But he isn’t speaking the truth. AI itself is a massive strain on the environment, without any true benefit. You are being fed hype and lies by con men. Data centers being built to supply AIs are using water and electricity at alarming rates, taking away the resources from actual people living nearby, and raising the cost of those utilities at the same time.
You’re getting downvoted for providing a well founded argument that should facilitate a broader discussion. Jesus Christ what are we doing here, people?
A good chunk of the Internet usage is HD videos which is far more power hungry than AI. I agree it’s added on top…just like streaming did in 2010, and as things will continue to do.
And your car or flight is a massive strain on the environment. I think you’re missing the point. There’s a way to use tools responsibly. We’ve taken the chains off and that’s obviously a problem but the AI hate here is irrational
The problem is the companies building the data centers; they would be just as happy to waste the water and resources mining crypto or hosting cloud gaming, if not for AI it would be something else.
In China they’re able to run DeepSeek without any water waste, because they cool the data centers with the ocean. DeepSeek also uses a fraction of the energy per query and is investing in solar and other renewables for energy.
AI is certainly an environmental issue, but it’s only the most recent head of the big tech hydra.
Hi. I’m in charge of an IT firm that is been contracted to carry out one of these data centers somewhat unwillingly in our city. We are currently in the groundbreaking phase but I am looking at papers and power requirements. You are absolutely wrong on the power requirements unless you mean per query on a light load on an easy plan, but these will be handling millions if not billions of queries per day. Keeping in mind that a single user query can also be dozens, hundreds, or thousands of separate queries… Generating a single image is dramatically more than you are stating.
Edit: I don’t think your statement addresses the amount of water it requires as well. There are serious concerns that our massive water reservoir and lake near where I live will not even be close to enough.
Edit 2: Also, we were told to spec for at least 10x growth within the next 5 years which, unless there are massive gains in efficiency, I don’t think there are any places on the planet capable of meeting the needs of, even if the models become substantially more efficient.
What? Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Tennessee (when fully expanded & operational) will need 2 GW of energy. That’s as much as some entire cities use in a year.
And then you have a trained model that requires vast amounts of energy per request, right? It doesn’t stop at training.
You need obscene amounts GPU power to run the ‘better’ models within reasonable response times.
In comparison, I could game on my modest rig just fine, but I can’t run a 22B model locally in any useful capacity while programming.
Sure, you could argue gaming is a waste of energy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t argue that it shouldn’t have to cost boiling a shitload of eggs to ask AI how long a single one should. Or each time I start typing a line of code for that matter.
Semi non sequitur argument aside, your math seems to be off.
I double checked my quick phone calculations and using figures provided, Rockstar games with their office space energy use is roughly 18,000,000 (18 million) kWh, not 18,000,000,000 (18 billion).
Ahh was wondering where the factor of 1000 came from.
Without turning into a complete shootout, I can kind of see the point with comparing energy usage, but as others have said with these massive data centers it’s like comparing two similar but ultimately different kinds of beasts.
Beyond just the energy used in training of generative AI models in data centers, there’s also the energy it needs to fulfill requests once implemented (24/7, thousands of prompts per second).
here’s also the energy it needs to fulfill requests once implemented
Just like everyone playing the 3d game once its finished development and sold. A few hours of gaming or a few hours of making AI slop photos is the same watts. No one notices the energy when its spread across millions of homes as compared to centralized at a data center. A few years ago Nvidia, Microsoft and others were pushing gaming as a streaming service (The games were being run remotely and your keyboard/gamepad was transmitted to their servers, then the video was streamed back). Those used massive data centers. Yet no one was screaming to stop gaming.
Now it will be PCs spread out in addition to large data centers in combo that will be consuming energy.
And I do remember that phase of game/device streaming! I was a bit skeptical of it all and ended up never using those technologies but that did allow me to learn about alternatives like Moonlight/Sunshine.
Do you really think those data centers wouldn’t have been built if AI didn’t exist? Do you really think those municipalities would have turned down the same amount of money if it was for something else but equally destructive?
What I’m hearing is you’re sick of municipal governance being in bed with big business. That you’re sick of big business being allowed to skirt environmental regulations.
But sure. Keep screaming at AI. I’m sure the inanimate machine will feel really bad about it.
But he isn’t speaking the truth. AI itself is a massive strain on the environment, without any true benefit. You are being fed hype and lies by con men. Data centers being built to supply AIs are using water and electricity at alarming rates, taking away the resources from actual people living nearby, and raising the cost of those utilities at the same time.
https://www.realtor.com/advice/finance/ai-data-centers-homeowner-electric-bills-link/
Rockstar games developing GTA5: 6k employees 20 kwatt hours per square foot https://esource.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/large-offices 150 square feet per employee https://unspot.com/blog/how-much-office-space-do-we-need-per-employee/#%3A~%3Atext=The+needed+workspace+may+vary+in+accordance
18,000,000,000 watt hours
vs
10,000,000,000 watt hours for ChatGPT training
https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/07/27/how-much-energy-does-chatgpt-use/
There are more 3d games developed each year than companies releasing new AI models.
You’re getting downvoted for providing a well founded argument that should facilitate a broader discussion. Jesus Christ what are we doing here, people?
