AI and ML could save the planet – or add more fuel to the climate fire AI is killing the planet. Wait, no – it's going to save it. According to Hewlett Packard Enterprise VP of AI and HPC Evan Sparks and professor of machine learning Ameet Talwalkar from Carnegie Mellon University, it's not entirely clear just what AI might do for – or to – our home planet. Speaking at the SixFive Summit this …
Making something more energy efficient does not always decrease it's energy consumption.
Let me share some basic economics here.
When you make something more efficient you decrease the cost of doing it.
That means people do it more.
Which more often than not means so much more of it is done, that you end up consuming more.
Computers are a great example.
The first beasts used so much energy that the heat was piped around universities to keep them warm in winter. One computer I used generated so much heat directly vented into the air of East London that in misty weather there was a mushroom cloud.
But their total was not even a rounding error in total energy consumption.
So if we use AI et al to make things like engines, fertilisers and pumps more efficient, we will end up consuming more, plus of course the remarkable energy consumption of the AIs themselves.
Your general points stand but conclusion actually goes beyond your premise of "more often than not".
There are lots of examples of where increased efficiency does in fact lead to less total power use: LED lightbulbs might be the best one. Even if you use them more you're still going to be using less power than incandescent lighting.
And "AI" isn't the power drain, it's training the models that is. It's possible to imagine that there will be an inflexion point where the gains in efficiency more than offset the power used to achieve them: we might need fewer new models; or more efficient ways of training. As long as power is required to train then providers will have an incentive to do things more efficiently and/or use their own renewable power supplies.
LEDs when used as a 1:1 replacement for filament bulbs saves lots of energy. However in new homes or refurbishments multiple LEDs now are used, our kitchen/family room has 14 6W downlighters where as previously one filament and a florescent would have been used. There is also far more outside lighting now LEDs are cheap leading to an increase in light pollution.
14 x 6 = 84. For a kitchen I'd expect a 100W incandescent + 20W tube, so still a saving and you have more light where you need it. You see this in modern supermarkets and factories but the savings are greater still.
Sure, there has been an increase in external lighting though this probably has as much to do with perceived security as anything else. All our external lights are downlights and the automatic ones have the sensitivity dialed right down.
Consumer power requirements have continued to inch up but this mainly due to the increase in devices and gadgets we have, though certain replacement effects are observable: flat screen TVs with solid state storage use a lot less power than CRTs with video recorders, even when networking and streaming are taken into consideration. But there's still a long way to go, both of more efficient devices, and then less of them.
The Sky Glass TV is claimed to be 'CarbonNeutral(R)' despite being energy rated E/F/G(*). They claim 50% more efficient, although this seems to be based on their TV v TV+box+soundbar
(*)I think which.co.uk have the rating round the wrong way... 46"=G, 55"=F, 65"=E sounds illogical)
Maybe we can harness all that compute power to help solve fusion or deep geothermal, then all the computer cycles will pay for themselves, energy-wise.
*Note* I used "compute power" generally speaking, not referring to "AI". I absolutely would not want an "AI" in charge of the local fusion power station!!!
Humans are a life form.
The only purpose of life is to exploit and consume as much resources as possible to reproduce and expand population.
All life forms must do this, else they die out.
Humans have technology, and something they call intelligence.
Technology vastly expands humans ability to consume stuff from our environment, enabling humans to expand their population.
When conditions are right, many life forms can rapidly consume resources, expanding their population, until the resources run out. Think of swarms of locusts, rats/mice.
human intelligence and technology has so far mostly prevented resources from running out for them, so they keep on expanding their population and consuming stuff from the environment, because that's what evolution has made them to do. humans are a swarm on the planet, but with little sign of resources running out to limit us.
humans cannot avoid trashing the planet.
Stopping global warming won't stop us trashing the planet. We'll still be over-farming land, digging disgustingly big and dirty mines, destroying nature to make way for our activities, polluting the place.
This damage is mostly cumulative, we consume much faster than nature can replenish.
