- cross-posted to:
- collapse
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- collapse
- technology@lemmy.ml
Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.
Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities.
Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world.
Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.
Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects.
In other words, policy needs to be designed not to pick sectors or technologies as “winners”, but to pick the willing by providing support that is conditional on companies moving in the right direction. Making disclosure of environmental practices and impacts a condition for government support could ensure greater transparency and accountability.
All that for glorified autocomplete
But now I know that I can jump off the Golden Gate bridge to cure my depression.
The golden gate bridge is so far away from me. I don’t know what to do to cure depression. :(
I plan on building my own Golden Gate Bridge (to scale) and then jump off!
That is an absurd reduction of reality, blatant illustration of dunning-kruger in relation to LLMs
LLMs are just predictive text but bigger
Or is it? Dun-dun-DUNNN!
I mean, that’s also all you or I am.
Speak for yourself, loser. Repeating shit you heard an influencer say on Twitch is cringe.
You are insulting someone simply because they didn’t go along with your strawman? Intelligence is in short supply these days.
Explain to me how we’re not or kindly go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself.
I’m calling it now: you’ll end up poor and unhappy
That’s cool, free will doesn’t exist, whats going to happen is going to happen. I’ve accepted that, so I might die poor, but you’re the only one here with a chance of dying truly unhappy.
You know what’s funny? What negative prompts you’d have to give an LLM to get it to respond the way you do.
You were more entertaining when you just repeated dumb lines from your favourite influencers