Thatās the same timeframe as the one used in the article, and sure, they could have made it explicit again, but implicitly it makes sense because itās the one thatās useful for a direct comparison.
Turns out, the implicit timeframe that should be clear after reading the article was the right one, and itās pretty damning for bitcoin as is. So again, I am not sure what point you want to make.
Iām on the side of [email protected] here, since I read the comments before the article. Without the articlesā context I had no idea if this meant all-time usage, per year, or per month.
Since the link is right there though, which says per year, itās really not a huge deal.
WattHours is a unit of work. If you say that bitcoin uses x amount of Wh it doesnāt say shit about how much it actually consumes. Because you donāt say in what amount of time Bitcoin uses said amount of work, you cannot compare it. I could state, that Bitcoin uses 5 Wh. Which would also be correct.
Its the same as saying, Bob eats 5 apples. Alice eats 2000 apples. Can you compare the two? No, because what I forgot to mention is, that Bon eats 5 apples a week and Alice eats 2000 apples in 3 years. Now i can compare the two.
PoS requires significant staker profits to work, which would create the same inequality as the dollar has. Itās basically dollar bonds but without regulations.
Second law of thermodynamics would like to chime in, even with such a perfect nonexistent power source, waste heat is still an issueā¦ which you can radiate to space, which would take tremendous land use to facilitateā¦
Or we use that land and capital and effort for solar power, which exists and could power practically everything in our lives, minus AI. Sounds like a win to me.
(Also not to mention the necessity to fire up more fossils for this shit to compensate for the current lack of miracle power for their pipe dreams)
And both of these companies build and purchased more renewable energy sources than all 100+ countries combined. Microsoft has committed to be carbon free by 2030, and while I donāt belive in their commitment, they at least seem to be trying contrary to most nations. They even invested in nuclear plants for their power needs.
You can fault both companies for a lot of different reasons, but in terms of carbon emissions due to power usage, they are better than 99.9% of the countries on that list.
They didnāt build it. They buy from local suppliers, power that could have been used by people and companies already there. Now itās just a lot more, while a serious part of the power consumption goes into debatable purposes like overhyped AI stuff.
Edit: and fwiw, recently Microsoft themselves announced that they are far from their reduction targets roadmap, so not sure where you got the happy flow news from
Green energy that could go to higher priority sectors like decarborning housing, food production and transportation . Carbon free doesnāt mean no ecological impact, of course itās better than fossil fuel, but it still a lot of ressources extracted and place taken over nature (which is the first cause of biodiversity loss). So ideally we should only destroy so much for essential needs.
But we will soon have AGI, and then you can have your very own JARVIS! Donāt you like Iron Man? Donāt you like super heroes? Donāt you like sci-fi? /s
I think all moths have some amount of fur, itās easy to notice on the base of their wings, just ābehindā (below?) the head. Some, like the rosy moth, are almost entirely covered in furs
and how much of that is energy thatās essentially used to run other companies, by way of their cloud services? I imagine thatād be a pretty substantial amount.
To be fair, that level of centralization in the hands of a for-profit corporation is worrisome too. Theyāll lure in small businesses and then enshittify.
Theyāll lure in small businesses and then enshittify.
Iām not so sureā¦ These ācloudā services are paid services they make a lot of money from, and itās a huge industry with a very large number of competitors (practically all major hosting services, and even a lot of smaller ones).
Is all of this due to AI? Iām confident most of the energy is spent on other stuff, like data centers. Both Google and Microsoft are cloud providers.
I think you meant comparing companies, guessing autocorrect got you.
And I disagree, itās useful, but more useful would be a chart of countries and multi-nationals, with the company usage removed from the country usage, to see it more clearly.
No matter which way you correctly read the headline, itās false.
You can either read it as Google and microsoft individually consumed more electricity than these 100 countries did (false, itās Google and microsoft combined)
OR Google and Microsoft combined consimed more than these 100 countries did total.
For software and devices running locally, sure. Much of what MS does these days is cloud based where the bulk of the electricity is being used in a data center somewhere and the customer isnāt (directly) paying for it.
Many countries donāt use a lot of electricity, especially those where the grids are spotty or in poor repair, or the overall population is small. Even without the AI garbage, Iād expect large tech-sector companies to use more energy than many countries.
(In other words, the headline for this was really poorly chosen. āMicrosoft and Google pour more electricity into AI than 100+ countries useā might have gotten a bit closer to the actuall point, if itās actually true.)
Microsoft and Google pour more electricity into AI than 100+ countries use" might have gotten a bit closer to the actuall point, if itās actually true
From what I can tell, the article is talking about total electrical use, not just AI.
Also probably ignoring the fact that some of their data centers have practically the entire roof covered in solar panels, Microsoft is investing in nuclear energy, etc.
Generative AI is taking the world by storm, and its impact is evident across all sectors, including medicine, education, music, computing, and more.
According to a detailed analysis by Michael Thomas, this surpasses the power consumption of over 100 nations, including Ghana, Tunisia, and more (via Tomās Hardware).
Some of the downsides to advancements in the AI landscape include the degradation of the environment, however, Google and Microsoft are big on renewable energy and have been championing the campaign while seeking alternative power sources.
Elon Musk claimed weāre on the verge of the biggest technology breakthrough with AI, but there wonāt be enough power by 2025.
Sam Altman has been exploring a potential alternative power source for OpenAIās AI efforts, with nuclear fusion at the top of his list.
While nuclear fusion seems like the perfect solution for AIās power needs due to its non-existent impact on the environment, scientists and researchers say itās ātoo late to deal with the climate crisisā and view fission and renewable energy as better options.
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