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Comment by vonneumannstan | Hacker News Reader

>But cooling is a huge problem. Space is cold, but there is no medium to transfer the heat away from the hot objects. I think this will be the biggest sticking point, unless they came up with an innovative solution.

Their main tech breakthrough would have to be in this area otherwise the company is worthless imo.

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It's possible to do all of this with current technology. Just... Why? The cost would be exorbitant; even with really clever deployment tech, the launch costs are gonna be dominated by solar panels and radiators.

This is a super cool idea and seems like perfect investor-bait. That's about where it ends.

Perhaps a hedge in case apocalyptic scenarios disable or reduce networks on the ground?

Apocalyptic scenarios where terrestrial communication methods going back over a century are no longer feasible, but we can still readily talk to space? And maintain/replace the stuff we have up there?

Like the commenter, your error is thinking the hedge is for you. And what's more—you're assuming the scenario must be total destruction, there's a gradation of disruption where this hedge remains feasible and even vital.

Like [the other commenter]*

Yes, because in an apocalyptic scenario what we all will be clamouring will be space data centres training AI and mining bitcoin.

We? Did you think they're hedging so you could use it?

Genuinely most "AI" DCs are spending less than 9KW on cooling for every 100KW of servers. If you were that bothered about getting that to zero, you could literally sink them into the ocean, build a heat network so the town can take the heat for free or use any of a dozen more established and practical ways to do that.

Please don’t suggest heating the ocean! Someone might just go to try to do that. The ocean is already warming too much!

It's a bit demoralizing how many suggestions in this thread would have significant environmental effects beyond what large scale AI training already has.

It's far far faaar more demoralizing people not realizing orders of magnitude...

Something like 2/3rds of sunshine is already being absorbed by oceans. How much solar power do humans harvest? A billionth?

I'm talking about the above proposals (albiet hypothetical) to either cover a pole of our planet in solar and other ocean based proposals--not solar in general.

It's a bit demoralizing people talk about AI training as if it were even 1/100th the environmental impact of the personal automobile or frequent airplane trips

It's already being done all over the place. It's not particularly damaging compared to the alternatives.

I don't think they can bend the laws of physics though. Vacuum means the only way to dissipate heat is through thermal radiation, hence the huge infrared radiators.

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