Comment by sabaimran | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sabaimran | Hacker News Reader

I don't personally think there's that much value to this argument. Compare, for instance the consumption of 1 hour of tv vs. 1 hour of GPT usage:

A single AI chat message can consume 0.34 watt-hours of energy (1). So, let's say a hundred messages in an hour (quite an aggressive session) would be 34 watt-hours of energy.

An LCD TV running for an hour consumes about 100 watt-hours of energy, depending on size, LED, vs. OLED etc. (2).

I think AI does help people do better research faster, which is a significant uplift to humanity, while I do not see anyone specifically curbing their TV usage. We should probably focus our effrots on helping people use AI better and meanwhile build more nuclear energy plants, imo.

(1): https://epoch.ai/gradient-updates/how-much-energy-does-chatg...

(2): https://santannaenergyservices.com/how-many-watts-does-a-tv-...

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And then consider the amount of energy traditionally required by one human to do the same research tasks. Also quite significant.

I think we should be focused on making the more efficient, for sure! But I don't buy that the arguments based on energy consumption are very strong.

You are ignoring the energy cost to train models. AI is not just the surface layer of end user messages.

AI is also used far more often than TVs - if every app and device starts using it, that is constant AI messaging going on. So TVs aren't even the correct comparison, especially if AI starts to be used more to create content - there is then an AI energy cost to just watching that content. Even putting that aside, what screen are you looking at when making these queries to AI? Maybe a phone... but if not, you are burning the energy from both the large screen and the AI.

Even putting aside the poor comparison that TVs are, with today's energy production, the environmental damage from AI is unquestionable. Rather than asking whether or not that is OK, there are really 2 questions to answer:

1) What are the benefits of AI, specifically? Yeah, vague things like "research faster" is a benefit, but you need to quantify it if you are going to make comparisons. And most AI usage is frivolous. Some AI usage is downright damaging, especially in creative industries. All of that needs to be balanced.

2) Can we change energy production to get off of fossil fuels? If we can do that, the damage of burning more energy decreases greatly.

My takeaways from this entire line of questioning is that we need to balance AI usage with renewable energy adoption, while keeping a strong eye on what we actually do with AI.

What a great way to put it in perspective, and shocking how low per query.

I expanded your comparison list (with Chat GPT). Pretty interesting.

Activity | Watts Used (1 hr) ---------------------------------------|------------------- Laptop | 50 Wh Desktop + large monitor | 200 Wh Large screen TV | 200–300 Wh Video game + large TV | 300–500 Wh Washing machine run (avg) | 500–1,200 Wh Dishwasher run (avg) | 1,200 Wh Dryer run (electric) | 2,000–5,000 Wh Tesla city driving (Model 3 est.) | 14,000 Wh Tesla highway driving (Model 3 est.) | 18,000 Wh

> I think AI does help people do better research faster, which is a significant uplift to humanity,

One must consider both sides. Better research also contributes (no question) to more consumerism and the furthering of technology, which also uses more fossil fuels. It's time we acknowledged that research isn't free, and all of the damage to the biosphere was mainly enabled by science.

And AI uses a huge ton of energy. For example, according to [1], "In Ireland, [...] electricity demand from data centres represented 17% of the country’s total electricity consumption for 2022". And we also have to consider the raw materials and mining used.

1. In Ireland, where the data centre market is developing rapidly, electricity demand from data centres represented 17% of the country’s total electricity consumption for 2022

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