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The Extreme Cost of Training AI Models.
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this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2024
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I don't care how they estimate their cost in dollars. I think the cost to all of us in environmental impact would be more interesting.
Unless they're finding exciting new and efficient ways to generate electricity, I imagine its a linear comparison. Maybe some are worse than others. I know Grok's datacenter in Mississippi is relying exclusively on portable gas powered electric generators that are wrecking havoc on the local environment.
Gas like natural gas? Or gas like gasoline? I'm sure it's the former, but I take nothing for granted anymore.
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/11/nx-s1-5088134/elon-musk-ai-xai-supercomputer-memphis-pollution
Methane gas engines
Methane gas isn't a fossil fuel though, and I believe it's actually better for the environment to burn it than simply release it, at least as far as global warming goes.
It's a primary byproduct of Y-Grade gas during fractionation. But it is also less energy dense than your pricier fuels and and lighter. If you're not using good compression you might as well be venting the fuel as fast as you burn it.
Is it? I thought they were burning landfill or swamp gas.
You can get it there, too, but when it's already mixed with air you're forced to do the math of how much energy is in the methane versus how much it costs to distill out of the nitrogen and oxygen.
I didn't know that; thanks for sharing.
(BTW, I think you meant wreaking havoc.)
All my misspellings are part of my charm.
Honestly you can thank decades of anti-nuclear lobbying
More the plunge in O&G prices during the 1980s. Coal, oil, and natural gas got incredibly cheap under Reagan after the US cut sweetheart deals with the Saudis. Nuclear has huge upfront development costs, while oil, gas, and coal are very cheap to start up and run incredibly high margins.
Lobbying and activism had very little impact, as evidenced by the campaigns against coal waste and gas flaring and strip mining that all fell flat.
Maybe this is the push we need to switch to nuclear. The attack is good it just needs somebody with deeper pockets than coal/gas to lobby it.
Microsoft is trying to restart Three Mile Island. But that's a very old facility. I don't see too much interest in building new ones.
Kind of. Microsoft is offering to buy the electricity and put jobs and data centers nearby, the state is reactivating the site.
If more AI companies dedicate to buying vast amounts of electricity, there's money and jobs in it
But if they eye companies start making concentrated demand, It won't people with deep pockets long to figure out how to turn up some small scale high output plants.
Google the history of the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors in Georgia. I don't think tech firms have 16 years to invest in new energy plants.
I want to see what the long term economic cost was after they fired tens of thousands of tech workers hoping to replace us with AI. It feels like workers are always the ones who suffer the most under capitalism.
They'll fire more than that when the AI bubble busts and they stop pushing so hard into that development as it stagnates.
It depends if they fire them and AI can't actually do the job, then it would suck.
If they are fired and the ai can do it, then it's great, it's like having that many new people.
Assume it is equivalent to burning 200 million $ of gasoline