Comment by shredprez
2 days ago
How much longer until we get to just... let the results speak for themselves and stop relitigating an open question with no clear answer.
We're well past ad nauseum now. Let's talk about anything else.
2 days ago
How much longer until we get to just... let the results speak for themselves and stop relitigating an open question with no clear answer.
We're well past ad nauseum now. Let's talk about anything else.
Given how much energy LLMs use, I'd greatly prefer not to let the results speak for themselves.
Quick napkin math time!
Steam reached a new peak of 42 million concurrent players today [1]. An average/mid-tier gaming PC uses 0.2 kWh per hour [2]. 42 million * 0.2 gives 8,400,000 kWh per hour, or 8,400 MWh per hour.
By contrast, training GPT3 was estimated to have used 1,300 MWh of energy [3].
This does not account for training costs of newer models, nor inference costs. But we know inference costs are extraordinarily inexpensive and energy efficient [2]. The lowest estimate of energy cost for 1 hour of Steam's peak concurrent player count uses 6.5x more energy than all of the energy that went into training GPT3.
[1]: https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-has-already-set-a-ne...
[2]: https://jamescunliffe.co.uk/is-gen-ai-bad-for-the-environmen...
[3]: https://www.theverge.com/24066646/ai-electricity-energy-watt...
I'd rather people play games, even extremely mediocre ones, than generate ai slop images or code.
1 reply →
it's very weird to compare LLM training with a subset of gamers.
Who lied to you and told you this was some kind of saving gotcha??
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How many lives would AI have to save for you to say the energy cost is worth it?
I see no point in making this a numbers game. (Like, I was supposed to say "five" or something?)
Let's make it more of a category thing: when AI shows itself responsible for a new category of life-saving technique, like a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's, then I'd have to reconsider.
(And even then, it will be balanced against rising sea levels, extinctions, and other energy use effects.)
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How many lives have been saved by AI? How many lives have been lost because of it?
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Far less than you'd think for local LLMs.
Local LLMs that you can run on consumer hardware don't really do anything though. They are amusing, maybe you could use them for basic text search, but they don't have any real knowledge like the hosted ones do.
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I said this elsewhere. The whole argument is so boring. There are people trying to make money by pushing the tech (annoying videos I come across), but the most vehement side on HN are the anti-LLM.
Within five years I think the debate will be over, and I think I know what the outcome will be.
We've been at that point for months.