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There is one thing you have left out though; machine learning lowers barriers. It takes years to become a good statistical analyst, data engineer, or what have you. Now, I can train an AI to analyse the data and sure, when done right the results will be 90% as good as if I studied statistics for 10 years and did it myself, and yes there are pitfalls to be wary of, but now there are a lot of people with access to these tools that were previously out of reach.
The biggest challenge humanity as a whole is currently - i am not exaggerating - solving the climate catastrophe. In this context, i don't care if machine learning lowers barriers.
I don't want it even - Because we don't have that many resources available to solving this existential crisis of humanity. I want energy and resources to spent wisely with benefit to society. Much of how machine learning, AI and bitcoin, etc is used today does nothing (and is even harmful) in that regard.
If your target is lower carbon emissions then you are targeting the wrong group. Green electricity is already plenty possible, and we'd be on a doomsday course even without AI.
The problem is not the power consumption of AI but the over reliance on fossil fuel power plants.
I disagree - i think only relying on green electricity is good, but it won't solve the devastating status we are currently that is the climate catastrophe.
Scientists currently say we are on track of their worst predictions. We need radical change, and one such change is reducing our consumption of resources drastically, globally. Consuming less power makes it much easier to use green electricity for this power.
True but it would mean talking about AI in this context is completely irrelevant.
AI isn't even close to being the biggest offender when it comes to industrial power consumption. To talk about AI in this context is practically a distraction, with how insignificant it is. You might as well bring gaming into the conversation while you're at it. It's even less relevant to the conversation than the likes of bitcoin mining.
It's not like latter where a) you need insane levels of power for all cases in order to get anywhere and b) that's the only barrier. You can train an AI on a gaming laptop. Bigger data sets might require, I dunno, a server, but that's never not been true with any kinds of heavier loads. And once you have your data model, you can just keep using that like you would in any other program, without a power draw any more notable than any other program.
Also, you cannot just go 'I want an AI' and have that magically make you money and shit. You need it to have as much direction, programming expertise and planning as any other computer program just to even get started. That will already remove the many people who have no idea what they're doing and just want to make free money.
No, the real conversation needs to be had about industrial machinery, especially older iterations that treat power as something in infinite supply.