Gerry McGovern
"ChatGPT consumes a lot of energy in the process, up to 25 times more than a Google search. Additionally, a lot of water is also used in cooling for the servers that run all that software. Per conversation of about 20 to 50 queries, half a litre of water evaporates – a small bottle, in other words."
AI is predicted to consume twice as much energy as the whole of France by 2030
Training GPT3, took 1,287 MWh (Megawatt hours) of electricity.
mark
@gerrymcgovern I always hate to see these stats slurred across uses. The training of the model is a fixed cost. That output is used on inference servers that do the customer facing work. Those are still very powerful (hot), but the way the "each query costs... " really works is an economy of scale. Inference is one machine. Training is enormous clusters. More queries actually makes the cost of training go down per transaction.
Sabine Harnau
@jackofalltrades @tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
Germany in particular has trouble shifting to electric cars because of heavy lobbying and FUD propaganda by legacy manufacturers. Just look at @SheDrivesMobility for more info on that.
I can imagine similar issues in EU car manufacturing countries such as Italy or France.
So, asking people what they would do is not the best way to predict change.
(Final post in thread)
Sabine Harnau
@jackofalltrades @tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
Neither strict family planning nor veganism are required in European countries. See https://drawdown.org/solutions/family-planning-and-education and https://drawdown.org/solutions/plant-rich-diets as well as the EAT LANCET study.
Other actions are problematic because of a lack in infrastructure for electric vehicles and public transport. People won’t change till they can.
One more!
(3)
Sabine Harnau
@jackofalltrades @tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
- People are social creatures. If they see the majority of their colleagues or neighbours drive electric cars or bicycles, they’re more prepared to do so too than they’d admit if asked in isolation.
- The actions proposed by the study are problematic. Some are too extreme:
TBC in thread
(2)
Jack of all trades
@tobi82 @uanrah @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
Unfortunately that seems to be the case:
It's not the minority of "laggards" that doesn't want to change, it's the majority. Democracy is necessary to enact and legitimize these changes, but at the same time it means only small incremental changes are being accepted.
In the words of William Rees: "The politically acceptable is ecologically disastrous, while the ecologically necessary is politically impossible."
Sabine Harnau
@jackofalltrades @tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
Thanks for sharing this study. There are others of this kind, and the results vary based on the actions proposed. I think it’s important to take all of them with a grain of salt:
- People are notoriously bad at predicting their own behaviour. That’s why UX research never relies on questions of what people would do.
TBC in thread
(1)
conscientious objector
@uanrah @jackofalltrades @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
If the majority don't suffer and feel the pain or fear, there will be no democratic process for change. At the moment, the majority believe it's just a problem for 'the other people'. The 'normal' people can go shopping and consume.
At this point, I see no way.
Sabine Harnau
@jackofalltrades @tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
Yes, I do not deny that tension.
Theories of change address the complexity of freedom vs. the common good. Some people (“laggards”) won’t change unless they’re forced to. But we can make considerable progress without them.
All I’m saying is that regulation must be democratically legitimised.
P.S. What’s with the travel bashing? Not all travel is air travel.
Jack of all trades
@uanrah @tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
That's the thing though: "everyone will be free to decide for themselves" is mostly incompatible with "regulation is dearly needed". You either allow everyone to freely decide or limit (regulate) their behavior in some way.
Today, with scarcely any regulation, people (with the means) are free to choose, and they choose to travel regardless of the environmental damage it causes.
Sabine Harnau
@tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
I’ve moved countries 4 times, so my story is very different than your grandparents’.
But, to your point of view”Who will decide?”
In pluralistic societies, I hope everyone will be free to decide for themselves, first and foremost. We have scientific evidence to show what works — such as Project Drawdown.
Regulation is dearly needed too, based on science (not lobbyism). Money and panic give poor advice.
conscientious objector
@uanrah @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
My great-grandfather never left the village where he was born, except for a trip to France in 1914. He was happy. My grandmother never left the country where she was born until she was in her 60s, if you exclude the wedding trip. And my mother never left the country where she was born until she was in her 40s. She was unhappy with that 😅 But I get your point. Less from everything might work. Still, who will decide.
Sabine Harnau
@tobi82 @gerrymcgovern @Chee_Koala
I worry about, and I fear, a world without simple pleasures like eating out, travelling, or sharing life with a dog.
And I believe we need different questions.
Not “Do we need gastronomy?” But “What kind of gastronomy do we need?”
Same with AI: What kind of AI do we need?
The solution is rarely a binary yes/no answer and usually a scale, a triad or a range of possibilities.
conscientious objector
That would be a nice idea 💡 But I think people are going for the opposite: let’s buy electric cars 😬
Nobody even asks if:
Do we need that technology?
Do we need tourism?
Do we need gastronomy?
Do we need fashion?
Do we need offices?
Do we need pets?
What is needed and what are the basics? Who will decide? 🫣
I think you are right but I don’t think humans will change.
Gerry McGovern
@Chee_Koala
We are in the beginning of a global environmental collapse driven by the massive overconsumption of energy and materials causing the degradation of water, soil, air, biodiversity, and along comes AI with massive new energy and material demands. That's the so what. We're devouring our environment. To have any hope of avoiding catastrophic environmental collapse, we must massively reduce our energy and materials consumption. We must prioritize things that are truly useful.
Chee_Koala
@gerrymcgovern So they do, what of it? Did they steal the power? Did they force anyone to use it? What's the message here: new technologies not as efficient as older technologies?
How would you specifically target AI to enforce lower power use?
Am I gonna have to explain to my electric company why I game on a cool PC or sometimes use an electric space heater?
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