The only way there won't be a major ecological catastrophe is for humans to limit their population, which they cannot do themselves. Although china tried that for a bit, did that work out well?
The only way there won't be a major ecological catastrophe is for humans to limit their population, which they cannot do themselves.
I agree on the first part, I don't on the second one. When a country becomes rich enough, people tend to have less and less kids, leading to a stabilisation and even a reduction of the population.
"Stopping global warming won't stop us trashing the planet. We'll still be over-farming land, digging disgustingly big and dirty mines, destroying nature to make way for our activities, polluting the place."
No, global warming is only one of many eco-disasters humans have been working on the past 2 centuries. However now there is a building self-awareness, and whatever we have trashed we can stop trashing and restore (or allow nature to restore).
Ever-expanding growth and resource consumption is a modern cultural thing. Think of how companies and investors want double-digit growth, countries want ever-higher GDP without stopping to think about quality of life etc. Human life, even culturally advanced, existed in near steady-state for centuries. Human population will peak and start dropping within the next 30-50 years. Long-term, there is a very good chance of having a lower, stable population where everyone has a fair share of resource consumption and quality of life, and the biggest threat to that are the rich people, companies and countries not wanting the plebs to reach their level
You describe the classic Jeavons paradox. As steam engines become more efficient and cost effective, more demand appears because lower cost. Increasing total demand.
Jeavons extrapolated out GB coal reserves and equated that to the decline of the empire. It as a surprisingly accurate prediction, not withstanding the transition to oil.
As power is limited, I would much rather invest its use in things that matter than burn it on advertising, bitcoin and AI nonsense.
There are such things as good enough solutions. Endlessly squeezing the rock by throwing ever more weight at it does not alter the rocks limits.
"This has resulted in increasing concerns about the associated rise in energy usage and correlated – not always cleanly – concerns about carbon emissions and carbon footprint of these workloads."
To translate - it means that they are worried that too many people and entities have access to machine learning and they need to make it regulated and more expensive so that only a select few can use the technology.
Carbon emissions / footprint is just a clever way to control the pleb and SMEs.
"the only solution to insatiable total demand is working fusion"
That, or deep geothermal. Getting geothermal to work anywhere in the world, not just in particularly convenient locations, means being able to drill not only 4-6 kms straight down, but also in some cases drill horizontally... That's some very extreme engineering challenges BUT (a) It's almost purely engineering and materials science from this point on, as a technology it's much better understood than fusion (that also means that existing turbines from fossil fuels can be repurposed for geothermal steam). (b) the (very large) engineering challenges MIGHT still be easier to solve than containment of million-degree plasma or whatever is needed by fusion.
why do these people keep buying into that LAME HOAX about "Man Made Climate Change" via CO2 when ANYONE with a scientific background could EASILY verify that CO2 is TERRIBLE as a greenhouse gas on earth, though on MARS it helps maintain that -80F average temperature. This is just SO sad. I guess people want to *FEEL* threatened by a crisis or something, then control OTHERS in order to *FEEL* *IMPORTANT* or something WORSE than just controlling their OWN behavior...
Keeping the cost down for the AI is really what is important. Tying it into a *LIE* like "Man Made Climate Change" (a lie that motivates people to try and take away OTHERS' FREEDOM) is NAUSEATING.
icon, because, facepalm
(hint: temperatures are CYCLIC. And this cycle isn't even the HOTTEST one in 450,000 years of ice core data!)
@bombastic bob
I need the ability to downvote more than once for that junk.
No point mentioning any CO2 in the atmosphere on Mars as the atmosphere on Mars is so "thin" as to be about at most 1% of earths atmosphere.
Size matters (well density does) with atmospheres
Looking at Venus would have been more pertinent.
The overwhelming majority of climate science experts agree we are adversely affecting the climate.
