Human Existence Is Just as Wasteful as AI Data Centers, Sam Altman Suggests(decrypt.co)
36 pointsby darkwater7 hours ago16 comments
  • dtj11234 hours ago
    Assuming his brain consumed the usual 20W, throughout his lifetime Einstein's grey matter would have gotten through about 4.6 billion Joules. Some napkin maths tells me ChatGPT consumes that much in about 2.8 milliseconds.

    I don't think we're there yet.

    • stratos123an hour ago
      The first number is off by an order of magnitude or two, and your napkin math estimate is higher than humanity's entire power production. Are you a human?
      • dtj1123an hour ago
        Last I checked, yes I am indeed human. Are you implying I'm a language model because you think my maths is wrong?

        Ok let's see, 20 Watts is 20 joules per second. Einstein was alive for about 75 years, so that's 75x365x24x60x60 seconds by 20 Joules per second which is 47,304,000,000 Joules.

        So you are correct, I dropped an order of magnitude.

        Based on the numbers here: https://www.businessenergyuk.com/knowledge-hub/chatgpt-energ...

        ChatGPT gets through 39.98 million kWh per day, or 1.4 x 10e14 Joules per day, about 1.6 x 10e9 Joules per second.

        47,304,000,000 / 1,665,000,000 is about 28.4 seconds.

        So you're right on two counts, I'm off by an order of magnitude and an erroneous milli prefix. Napkin maths huh.

        I think the original point I was trying to make stands though.

  • kaboomshebang2 hours ago
    I didn't know AI can already take care of my grandma, cook meals, wash, clean-up, fix my car... ;) ;)
  • steve-atx-76002 hours ago
    I’m thinking less and less about this guy. Gemini is good enough or better than ChatGPT for general purpose use. Codex is slow and rarely outperforms Claude code for my software work. How many billions or trillions is he in the hole again?
  • trolleski2 hours ago
    This man is not right, and I don't mean only this opinion, something's seriously off.
  • warpspin4 hours ago
    Some things sound very clever in your head until you say them aloud.
    • blitzaran hour ago
      It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt
  • amai26 minutes ago
    Sam Altmans existence is especially wasteful; for the wealth of his investors.
  • osullishan hour ago
    Sometimes when I read things like this I despair - AI could be game changing, targetting complex issues around health, genetics etc. Instead its deployed mainly in the continued transfer of wealth from the ordinary man to the billionaire classes. We're ripe for a 'French' style revolution.
  • 1718627440an hour ago
    What does he think, how wasteful a human existence is that promotes AI data centers?
  • boesboes5 hours ago
    Sam is best satirized word-for-word
  • motbus32 hours ago
    I agree that people like him are just waste.
  • thunderfork28 minutes ago
    This would imply that AI data centers are somehow separate, and not just a further increment to the wastefulness of human existence, which is obvious nonsense.

    He really goes out of his way to seem like a hack - you'd think he could get some coaching from his synthetic buddy or whatever.

  • sombragris3 hours ago
    Call human existence "wasteful" is the epitome of hubris and incredibly dehumanizing. Shows what's on the mind of many Silicon Valley exec types.
    • expedition32an hour ago
      Look on the bright side Silicon Valley is terrible at politics. We still live in a democracy and none of these tech bros have the charisma or debate skills to get their own mother to vote for them.
    • NedF3 hours ago
      [dead]
  • hulitu5 hours ago
    He speaks for himself.
  • breakitmakeit3 hours ago
    It would be funnier if ww3 wasn't about to happen with this logic