Great piece! My biggest takeaway is the risks of overestimating AI's power demand. As we're seeing in the US, utility companies are using that demand as an excuse to delay the retirement of coal assets in some cases. As we've seen with exponential renewable growth, however, if we don't panic, maybe tech companies will see that they have time to take the renewable route. As we're seeing in IL this week, legislators are working on adding 3GW of battery storage in the state to help integrate renewables with the grid.
I read in some Substack that data centers will shortly become obsolete because new tinkering with input/output times can result in something the size of a suitcase doing the same function! Exciting if true.
If AI does become really intelligent, perhaps we can hand off decision making to it. Since human intelligence seems to be sporadic at best. Then we can concentrate on what we do best, which is acting foolish.
Great piece! My biggest takeaway is the risks of overestimating AI's power demand. As we're seeing in the US, utility companies are using that demand as an excuse to delay the retirement of coal assets in some cases. As we've seen with exponential renewable growth, however, if we don't panic, maybe tech companies will see that they have time to take the renewable route. As we're seeing in IL this week, legislators are working on adding 3GW of battery storage in the state to help integrate renewables with the grid.
Sam: At a time when every digital input seems to make the future seem less and less hopeful, this article is a breath of carbon-free fresh air.
Thank you!
I read in some Substack that data centers will shortly become obsolete because new tinkering with input/output times can result in something the size of a suitcase doing the same function! Exciting if true.
That would be amazing!
If AI does become really intelligent, perhaps we can hand off decision making to it. Since human intelligence seems to be sporadic at best. Then we can concentrate on what we do best, which is acting foolish.