Sam Altman compares AI energy use to the cost of "training" humans, says water-usage concerns are "fake"

[Endymio]

Desalination plants are also extremely energy intensive to operate

That's why nuclear power exists.

You would need 13 of these [desalination plants] just for residential use in california alone

Less than 10% of all water use in California is used by residential and commercial consumers. The bulk of it (91%) goes to maintain swamps ("preserve wetlands and associated ecosystems") and to grow water-intensive crops like alfalfa and almonds in desert regions.

Even ignoring that insanity, the fact remains that the West Coast dumps trillions of gallons a day of **unused** fresh water directly into the Pacific. We can tap all that, without building a single desalination plant.

 

[toooooot]

Not sure if true, but I heard that some data centers do not reuse water simple because it is easier to flush it and refill.
They all should be using those liquid mixes they last for years. Maybe if that was the law, they would? And at this time, I think this is something that needs to be done. Yes, they still devour power like crazy, but at least leave water alone.

 

[hover389]

The water concerns are literally fake. People need to do a little thinking and research into it. There is no water usage issues with AI data centers. Full Stop

 

[seeprime]

Frak this scammer.

 

[bviktor]

Oh look, a fraud!

 

[p51d007]

Then force all of these AI company data centers to find, and PAY for their own water & electricity...if it isn't that big of a deal.

 

[Nintenboy01]

The water concerns are literally fake. People need to do a little thinking and research into it. There is no water usage issues with AI data centers. Full Stop

I'm supposed to just trust you? What if fresh water becomes a tightly controlled resource one day?

 

[pnntmp]

This is what convinced me you must be trolling. Do you not understand how corrosion works? Putting salt water into a closed cooling system is an AWFUL idea.

Of course putting salt water into a closed cooling system is an AWFUL idea. I don't remember suggesting it should be done though.
I said desalinating wasn't necessary because a closed cooling system consumes virtually no water, so there's no need to look for exotic sources.

I'm not sure if I have to remind this here, but if water is used to cool something, it does not subsequently cease to exist.

 

[Watzupken]

70%+ of earth is covered in water, this is the least scarce thing ever.
Closed loop cooling systems consume virtually no water.
In many cities, more than 50% of treated water is lost in pipe leaks, but I haven't seen a single hysterical campaign about that.
Pipe leaks in a single major city waste far more water than the combined consumption of all datacenters.

Fossil fuels are also nowhere near scarce, there's more than enough of each kind. We'll stop using fossil fuels long before they become scarce.
Resource scarcity is nonsense.

Try drinking sea water and using it for growing anything. These drinkable water are rerouted from farms and homes to AI data centers and to produce these AI chips.

 

[pnntmp]

Try drinking sea water and using it for growing anything. These drinkable water are rerouted from farms and homes to AI data centers and to produce these AI chips.

Are you OK? Why would anyone drink seawater?
Datacenters don't use potable water, they use and reuse industrial grade water, in far lesser quantities than the vast majority of industrial processes. All this water hysteria is entirely unwarranted.

 

[R00sT3R]

All these Tech Bros tossers need to be put in their place.

These sociopathic, self entitled man-babies literally think of themselves as the 'New Gods' deciding the fate of humanity in the 21st Century.

 

[Jyrkz]

Its not about using water its about making the water waste.. data-centers are next gen big problems... one should wonder why all the data centers dont clean their own water and reuse it ? everything is possible and there are always ways to do it

 

[dmatheson]

I'm tired of the ridiculous hysteria about "rapidly depleting natural resources".
Which resources exactly are rapidly depleting???? Because I can't recall any.

If you live near a data center, those "resources" are pretty black and white on your monthly power bill.

 

[Gravitytr1]

Guys....I think we found Altman's Alt.
Clean fresh water for one. Where do you think it is coming from? Especially the western US has been pumping aquifers dry for decades, those dont refill quickly, or ever. The snowpacks in Colorado cant keep up with demand and snowfall keeps reducing over time.

The fossil fuels used to generate all this electricity for another. I mean does that even need explanation?

I mean, you can simply server restart and the iron, rubber, rare metal nodes respawn and you just mine them again, duh

Or just build a spaceship in 5 minutes and mine another planet and return back to earth, duh

You can also fast travel

 

[Endymio]

If you live near a data center, those "resources" are pretty black and white on your monthly power bill.

The largest factor in electricity rate increases isn't data centers, but the enormous investments being made in solar and wind farms, along with the massive grid upgrades necessary to support these highly-variable, non-demand based sources.

Dominion Energy serves the nation's largest concentration of data centers in Virginia and the Carolinas. Over the same period that Dominion has raised electric rates by an average of 30%, my local utility -- which services exactly zero data centers -- has raised rates by 24%. But they, like Dominion, invested heavily in 'green' energy.

