Bitcoin is estimated to consume 172 TWh, which is way more than Google and Microsoft combined.
Yes, bitcoin is trash. But most modern cryptos use far less energy. For example the second largest crypto ethereum uses almost no energy compared to bitcoin/AI..
“AI” can not say the same at all. And, unlike crypto, there’s no realistic improvement in sight. It just keeps getting worse.
There’s more to “AI” than just ChatGPT…
I think you’re mixing up what AI actually means here, you would probably like this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGIpdiQrFDU
But in brief, what about DLSS? The ML models for that get improved with every driver update.
STT models like whisper that are great at transcribing/translating.
Object recognition models for drones to keep the camera centered on you and for object avoidance.
ML models for finding new cures.
Models in astronomy for finding planets… Etc.
You’re trying to tell me that everything “AI” is trash and not getting better?
172 TWh per year
Your statement was as useful as the following: A VW Polo car costumes 3000 liters of fuel.
*Edit: Downvote me all you want 😂 if I am right I am right.
In 2023, Microsoft and Google consumed 48 TWh of electricity (24 TWh each).
Your point?
The data in the article was for one year. This is the same unit.
The comment was 172TWh without specifying a timeframe whatsoever. Is it a year? Is it a day? A month?
It was about the comment about bitcoin, not the post itself.
So, is Watt-hours/unit-time no longer a meaningful unit?
Because, if so, you better tell every power company I’ve had, because that’s how they’ve billed me.
WattHours is a unit of work. If you say that bitcoin uses x amount of Wh it doesn’t say shit about how much it actually consumes. Because you don’t say in what amount of time Bitcoin uses said amount of work, you cannot compare it. I could state, that Bitcoin uses 5 Wh. Which would also be correct.
Its the same as saying, Bob eats 5 apples. Alice eats 2000 apples. Can you compare the two? No, because what I forgot to mention is, that Bon eats 5 apples a week and Alice eats 2000 apples in 3 years. Now i can compare the two.
Do you get my point?
“While nuclear fusion seems like the perfect solution for AI’s power needs due to its non-existent impact on the environment…”
nonexistent is key here.
Second law of thermodynamics would like to chime in, even with such a perfect nonexistent power source, waste heat is still an issue… which you can radiate to space, which would take tremendous land use to facilitate…
Or we use that land and capital and effort for solar power, which exists and could power practically everything in our lives, minus AI. Sounds like a win to me.
(Also not to mention the necessity to fire up more fossils for this shit to compensate for the current lack of miracle power for their pipe dreams)
But we will soon have AGI, and then you can have your very own JARVIS! Don’t you like Iron Man? Don’t you like super heroes? Don’t you like sci-fi? /s
Wake me up when AI can simulate my brain. Literally, run me.exe and let me know.
and how much of that is energy that’s essentially used to run other companies, by way of their cloud services? I imagine that’d be a pretty substantial amount.
To be fair, that level of centralization in the hands of a for-profit corporation is worrisome too. They’ll lure in small businesses and then enshittify.
They’ll lure in small businesses and then enshittify.
I’m not so sure… These “cloud” services are paid services they make a lot of money from, and it’s a huge industry with a very large number of competitors (practically all major hosting services, and even a lot of smaller ones).
But people from those countries must also be using Google and Microsoft
There might be some double counting, but it doesn’t matter - this just illustrates the insane scale of these companies.
Comparing huge multinational countries which serve every country to the half of countries with the smallest energy usage is not terribly illustrative.
