Comment by daeken
9 months ago
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.
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.
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It's already being done all over the place. It's not particularly damaging compared to the alternatives.
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.
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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?