I guess his top argument was “climate change”. If that’s the go to we need to see what effect on climate change this 7T would have if invested elsewhere.
Some of the possibilities have a return on investment. Others don’t. The 7T assumes a positive ROI and while fundamental research is crucial to reversing the damage later, I’m not spilling any secrets that we will need 100 dead ends and 1000 incremental improvements before deployment of the next great tech.
Not at all. This isn't a zero sum game and there's no poetic justice
in letting fools and their money be easily parted. Even if the 7T
never yielded a single "AI" chip, we'd all be much worse-off for that
failure.
For example, the global cost of insecure software is 2T per year. Wrt
to lost opportunity cost, 7T would fund a ground-up secure open
microprocessor and operating system (provably free from back-doors) to
completely replace Android, iOS, Windows etc, with a new-deal style
offering to the entire global technology market. It would pay for
itself in 4 years.
Not so "glamourous" I know, but let's start with the problems we have,
not imaginary ones we haven't even created yet.
Not sure I buy this argument. Typically when society aims for moon-shots, the intermediate discoveries improve the quality of life, sometimes dramatically. It's an unknown unknown. Only exploration can turn it into a known unknown. Maybe the AI chip fails, but we discover a more potent source of energy that's cleaner than petroleum.
I personally don't think Mr. Altman is capable of such moon-shots, but am supportive of moon-shots in general.
stopped reading after the "700000 liters of water" piece; just hand-wavy dramatic ignorance all around. yeah man we should absolutely be losing sleep of 1/6th of a cow's worth of water used for training the most advanced AI models on the planet.
> OpenAI has argued that they literally can’t build what they are building without an exemption from copyright that would crush artists, musicians, writers, and other creators.
This is my favorite thing about what Silicon Valley has become. "But we're disruptors! We can't do what we want to do unless we break all of your laws!"
Just like with (most) cryptocurrency, it disgusts me how much energy is wasted on such frivolous pursuits like the majority of Generative AI usage.
The world should be fully awake to the incoming (on-going?) climate disaster, but instead we have vast amounts of additional energy demand being created mostly only in pursuit of making rich people richer.
Does OpenAI even have an edge anymore? I keep hearing about models being competitive with GPT4 and nothing about their fabled "Q*" model so I'm starting to think they've run their course.
Slippery Slope: The argument may overstate the direct line from investment in AI to catastrophic outcomes like global financial depression or war over resources.
Appeal to Fear: Highlighting extreme potential risks (e.g., worldwide depression, war over resources) without acknowledging the possible mitigations or the improbability of worst-case scenarios could play on irrational fears.
False Dichotomy: The argument presents the situation as an either/or scenario—investing $7 trillion in AI versus addressing global needs like hunger and education—without considering that investment in technology can also lead to economic growth and solutions for these issues.
Straw Man: The argument might misrepresent Sam Altman's or AI proponents' positions, implying they disregard any potential negative outcomes or alternative uses for the funds, which may not be accurate.
Overgeneralization: Using specific instances of negative outcomes related to AI to argue against a massive investment in AI could ignore the diversity of AI applications and their potential benefits.
Premise 1:
The consumption of energy and natural resources required for AI infrastructure, particularly if it continues to grow, is massive and potentially unsustainable.
Premise 2:
The economic investment of $7 trillion into AI by Sam Altman is significantly higher than the funds allocated to essential global needs like education and hunger, indicating a misallocation of financial resources.
Premise 3:
The financial risk of investing $7 trillion into AI is enormous, with potential repercussions including a global financial depression that could surpass previous economic crises.
Premise 4:
The development of AI at the scale proposed threatens to infringe upon intellectual property rights, harming artists, musicians, writers, and other creators.
Premise 5:
Negative externalities, such as misinformation, cybercrimes, and the exacerbation of global resource conflicts, are not being adequately addressed by AI developers like OpenAI.
Premise 6:
The rush to invest in AI before understanding the specific technological needs and proving real use cases is premature and risks significant financial and societal setbacks.
Conclusion:
Investing $7 trillion into AI as proposed by Sam Altman is a reckless expansion that overlooks significant environmental, economic, and societal risks, and should be reconsidered until the technology is proven to be safe, effective, and beneficial on a net basis.
In Factorio it would be like modifying the whole system to focus on producing a specific science pack quickly. The UAE would be very kind indeed... Also probably a bluff.
