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1-bit LLMs Could Solve AI’s Energy Demands (spectrum.ieee.org)

submitted 5 months ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] wischi@programming.dev 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

The problem is that using those tools no matter how energy efficient will add to the total amount of energy humans use, because even if an AI generates an image faster than a human could, the human still needs 100W constantly.

This doesn't mean, that we shouldn't make it more efficient but let's be honest, more energy efficient AI just means that we would use even more AI everywhere.

[–] RmDebArc_5@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Solution: remove human

That’s what a lot of news sites are doing, getting rid of large parts of the employees and having the remaining do the same work with LLM. If you burn the no longer needed employees as an alternative heating solution your energy usage drops effectively to zero

[–] wischi@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago

True, but It's still not what I meant unless they kill those humans. The employees that did that work before still need the 100W. It might be that they can now do something else (or just be unemployed) but the net energy usage is not going down.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But speaking of efficiency, a human can do more useful tasks while AI is crunching numbers. But that is very subjective.

[–] wischi@programming.dev 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It depends what you mean by useful. Most humans are (at least at the moment) more versatile than even the most advanced AI we have. But you have to keep in mind that there are jobs with pretty mundane tasks where you don't really need the intelligence and versatility of a human.

[–] derpgon@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago

Thats what I meant, keep the tasks separated, and let both what they do better than the other half.