 

[pnntmp]

If you live near a data center, those "resources" are pretty black and white on your monthly power bill.

Electricity prices have absolutely nothing to do with depleting natural resources of any kind.

 

[wiyosaya]

Just last year a radiologist reviewed some imaging of mine, and missed an issue despite being told specifically to look for it. An AI algorithm caught it, potentially saving my life. The radiologist charged $5,000 and took three days to perform his mistaken review ... the AI based tool caught it in under one second, at a net cost in electricity of about ten cents.

You may not like being displaced by AI ... but your thoughts and feelings here are as relevant as the Luddite weavers who found themselves no longer able to hand produce men's stockings.

Cancer, was it? If so, you do know that there's non-zero probability that if the doctor regularly uses AI to review imaging, the doctor may have missed the signs in the imaging because of the doctor's use of AI to regularly review imaging. https://www.techspot.com/news/109071-ai-reliance-linked-drop-doctors-cancer-detection-skills.html
IMO, a technology that makes intelligent humans dumber is a step backwards towards ludditism.

Your savings were likely nulled or it may have cost more when taking a "big picture" view of the over-all costs.

Luddites, indeed.

 

[fazy shah]

I would love some AI replace these CEO and executives.

 

[GFitzpatrick47]

Not for much longer. Do you see much thread being spun and cloth woven by hand any more?


Just last year a radiologist reviewed some imaging of mine, and missed an issue despite being told specifically to look for it. An AI algorithm caught it, potentially saving my life. The radiologist charged $5,000 and took three days to perform his mistaken review ... the AI based tool caught it in under one second, at a net cost in electricity of about ten cents.

You may not like being displaced by AI ... but your thoughts and feelings here are as relevant as the Luddite weavers who found themselves no longer able to hand produce men's stockings.

It's wonderful that the AI managed to do that, but you're ignoring how much investment went into developing an AI that would be able to do such a thing in a first place.

So, your radiologist missed something important, and that's a major issue, but it's also a bit inane to think that AI is going to be able to satisfactorily reproduce that accuracy enough times to no longer necessitate human intervention. Furthermore, it still must be trained off the back of humans in the first place, so you not only need that investment, but you still have the investment and running costs of the AI itself. So, you saying it took 1/100,000 of the time and costs presumes that the AI essentially arose from the aether.

You can't ignore the total development costs just because it's relatively inexpensive for the end-user.

 

[Endymio]

So, your radiologist missed something important, and that's a major issue, but it's also a bit inane to think that AI is going to be able to satisfactorily reproduce that accuracy enough times to no longer necessitate human intervention. Furthermore, it still must be trained off the back of humans in the first place, so you not only need that investment, but you still have the investment and running costs of the AI itself. So, you saying it took 1/100,000 of the time and costs presumes that the AI essentially arose from the aether.

Oops! You forgot that my radiologist didn't arise from the aether either. He required 12 years of K-12 education, 4 years as an undergraduate, 4 years of medical school, a year of radiology internship, and 4 years of radiology residency -- 25 years of training. To be fair, we should add his first 5 years of life, in which he was trained on the necessary skills to enter kindergarten.

30 years of training for a career that, if we're lucky, will last another 30. Meanwhile, that AI model, once trained, has the capability to literally last forever. The human radiologist might see 20 or 25 patients per day, the AI radiologist can see 20,000 per day, meaning its training is amortized across hundreds of millions of patients.

And what's banal here is the belief that AI pattern recognition won't, in a very, very few years, vastly exceed the capabilities of even the best of human radiologists.

 

[GoldenGoat]

Electricity prices have absolutely nothing to do with depleting natural resources of any kind.

Cheap electricity does deplete non-renewable natural resources, which is what these companies want so they can maximize their profits.

 

[GoldenGoat]

AI should be exciting, but in a capitalist society, people are scared of losing their ability to live and maintain the life they are accustomed to. The people running these AI companies have not shown they are the sharing-types. They are hording money and firing workers just to get a little bit more. And when they want people to be ok with them causing our electricity prices and water prices to go up, yeah there is going to be some push-back.

 

[pnntmp]

Cheap electricity does deplete non-renewable natural resources, which is what these companies want so they can maximize their profits.

It's technically true that electricity (cheap or otherwise) depletes non-renewable natural resources. But it's true the same way buying a sandwich depletes billionaire's wealth.

All non-renewable resources we use to generate electricity are very far from depletion. We'll naturally stop using them long before they really start to deplete - so this whole thing with depleting resources is kinda nonsensical.