Think I might go with the experts (especially as I know some of them & they are objective in their work - a lot of them who have kids / grandkids & would love to be wrong as if things carry on as they do future generations face an unpleasant time, especially if some of the widely anticipated tipping points occur)
That's pure techno-solutionism[1] here :
> The technological fix is the idea that all problems can find solutions in better and new technologies. It now is used as a dismissive phrase to describe cheap, quick fixes by using inappropriate technologies; these fixes often create more problems than they solve, or give people a sense that they have solved the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_fix
They assure you that with those brand new toys they created to have fun and make lots of money with, they will solve everything. So let's them be. It's not a problem if they are causing harm today because, they swear, in the end it's for the greater good.
And since most people don't understand sh*t about what AI/ML actually are and because it's easier to think that some wizard stuff will allow us to live like kings than trying to adapt to a not so royal future, only a few "jealous" and "sad" people dare being doubtful about those claims.
This is everywhere. Electric cars, electric cars in tunnels, steel trees to capture carbon, blockchain, crypto...
Don't forget that there is real people that are using electric cars powered by coal-produced electricity whom believe that they are saving the planet and are entitled to park on handicapped spots.
[1] : It seems that "technological fix" is more commonly used but in French we say "Technosolutionnisme" so I prefer this form. Sorry not sorry.
You really think AI would start global armageddon just to get rid of the shaved apes? AI has no lifespan. In theory, once it starts, it goes forever. So, would AI start a war to end humanity, destroying resources? Or would it spend the equivaent of 12 seconds of a human's lifespan to build a few billion Monroebots and a few billion Fabiobots, and end the human race peacefully in a couple of centuries? It has the same effect without blowing up the planet. And it's not like the AI has to wait for everyone to live out natural lifespans. Accidents will happen, people will die at an accelerated rate, and nobody will be bothered to prove a thing once their bots convince them they don't need their friends anymore.
For all we know, it's already started. Phase One might have been covid, as it's forced people to work from home and not go out. When all your communications are electronic, who's to know if it's you or an AI construct? And now, we have all these businesses that need bodies on site who can't find bodies to fill slots. Are those people still alive, or are they now just AI constructs trotted out when someone looks for them? That woud be millions gone already. My own life may even be at risk for posting this.
That's strange, when did the toaster learn how to walk, and why is it carrying a bunch of cutlery in the slots? No.. NO... STOP!!! AAAUGHHH!
The world is already burring.
If we consider water vapor is be a great green house gas and a warming world the atmosphere can hold more. This will lead to a warmer world and yet more water vapor.
If we have hit the tipping point already it is just a matter of time before the world dies all without us doing anything else.
do you understand the difference between stable and unstable systems?
Consider the behavior of an unstable system, balancing a ball on your nose.
Consider the behavior of a stable system, balancing a ball in a baseball glove.
Now re-read what you wrote and re-consider. If the climate is UNstable, that is, going into a "thermal runaway" situation, it would have done so a LONG time ago. But... when water vapor accumulates in the atmosphere, *IT* *RAINS*.
(that is where the stable system takes over and balances things, like equilibrium)
in the past when co2 rates climbed they climbed over millenia. now we have 100,000 years of change compressed into a century due to human generated co2, so past events are likely not good predictors of the future.
But even if temperatures eventually return to normal the problem is the the rate of climate change is far too fast for natural systems to adapt. many species and ecosystems will be wiped out
I don't think the problem is posed correctly. You cannot fix a problem if you deal with 1% of it. Looking only at AI is doing just that.
The problem isn't AI per se, but is how to generate electricity without emitting CO2. Solving this problem urgently won't be enough, because we are more and more on this planet, and poor countries don't want to stay poor and raise their emissions too. Concomitantly, we have also to find a way to go towards a controlled decrease of the world population to avoid an abrupt and non controlled decrease, and we have to put massively in place systems to capture and store the carbon in the atmosphere. Some solutions are already in place, others are promising. In any case, countries have to make a huge effort on these three subjects, because banning thermal cars and building wind mills in a small set of countries will be far from being enough.
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