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I think the next generation data centers will be using closed loop cooling systems so they're isn't a need for extra water for cooling? Power will be from renewable sources as well?
I did wonder, I'm literally writing an article about Water Efficiency as we speak but didn't want to get too deep on AI water use, some of the figures are pretty astounding though, something like 1 medium sized data centre consuming the equivalent water of 3 hospitals per annum! Mostly from evaporative cooling apparently. Also it seems Renewables wont be able to keep up, Sam Altman (OpenAI) is apparently invested in micro-nuclear now as it is viewed as a future power source for AI.
...and meanwhile we continue to use it for utterly spurious nonsense. Hopefully the EU AI act will starting pinning actual efficiency metrics onto AI use although how you 'meter' an organisation's use will be interesting...
Better actors than some of the so-called great actors
Our son lost his nascent career as a digital artist to the AI industry, but I can see huge benefits in AI
I'm more worried about the collosal amount of energy and water it will be consuming if we start turning out more and more disposable movies using AI
Although I share the concerns about the energy etc - I doubt that traditional movies are a particularly eco-friendly form of entertainment.
Everything in the video was AI generated; script, actors, scenes, music, everything.
It would be interesting to know what human effort was invested in directing the AI what to do. Someone must have prompted it to create, probably with a lot more than "make me a quirky short video with humour about AI taking over the media world to promote a new "AI actress" to a UK audience". There certainly are people employed by the AI companies, people employed to work out if this particular story was worth developing etc. So, if you are an up-and-coming actor, this might be worrying, but if you are an up-and-coming AI developer or even a screenwriter with an idea you want to turn into reality, this might be rather more interesting. I suspect the budget required to pull this off is probably not actually that much less then employing actors, writers, camera crew, video editors etc.
Although I share the concerns about the energy etc - I doubt that traditional movies are a particularly eco-friendly form of entertainment.
Ah yes, fair point! Although I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turned out that AI generated movies consumed more power (and water) than traditional, and this is assuming that AI isn't used to develop MORE movies than are currently being produced. However I have no figures to back up either statement.
but I can see huge benefits in AI
So can many, but I tend to share IHN's more realistic prognosis from further up the thread
I know it could be used for things that would have tremendous potential for the good of the planet, but it's being used by human beings, so what it will mostly be used for is the pursuit of profit at the expense of, well, who gives a shit, cos profits yeah?
... actually just thinking about this, I was wondering at what point the capital costs and the energy/water costs of the AI actually become more than the cost of paying actors, and then closer to home I was beginning to wonder when the cost of using AI becomes more than the cost of e.g. just paying someone for the time it takes to write the bloody email themselves, but then I realised, currently WE aren't paying for the energy or water ourselves, the AI companies are?
Wonder how long that will remain sustainable?
We are creating something (a new life form?) that is going to be far more intelligent than ourselves.
Are we though? We don't understand how our own brains work and humanity/genius comes from how our brains work. Sometimes illogical, unpredictable, a filter that can flip on and off, all things that aid rational thinking to create intelligence. How does a program make the connections that true human genius does? Sure, a computer can beat us at chess but can it create the steps forward that come from cross-domain inspiration? That kind of inventive thinking is not based in logic. I don't know enough about AI to answer that but I've also not heard or read anything suggesting AI can do this because it has to come from necessity and inspiration, a program relies on us feeding that in. So ChatGPT's LLM or a more evolved version may speed up human innovation, I see it as a huge benefit there, but replace it? I'm not sure. I may be hopelessly wrong.
I realised, currently WE aren't paying for the energy or water ourselves, the AI companies are?
Wonder how long that will remain sustainable?
Not very long. At all.
Currently the AI companies are burning through cash, losing billions per year. Ed Zitron writes extensively about this. https://www.wheresyoured.at/
In the next couple of years they either need to become profitable or raise billions (possibly even trillions) more in investor cash, and there just isn't that much money floating around. Neither of these things look likely, and there is a substantial chance of an AI crash that would hit the big tech companies very hard, not to mention all the funds that have invested in them.