We need to produce and use more energy, not less, not the same amount, more. At the most basic level, our survival depends on it to produce the things we need: food, water, heat, shelter, but beyond that the quality of life and the ability to thrive for every human being on the planet depends on using more energy. We should continue to strive for efficiency as this is equivalent to an increase in production but we should not starve ourselves of it.
Natural resources exist to be utilized. Once again, they provide the necessities and also the comforts that all deserve. If we limit our energy use our ability to extract natural resources will suffer. The resources we can access grow in proportion to the amount of energy we make available. No where is this relationship more direct than in the production of fresh water via desalinization and that alone should be sufficient incentive to utilize more energy. It takes resources and energy to develop more resources and produce more energy, you can't stop it or reverse it, you need to keep moving forward.
Fiat currency by definition is infinite being created by decree.
The rest of the points are increasingly wobbly so I'll leave you with this exchange from the comments on his page:
---
Christopher Toth
You say that GPT-3 training consumed 700,000 liters of water, as if that is a large amount. With five seconds of research, I found that the global average water footprint for beef is around 15,415 liters of water per kilogram of beef produced, so an average cow costs >4.6 million liters of water. For a single cow. I am disappointed in your inability to contextualize the numbers you use.
Gary Marcus
dude the context is that it will be way more for gpt-4, gpt-5 etc, but maybe you were unable to read that far.
Christopher Toth
Okay, so can you speculate as to how much more water? Three cows worth? Ten cows worth? A hundred cows worth of water to train GPT-5?
Turns out we kill 900,000 cows every day, so around four trillion liters of water are used for beef production for a single day.
Do you expect GPT-5 to use more than this?
Otherwise why ever would you mention it other than because it looks like a large number to the uninformed?
Climate Change: Energy != climate change. Even if it entirely did, using it as an argument without including the benefits is to put it politely (i dont want to) is very silly. AGI (if possible) will solve climate.
Economic Resources: Again talking about the costs without the benefits is extremely disenginous, especially since this authour believes in ASI
Human Intellectual Capital: Barring some exceptions, IP laws are extremely outdated and wont last for long regardless of whether Sam venture succeeds or not. Also blacksmiths making horseshoes..
Negative Extranalities: This is where having some liberties to go outside of the HN guidelines would be extremely appropriate. Progress comes with risks but the alternative is the end of civilisation. Probably just the west and not humanity since China, Middle East, India etc have not been ...
Every major problem facing humanity can be solved given enough time, intelligence and creativity. If we had a technology than can accelerate these things, it would be illogical and immoral to not bet big on it.
When I say everything I mean everything from cancer, genetic diseases, famine, drought to climate change, poverty, prosperity etc etc. This not some utopian religious claim either. Everything I've listed is solvable, we have the equations and we've already made so much progress that we know it is just a matter of x. Whether x is time, intelligence or creativity. or all of the above..
To sum it up, the author and his kin are clearly driven by quasi collectivist luddite ideology/moral_framework. It is such a shame that HNs guidelines won't allow me to appropriatly describe the author.
38 comments
[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 97.0 ms ] threadWe know approximately how much the transition costs per ton of carbon not released. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/insights/us/articles/6... Is a figure pulled from their consultancy but this is one of many.
Some of the possibilities have a return on investment. Others don’t. The 7T assumes a positive ROI and while fundamental research is crucial to reversing the damage later, I’m not spilling any secrets that we will need 100 dead ends and 1000 incremental improvements before deployment of the next great tech.
So is that investment?
For example, the global cost of insecure software is 2T per year. Wrt to lost opportunity cost, 7T would fund a ground-up secure open microprocessor and operating system (provably free from back-doors) to completely replace Android, iOS, Windows etc, with a new-deal style offering to the entire global technology market. It would pay for itself in 4 years.
Not so "glamourous" I know, but let's start with the problems we have, not imaginary ones we haven't even created yet.
I personally don't think Mr. Altman is capable of such moon-shots, but am supportive of moon-shots in general.
https://twitter.com/realsergevar/status/1753903045962781129
https://officechai.com/startups/sam-altman-is-unsure-if-ilya...
This is my favorite thing about what Silicon Valley has become. "But we're disruptors! We can't do what we want to do unless we break all of your laws!"
The world should be fully awake to the incoming (on-going?) climate disaster, but instead we have vast amounts of additional energy demand being created mostly only in pursuit of making rich people richer.
Slippery Slope: The argument may overstate the direct line from investment in AI to catastrophic outcomes like global financial depression or war over resources.
