Thread

1. IshKebab · 1790702029 · focus · HN ↗

   I wish they'd list the environmental cost. My employer has an unlimited AI budget so I don't care about using Astra if it's just more profit for OpenAI. I care more if it actually uses 5x more energy.

   1. rs_rs_rs_rs_rs · 1790702302 · focus · HN ↗

      I don't understand the point of this, why just now when it comes to llms. Why wasn't anyone enraged with the environmental costs of kids playing video games. I would not be surprised the environmental cost of that is an order of magnitude bigger than what llms have.

      Edit: for context, just Steam alone has ~200million monthly active users.

      1. paulryanrogers · 1790702913 · focus · HN ↗

         Considering Nvidia's hard shift to crypto and now AI, I doubt videogames are even in the same ballpark.

         How many DCs are devoted solely to gaming?

         1. lp92 · 1790703109 · focus · HN ↗

            Considering many games make use of cloud computing for online play and similar functions, they probably make up a pretty goot bit of global cloud compute capacity. Likely quite a lot less than the big AI players, but not an insignificant amount.

            1. HelloMcFly · 1790703356 · focus · HN ↗

               The energy costs of the cloud computing required for gaming are substantially less in power - not to mention overall demand - than LLMs. Come on, we're not in the same energy ballpark here.

               1. rs_rs_rs_rs_rs · 1790703948 · focus · HN ↗

                  >The energy costs of the cloud computing required for gaming are substantially less in power

                  Yes but it adds up when you consider that just on Steam alone there are 200 million monthly active users.

                  1. [deleted] · 1790710665 · focus · HN ↗

                     [deleted]

                  2. paulryanrogers · 1790727757 · focus · HN ↗

                     Steam games can run on less than 4GB of RAM, and per person are likely played only an hour or so a day. AI hyper scalars use far more to serve a single customer.
               2. empthought · 1790704756 · focus · HN ↗

                  You're not including the physical supply chain energy consumption of distributing video game equipment in this analysis. Nobody ships LLMs to big box stores and tries to sell them to consumers.

                  1. paulryanrogers · 1790727611 · focus · HN ↗

                     Historically all those boxes and discs were significant, at least if you sum them all for all time.

                     Today physical discs are rapidly becoming a niche that newer consoles just won't have. PC games are almost never sold physically anymore.

         2. rs_rs_rs_rs_rs · 1790703899 · focus · HN ↗

            >How many DCs are devoted solely to gaming?

            An entire planet. Just Steam alone has one or two hundres million monthly active users.

            1. paulryanrogers · 1790728083 · focus · HN ↗

               The whole planet's DCs are not solely serving games. Apparently games take about 300 TWh whilst AI is around 500 TWh.

               All of gaming is in the 300B USD range while just the CapEx of hyper scalars is already over 200B.

      2. lbrito · 1790703458 · focus · HN ↗

         If you recall history past the last 5 minutes, you will remember that people have indeed been enraged with the environmental costs of things for a long time. Its just that AI seems to have induced a mass amnesia, and people tend to forget about what happened pre 2024.

         1. rs_rs_rs_rs_rs · 1790704087 · focus · HN ↗

            > you will remember that people have indeed been enraged with the environmental costs of things for a long time

            Yeah? Show me the big movements against computer gaming.

            1. lbrito · 1790705282 · focus · HN ↗

               There are movements against consumerism and the environmental impacts of industry in general. Greenpeace is over half a century old.

               The differences with AI are: 1) we are starting off (mid 2020s) from a baseline point of already being in a hopelessly shitty situation, past the 1.5C warming target; and 2) Electronics, chips, data centers etc were already a thing for a long time, but industry took _decades_ to ramp up production to pre-AI levels, and these things are used everywhere for a huge number of things. Now we're consuming electronics/data centers/water/power at an unheard-of rate, and for a single purpose (AI) with questionable benefits, besides the private interests of a handful of people.

      3. JDups · 1790703671 · focus · HN ↗

         Because people find video games fun, though I suppose there's some vocal people that think of them as bad for society. In contrast the AI companies are promising a torment nexus future.

         I'd be curious as to how much of internet infrastructure is dedicated to gaming though.

      4. IshKebab · 1790705483 · focus · HN ↗

         I don't think video games consume nearly as much power. A PS5's power consumption is apparently around 200W. That's not enough to run even one GPU, let alone the armada it presumably takes to run Astra.

         Even then people do care about the power consumption of non-AI things. Look at the energy label on your TV or tumble drier for example.

         1. rs_rs_rs_rs_rs · 1790709110 · focus · HN ↗

            > non-AI things

            But this is not that, the same gpus you play games with are used to run llms. How was energy consumation by gpu not a topic before llms?

            > I don't think video games consume nearly as much power. A PS5's power consumption is apparently around 200W. That's not enough to run even one GPU, let alone the armada it presumably takes to run Astra.

            Just Steam has 200 million monthly active users. Add Steam, PS, Xbox, and whole other devices having gpus and I'm pretty sure you at least 10x the energy consumption of all ai companies.

            1. IshKebab · 1790715767 · focus · HN ↗

               > But this is not that, the same gpus you play games with are used to run llms. How was energy consumation by gpu not a topic before llms?

               I dunno what you're not getting but a GPU to run games is like 200-500W. A GPU cluster to run Astra is probably more like 10kW.

               Also gamers tend not to spin up dozens of other machines to also game for them.

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