HN reacts to a New Yorker piece on the “obscene energy demands of AI” with exactly the same arguments coiners use when confronted with the energy cost of blockchain - the product is valuable in of itself, demands for more energy will spur investment in energy generation, and what about the energy costs of painting oil on canvas, hmmmmmm???
Maybe it’s just my newness antennae needing calibrating, but I do feel the extreme energy requirements for what’s arguably just a frivolous toy is gonna cause AI boosters big problems, especially as energy demands ramp up in the US in the warmer months. Expect the narrative to adjust to counter it.
yeah, I definitely think machine learning has obvious use cases to benefit the common good (youtube auto captions being Actually Pretty Decent Now is one that comes to mind easily) but I’m much less certain about most of the stuff being presently marketed as “AI”
i’m pretty cool with ELIZA
Can you tell me more about why you’re pretty cool with ELIZA? 😉
we’re talking about you not me. come come elucidate your thoughts. can you elaborate on that?
(meta: has any llm actually exceeded this level of engagement? I can’t recall seeing a single example. some changes in the sophistication of the language perhaps, but otherwise nothing)
Is it that you would like to be able to tell you more about why you’re pretty cool with ELIZA?
Exactly. Some machine learning is great (image recognition for accessibility, machine translation) and some machine learning is awful (image recognition for cops, or machine translation for cops). But AI®️™️ is just mouth noises.
(also obviously image recognition and machine translation are at least real, even when for cops, as opposed to “creative thought produced by LLMs” which is even worse than mouth noises.)