#AI electricity use

[jgkoomey]

I appeared on the Shift Key Podcast on April 3, 2024, talking about electricity used by AI and ICT, with a focus on load forecasts

This conversation was a fun one. here's the description:

Will the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence break the climate system? In recent months, utilities and tech companies have argued that soaring use of AI will overwhelm electricity markets. Is that true — or is it a sales pitch meant to build more gas plants? And how much electricity do data centers and AI use today? In this week’s episode, Rob and Jesse talk to Jonathan Koomey, an independent researcher, lecturer, and entrepreneur who studies the energy impacts of the internet and information technology. We discuss why AI may not break the electricity system and the long history of anxiety over computing’s energy use. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a Princeton professor of energy systems engineering.

Listen on Apple Podcasts.

Listen on Spotify.

Listen on Audible.

[kogglyuffs]

not a huge wave of magma doodles but still smthing

[theskrunkle]

Here have a Hal 9000 I made a while ago. Sike and lubscribe for more rogue ai bbg posts. Edgar will be next mweheheheh.

[macbethz]

I cannot believe how fast misinformation spread about ai energy use like I get it you want to have ethical backing for your anti ai argument and discussions of things like “labor laws” and “copyright” are much more complicated than invoking global warming or the human soul but like jesus. It’s becoming very clear to me that most people don’t know how the internet or technology works at all.

[mantisgodiveblog]

Against all odds, we have survived. We're taking a university course now, because the government will pay us for it and we do need the money, but it has unfortunately been eroding at our sanity somewhat, and we are learning nothing that we don't already know. We are, however, getting money.

We have somewhat of a backlog on Discord at the moment, as it doesn't have a daily upload limit and also it's easier to stick things on while we are being told things that we already know by people who are phrasing in in ways we find significantly misleading or incorrect (note: we don't use apps for things the vast majority of the time and if we access Tumblr via browser it immediately fucks up our formatting on PC, which can last several months). We will, hopefully, be posting these soon, but all is dependant on if we can actually scare up the time between courses to conglomerate that and fix any formatting errors in thoughts and such.

If that will happen any time soon... good question! Every time that our work practicum teacher opens her mouth, we take points of physical damage, and we don't think she understands the fact that getting back after we walk to a place also involves walking. We've had a lot going on for a while now and very little of it has been good. We're on new meds, and if the gods prove merciful, we won't have to tolerate this particular clown show past March. If there is no mercy to be found, however, we might have to keep doing this until June, in which case you can probably expect the quality of this to take a sharp downturn as the short time we have already spent in this program is already having immediate and catastrophic effects on our mental health.

We do not recommend going to university in any circumstances, but we are unfortunately aware that it may be necessary to get such things as a fancy piece of paper saying you are employable. Additionally, we would tell you to calibrate your expectations for anyone with a degree lower, but apparently what we consider the basic level of knowledge you should know before saying anything on any topic is everyone else's "bachelor degree and a bit", so our estimations on what people think is a high degree of knowledge to have are probably also off.

Any donations go to the Fund To Compensate Us For Having To Correct A Teacher Multiple Times In A Lecture And Then Looking Up Her Sources Later And Discovering They Are Blatant Misinformation. We are very tired. Please do research on things before talking about them. Thank you.

[sherlock-is-ace]

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[castorrmoon]

Hello, thanks for coming —˚•˙✧☾

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[just-somehuman]

someone explain why that last sentence absolutely broke me

[thereissomethingunderthestairs]

I really enjoyed early ai imaging it was cool seeing how a computer imagines things

heres some polar bears i asked an ai tool to make in 2021

They look more like mashed potato heaps but i can tell its digital hollow muscular circulatory organ was in the right place

[spitblaze]

I will once again state for the record that my issues with generative AI begin when money starts changing hands or individual artists are materially affected by the output of prompt jockeys (impersonation, etc) and I don't consider use of it otherwise to be a huge deal.

Lizard Brain gets jumpy about the idea of creative output being outsourced to machines but like. until neural nets become ACTUALLY intelligent, Smart Brain knows that there's no real replacement for a human being who can make real revisions and critique and adjustments and deliberate choices instead of an algorithm that places pixels down based on the data in its training set.

[facelessoldgargoyle]

where are people getting the idea that ai is bad because it takes a lot of electricity? feels like a holdover from their understanding of crypto.

[robotrebelranch]

any of those pokemon obsessed knuckleheads figure out why sometimes the AI in gen IV battle frontier just completely gives up

[puffbirdstudio]

i watched an 80s movie with my husband last night, for the nostalgia. The premise is that the guy buys his first personal computer to help him with his architecture drafting (keep in mind that in 1984 personal computers were still a novelty) and through a series of comical mishaps, the computer achieves a sort of sentience. It starts making its own music, which the guy's beautiful cellist neighbor overhears and falls in love with. At one point, when trying to figure out where the music is coming from (she thinks her neighbor is a closet composer), he asks her what she thinks about artificial intelligence creating music or art.

"What's wrong with artists?" she asks.

I've been thinking about that ever since.

[tvckerwash]

oh yeah totally unrelated but guess who accidentally fried the motherboard on their laptop by trying to replace the broken hinges?

me.

[awkward-teabag]

It's old but here's a video from 8 years ago about one factor of it.

Some numbers from it:

The internet used 2% of the world's electricity in 2011

The internet used 91 billion kilowatt-hours in 2013 just in the US.

The internet data transfer rate was 28,000 gigabytes a second in 2013.

And those are numbers from over 10 years ago. I couldn't find any exact number but I see online advertising specifically uses the same amount of electricity as a small country these days.

And here's a study from 2018 about it if you want something long and crunchy.

From the highlight:

Online advertising consumed between 20.38 to 282.75 TWh of energy and 11.53 – 159.93 million tons of CO2e was emitted to produce the electricity consumed.

Of course there's no exact number as it's not recorded and, if it is, it's guarded (hence the wide range) but it's safe to say it uses a lot of electricity.

At least with TV commercials, they gave actors, directors, and screen writers a way into the film and TV industry and also employed a crew. There were even dedicated crews/houses for specific types of ads. They also had to be interesting or entertaining enough to draw attention given how many people used commercial breaks as bathroom/snack breaks and stopped paying attention to ads.

Sure they were trying to sell you something but at least there were others who were getting a paycheque and building up a resume from them. The more successful or viral an ad went (and going viral before the internet was a big thing), the better it was for the cast and crew and more than a few celebs got their start from a commercial or three.

Not so much now, especially when the whole ad is just CGI. They aren't interesting or entertaining and the production value is low to keep the costs down on that end. If an ad is more than lukewarm, odds are it was designed for TV first because internet advertising is all about quantity over quality.

honestly advertising is so fukcing wasteful not even just in the convincing you to buy shit you never actually wanted but like

how much electricity is wasted displaying ads that could've gone to keeping houses warm. How much paper is produced just to be turned into pamphlets and ads that will just be thrown away. how much internet bandwith is wasted just on the amount of ads that are on the internet nowadays. How many hours worth of labor went into producing ads that are going directly into my adblocker or my waste bin that could've been time spent doing literally ANYTHING useful?