It’s honestly rediculous, it weakens actual valid concerns with AI.
The same can be said for taking flights to go on holiday.
Flying emits way exponentially more CO2 and supports the oil industry
I just avoid both flights and AI in its current form.
Do you stream HD video, or Game or eat meat? Because those footprints are more than if you’d use AI a lot.
Not saying you should use AI, just pointing out a hypocrisy I see on here a lot
This is valid to all data centers serving all websites. Your take is a criticism of unregulated capitalism, not AI.
Beef farming is a far far far more impactful discussion, yet here we are.
Ai takes far more power to serve a single request than a website does though.
And remember, AI requires those websites too, for training data.
So it’s not just more power hungry, it also has thw initial power consumption added on top
A good chunk of the Internet usage is HD videos which is far more power hungry than AI. I agree it’s added on top…just like streaming did in 2010, and as things will continue to do.
Great, so why not oppose making things worse?
And your car or flight is a massive strain on the environment. I think you’re missing the point. There’s a way to use tools responsibly. We’ve taken the chains off and that’s obviously a problem but the AI hate here is irrational
The problem is the companies building the data centers; they would be just as happy to waste the water and resources mining crypto or hosting cloud gaming, if not for AI it would be something else.
In China they’re able to run DeepSeek without any water waste, because they cool the data centers with the ocean. DeepSeek also uses a fraction of the energy per query and is investing in solar and other renewables for energy.
AI is certainly an environmental issue, but it’s only the most recent head of the big tech hydra.
AI uses 1/1000 the power of a microwave.
Are you really sure you aren’t the one being fed lies by con men?
Hi. I’m in charge of an IT firm that is been contracted to carry out one of these data centers somewhat unwillingly in our city. We are currently in the groundbreaking phase but I am looking at papers and power requirements. You are absolutely wrong on the power requirements unless you mean per query on a light load on an easy plan, but these will be handling millions if not billions of queries per day. Keeping in mind that a single user query can also be dozens, hundreds, or thousands of separate queries… Generating a single image is dramatically more than you are stating.
Edit: I don’t think your statement addresses the amount of water it requires as well. There are serious concerns that our massive water reservoir and lake near where I live will not even be close to enough.
Edit 2: Also, we were told to spec for at least 10x growth within the next 5 years which, unless there are massive gains in efficiency, I don’t think there are any places on the planet capable of meeting the needs of, even if the models become substantially more efficient.
What? Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Tennessee (when fully expanded & operational) will need 2 GW of energy. That’s as much as some entire cities use in a year.
Rockstar games: 6k employees 20 kwatt hours per square foot https://esource.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/large-offices 150 square feet per employee https://unspot.com/blog/how-much-office-space-do-we-need-per-employee/#%3A~%3Atext=The+needed+workspace+may+vary+in+accordance
18,000,000,000 watt hours
vs
10,000,000,000 watt hours for ChatGPT training
https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/07/27/how-much-energy-does-chatgpt-use/
Yet there’s no hand wringing over the environmental destruction caused by 3d gaming.
And then you have a trained model that requires vast amounts of energy per request, right? It doesn’t stop at training.
You need obscene amounts GPU power to run the ‘better’ models within reasonable response times.
In comparison, I could game on my modest rig just fine, but I can’t run a 22B model locally in any useful capacity while programming.
Sure, you could argue gaming is a waste of energy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t argue that it shouldn’t have to cost boiling a shitload of eggs to ask AI how long a single one should. Or each time I start typing a line of code for that matter.
Semi non sequitur argument aside, your math seems to be off.
I double checked my quick phone calculations and using figures provided, Rockstar games with their office space energy use is roughly 18,000,000 (18 million) kWh, not 18,000,000,000 (18 billion).
I put the final answer in Watt hours, not Kw hours to match. ChatGPT used 10B watt hours, not 10B Kwatt hours.
Ahh was wondering where the factor of 1000 came from.
Without turning into a complete shootout, I can kind of see the point with comparing energy usage, but as others have said with these massive data centers it’s like comparing two similar but ultimately different kinds of beasts.
Beyond just the energy used in training of generative AI models in data centers, there’s also the energy it needs to fulfill requests once implemented (24/7, thousands of prompts per second).
Just like everyone playing the 3d game once its finished development and sold. A few hours of gaming or a few hours of making AI slop photos is the same watts. No one notices the energy when its spread across millions of homes as compared to centralized at a data center. A few years ago Nvidia, Microsoft and others were pushing gaming as a streaming service (The games were being run remotely and your keyboard/gamepad was transmitted to their servers, then the video was streamed back). Those used massive data centers. Yet no one was screaming to stop gaming.
Now it will be PCs spread out in addition to large data centers in combo that will be consuming energy.
And I do remember that phase of game/device streaming! I was a bit skeptical of it all and ended up never using those technologies but that did allow me to learn about alternatives like Moonlight/Sunshine.
Do you really think those data centers wouldn’t have been built if AI didn’t exist? Do you really think those municipalities would have turned down the same amount of money if it was for something else but equally destructive?
What I’m hearing is you’re sick of municipal governance being in bed with big business. That you’re sick of big business being allowed to skirt environmental regulations.
But sure. Keep screaming at AI. I’m sure the inanimate machine will feel really bad about it.