One thing about these numbers that's absolutely shocking to me is how low the energy use is:
> That model’s usage was well within our budget ($68, about 4kWh of energy use / 365 grams of carbon emissions).
The energy cost is literally 1% of the total cost. For context, 4kWh of energy would drive you about 15 miles in an EV, about half of the average person's daily driving miles. It's boiling 10 gallons of water.
With the talk of AI data centers' impact on the world, you'd think this would be 10x to 100x the amount of energy in order to get the effects they're using here.
My takeaway: the AI data center buildout is an overbuild probably at least as large as the fiber buildout that left us with so much dark fiber. If not even bigger. The only thing that will save the economy is the inability of NVIDIA and chip fabs to produce enough chips to match the buildout planned.
Yeah the whole data center environmental panic seemed astroturfed to me. I took a look at the numbers and it’s not that bad. If you telework one day instead of commuting you make up for over a week of heavy AI use, and the water use is on par with an average golf course.
There are noise issues in some places. But the panic is excessive. Like nuts.
Maybe environmental panics are to the left what moral panics about stuff like trans people are to the right.
Don't need any astroturfing to explain the data center panic, it's well within organic NIMBYism. I've been trying to get housing built in my town for a decade, the crap stuff say about housing and the fervor with which they block housing is even greater than the data center panic.
Add in 1) all job destruction that Sam Altman and other leaders tout, 2) Musk operating an environmental disaster in the most offensive way possible for xAI, and 3) general fear bait a new technology that has such uncertain consequences, and I'm surprised the backlash isn't stronger.
Go talk to community members about any change in the buildings in their area and the data center backlash fits right in line with normal responses.
epistasis · · focus · HN ↗
> That model’s usage was well within our budget ($68, about 4kWh of energy use / 365 grams of carbon emissions).
The energy cost is literally 1% of the total cost. For context, 4kWh of energy would drive you about 15 miles in an EV, about half of the average person's daily driving miles. It's boiling 10 gallons of water.
With the talk of AI data centers' impact on the world, you'd think this would be 10x to 100x the amount of energy in order to get the effects they're using here.
My takeaway: the AI data center buildout is an overbuild probably at least as large as the fiber buildout that left us with so much dark fiber. If not even bigger. The only thing that will save the economy is the inability of NVIDIA and chip fabs to produce enough chips to match the buildout planned.
api · · focus · HN ↗
There are noise issues in some places. But the panic is excessive. Like nuts.
Maybe environmental panics are to the left what moral panics about stuff like trans people are to the right.
epistasis · · focus · HN ↗
Add in 1) all job destruction that Sam Altman and other leaders tout, 2) Musk operating an environmental disaster in the most offensive way possible for xAI, and 3) general fear bait a new technology that has such uncertain consequences, and I'm surprised the backlash isn't stronger.
Go talk to community members about any change in the buildings in their area and the data center backlash fits right in line with normal responses.