Is there anyway to make it use less at it gets more advanced or will there be huge power plants just dedicated to AI all over the world soon?
The current algorithmic approach to AI hit a wall in 2022.
Since then they have had to pump exponentially more electricity into these systems that result in exponentially diminishing returns.
We should have stopped in 2022, but marketing teams had other plans.
There’s not a way to do AI and use less electricity than the current models, and there most likely won’t be any more advances in AI until someone invents a fundamentally different approach.
will there be huge power plants just dedicated to AI all over the world soon?
Construction has started(or will soon) to convert a retired coal power plant in Pennsylvania to gas power, specifically for data-centers. Upon completion in 2027 it will likely be the third most powerful plant in the US.
The largest coal plant in North Dakota was considering shutting down in 2022 over financial issues, but is now approved to power a new data-center park.
Location has been laid out for a new power plant in Texas, from a single AI company you’ve probably never heard of.
And on it goes.
Data is the new oil. Collecting it, refining it, and distributing it.
OpenAI noticed that Generative Pre-trained Transformers get better when you make them bigger. GPT-1 had 120 million parameters. GPT-2 bumped it up to 1.5 billion. GPT-3 grew to 175 billion. Now we have models with over 300 billion.
To run, every generated word requires doing math with every parameter, which nowadays is a massive amount of work, running on the most power hungry top of the line chips.
There are efforts to make smaller models that are still effective, but we are still in the range of 7-30 billion to get anything useful out of them.
My understanding is that traditional AI essentially takes a bruteforce approach to learning and because it is hardwired, its ability to learn and make logical connections is impaired.
Newer technologies like organic computers using neurons can change and adapt as it learns, forming new pathways for information to travel along, which reduces processing requirements and in turn, reduces power requirements.
Lower voltage chip advancement along with better cooling options may come along some day.
They should consider building their super centers underwater in places like Iceland.
Thats only a short term solution, global warming will negate those benefits.
Southern ocean currents just reversed and will likely cause rapid warming of water temps.
Southern Ocean circulation reversed
Southern Ocean current reverses for first time, signalling risk of climate system collapse
France and Switzerland just had to shutdown their nuclear reactors due to the water sources they use for cooling being too warm.
France and Switzerland shut down nuclear power plants amid scorching heatwave
It takes a lot of energy to do something you are not meant to do, whether that’s a computer acting like a person or an introvert acting like an extrovert
If people continue investing in AI and computing power keeps growing we would need more than dedicated power plants.
