- cross-posted to:
- degrowth@slrpnk.net
- cross-posted to:
- degrowth@slrpnk.net
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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.
PoS requires significant staker profits to work, which would create the same inequality as the dollar has. It’s basically dollar bonds but without regulations.
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.
That’s the same timeframe as the one used in the article, and sure, they could have made it explicit again, but implicitly it makes sense because it’s the one that’s useful for a direct comparison.
Turns out, the implicit timeframe that should be clear after reading the article was the right one, and it’s pretty damning for bitcoin as is. So again, I am not sure what point you want to make.
I’m on the side of Retiring@lemmy.ml here, since I read the comments before the article. Without the articles’ context I had no idea if this meant all-time usage, per year, or per month.
Since the link is right there though, which says per year, it’s really not a huge deal.
In 2023, the two tech companies
The article is also about per year
Yes it is. But your comment still doesn’t make sense until you add “per year”.
The downvotes aren’t because you’re wrong, they’re because you’re bring obnoxious about being right.
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.
All fun and games until a moth ends up in your transistors.
ants! ants!
Which movie is this?
I believe it’s Pi (1998). Absolutely crazy movie, you should watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/yRjkQT9xLZs
yes, Pi
What if the moth is just their fursona?
Moths have fur?
I think all moths have some amount of fur, it’s easy to notice on the base of their wings, just “behind” (below?) the head. Some, like the rosy moth, are almost entirely covered in furs
TIL, thanks
You pass the butter.
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.
Correction, the insane amount of energy the AI needs
Is all of this due to AI? I’m confident most of the energy is spent on other stuff, like data centers. Both Google and Microsoft are cloud providers.
perhaps until they get neural links installed on prisoners.
Not just people, but importantly also corporations running their services on Microsoft azure or Google cloud.
And both of these companies build and purchased more renewable energy sources than all 100+ countries combined. Microsoft has committed to be carbon free by 2030, and while I don’t belive in their commitment, they at least seem to be trying contrary to most nations. They even invested in nuclear plants for their power needs.
You can fault both companies for a lot of different reasons, but in terms of carbon emissions due to power usage, they are better than 99.9% of the countries on that list.
Green energy that could go to higher priority sectors like decarborning housing, food production and transportation . Carbon free doesn’t mean no ecological impact, of course it’s better than fossil fuel, but it still a lot of ressources extracted and place taken over nature (which is the first cause of biodiversity loss). So ideally we should only destroy so much for essential needs.
No matter which way you correctly read the headline, it’s false.
You can either read it as Google and microsoft individually consumed more electricity than these 100 countries did (false, it’s Google and microsoft combined)
OR Google and Microsoft combined consimed more than these 100 countries did total.
Did an intern write this or something?
CoPilot with Gemini plugin did.
Hm. Maybe it’s ambiguity is there to maximise clicking on the article?
In 2023, Microsoft and Google consumed 48 TWh of electricity (24 TWh each).
Each of them separately.
To be fair, Iceland only has around 400k inhabitants.
80% of our produced energy goes to aluminium smelting.
In Iceland or world?
Iceland
Closer to 400k
Right, it was a bit over 100k km², memory is a bitch, corrected.
Are we talking consumed for their own use? Or consumed as part of delivering cloud services to their customers?
These are very different things. The former would be horrifying the latter would be misleading in the extreme.
Removed by mod
For software and devices running locally, sure. Much of what MS does these days is cloud based where the bulk of the electricity is being used in a data center somewhere and the customer isn’t (directly) paying for it.
Well you don’t have 1000 vms running in azure, do you? It’s not about your Xbox…
Many countries don’t use a lot of electricity, especially those where the grids are spotty or in poor repair, or the overall population is small. Even without the AI garbage, I’d expect large tech-sector companies to use more energy than many countries.
(In other words, the headline for this was really poorly chosen. “Microsoft and Google pour more electricity into AI than 100+ countries use” might have gotten a bit closer to the actuall point, if it’s actually true.)
Microsoft and Google pour more electricity into AI than 100+ countries use" might have gotten a bit closer to the actuall point, if it’s actually true
From what I can tell, the article is talking about total electrical use, not just AI.
Also probably ignoring the fact that some of their data centers have practically the entire roof covered in solar panels, Microsoft is investing in nuclear energy, etc.
That is a big probably.
They want to become carbon neutralbut climate crisis is already running.
Feels like build „don’t smoke here“ - signs in our forests while they are burning.
Sun consumes 100000000000+ countries power. We have to do something!