Appeal to Fear: Highlighting extreme potential risks (e.g., worldwide depression, war over resources) without acknowledging the possible mitigations or the improbability of worst-case scenarios could play on irrational fears.
False Dichotomy: The argument presents the situation as an either/or scenario—investing $7 trillion in AI versus addressing global needs like hunger and education—without considering that investment in technology can also lead to economic growth and solutions for these issues.
Straw Man: The argument might misrepresent Sam Altman's or AI proponents' positions, implying they disregard any potential negative outcomes or alternative uses for the funds, which may not be accurate.
Overgeneralization: Using specific instances of negative outcomes related to AI to argue against a massive investment in AI could ignore the diversity of AI applications and their potential benefits.
Premise 1: The consumption of energy and natural resources required for AI infrastructure, particularly if it continues to grow, is massive and potentially unsustainable.
Premise 2: The economic investment of $7 trillion into AI by Sam Altman is significantly higher than the funds allocated to essential global needs like education and hunger, indicating a misallocation of financial resources.
Premise 3: The financial risk of investing $7 trillion into AI is enormous, with potential repercussions including a global financial depression that could surpass previous economic crises.
Premise 4: The development of AI at the scale proposed threatens to infringe upon intellectual property rights, harming artists, musicians, writers, and other creators.
Premise 5: Negative externalities, such as misinformation, cybercrimes, and the exacerbation of global resource conflicts, are not being adequately addressed by AI developers like OpenAI.
Premise 6: The rush to invest in AI before understanding the specific technological needs and proving real use cases is premature and risks significant financial and societal setbacks.
Conclusion: Investing $7 trillion into AI as proposed by Sam Altman is a reckless expansion that overlooks significant environmental, economic, and societal risks, and should be reconsidered until the technology is proven to be safe, effective, and beneficial on a net basis.
Natural resources exist to be utilized. Once again, they provide the necessities and also the comforts that all deserve. If we limit our energy use our ability to extract natural resources will suffer. The resources we can access grow in proportion to the amount of energy we make available. No where is this relationship more direct than in the production of fresh water via desalinization and that alone should be sufficient incentive to utilize more energy. It takes resources and energy to develop more resources and produce more energy, you can't stop it or reverse it, you need to keep moving forward.
Fiat currency by definition is infinite being created by decree.
The rest of the points are increasingly wobbly so I'll leave you with this exchange from the comments on his page:
---
Christopher Toth You say that GPT-3 training consumed 700,000 liters of water, as if that is a large amount. With five seconds of research, I found that the global average water footprint for beef is around 15,415 liters of water per kilogram of beef produced, so an average cow costs >4.6 million liters of water. For a single cow. I am disappointed in your inability to contextualize the numbers you use.
Gary Marcus dude the context is that it will be way more for gpt-4, gpt-5 etc, but maybe you were unable to read that far.
Christopher Toth Okay, so can you speculate as to how much more water? Three cows worth? Ten cows worth? A hundred cows worth of water to train GPT-5?
Turns out we kill 900,000 cows every day, so around four trillion liters of water are used for beef production for a single day.
Do you expect GPT-5 to use more than this?
Otherwise why ever would you mention it other than because it looks like a large number to the uninformed?
---
How many cows indeed.
Economic Resources: Again talking about the costs without the benefits is extremely disenginous, especially since this authour believes in ASI
Human Intellectual Capital: Barring some exceptions, IP laws are extremely outdated and wont last for long regardless of whether Sam venture succeeds or not. Also blacksmiths making horseshoes..
Negative Extranalities: This is where having some liberties to go outside of the HN guidelines would be extremely appropriate. Progress comes with risks but the alternative is the end of civilisation. Probably just the west and not humanity since China, Middle East, India etc have not been ...
Every major problem facing humanity can be solved given enough time, intelligence and creativity. If we had a technology than can accelerate these things, it would be illogical and immoral to not bet big on it.
When I say everything I mean everything from cancer, genetic diseases, famine, drought to climate change, poverty, prosperity etc etc. This not some utopian religious claim either. Everything I've listed is solvable, we have the equations and we've already made so much progress that we know it is just a matter of x. Whether x is time, intelligence or creativity. or all of the above..
To sum it up, the author and his kin are clearly driven by quasi collectivist luddite ideology/moral_framework. It is such a shame that HNs guidelines won't allow me to appropriatly describe the author.