signs of a potential break-even. At the same time - market capitalization on Wall Street - $150 billion. So, technically - you can waste billions on a company that will never break even - as long as you make 5 times more on Wall Street.
And if you look at the amount of content about GenAI online at the moment, the amount of 'influencing for' GenAI - it's significantly more that what Uber got back then... So, I think for someone Wall-Street-smart there's no issue to spend more ... like - a hundred billion - for what could potentially be a trillion-dollar IPO.
Bear in mind in this scenario it doesn't matter how useful the service is really, will it ever make profit... or how much it costs, how sustainable it is or really will it still be around when the 'next big things comes along'. (Personally I'm waiting to see where will Uber go if money starts moving out of it and into GenAI.)
What matters is convincing investors that by investing more you're more likely to win the race. (Unless the Chinese come along and troll you ;)
And going back specifically to nuclear power plants - in the above context - if you announce you've got the money to subsidize a nuclear power plant for your AI 'next big thing' - you do look much more dedicated... :)
I know, it's weird, but I strongly believe that's the way it works these days... :)
It always comes back to this in the end. It doesn't matter whether your product is a quality product, whether your company is profitable, or even if people want your product or not (we were completely fine before LLMs).
The only thing that truly matters is how good your pitch is, how much shareholder money can you circle around, and how big your media coverage is.
OpenAI (or should I say ClosedAI?) are a perfect example of a company that burned $17B to create a product--mediocre at best--without any technological edge. Deepseek is proof that any company with enough GPUs can do what ClosedAI did, for cheaper. That being said, Altman is an expert salesman, but the emperor has no clothes.
This reminds me of the revolving door concept, but instead of government and regulators, it's shareholders and CEOs.
I think writing a full article about this topic is too fringe for the masses, honestly. People have a hard time accepting the truth, even if it's right in front of them. The past few years have proved it, and I have stopped trying to convince people to see the world the way I see it.
I still (sort of) believe some counter-influencing is good, but more and more often don't feel like actually doing it :)
Generally, I agree, but I admit I've exhausted myself trying to do it :)
Why did you write this post then (if you don't mind me asking)?
Good question, I am not sure. I crunched some numbers a while ago and thought it would make an interesting post.
Just to clarify about my earlier comment, what I meant was that I've exhausted myself trying to convince un-like-minded-people, which are the majority. This mostly happened face to face, with people who I presumed were wise enough to see what I see, but alas... I then realized intelligence is subjective, and having a master's degree does not necessarily mean also having critical thinking skills.
Online, it's a different story--if they want to read it and are "my sort of people"--great, if not, they don't have to.
This question is also interested me personally. Including the copyright question also.
I paste my case: I am started working with Midjourney at 2024/12/06 until now I created a 2800 task which means 11.200 image. Which means: 204 images / day. Of course this is a intensive development process.
But as you readed my project:
dev.to/pengeszikra/javascript-grea...
I used 8 different AI paralell to reach my goal. Maybe midjourney used most intensive.
After I submit my game for a hackaton I try to summarize what I am think about copyright: dev.to/pengeszikra/stolen-content-...
I hope this is help to measure a intensive AI using by one developer.
In a discussion I had recently with a friend of mine I made a joke that we should put online a service where people can host their own AI models - at true cost - chips, infrastructure, electricity, research and everything. :)
This will surely be a huge flop :)
Not so sure about
huge- I think it might be doable for something likeee... 20 euros/month... :)cool article