“AI’s natural limit is electricity, not chips,” Schmidt said, cutting through the industry’s semiconductor obsession with characteristic bluntness.
I mean, maybe in the very long term that’s a fundamental limit, and you face things like Dyson spheres.
But right now, I’m personally running one human-level AGI on roughly 100W of power, so I’m just gonna say that as things stand, the prominent limitation is software not being good enough. You’re, like, a software guy.
Ultimately AI is an optimization problem, and if we don’t know how to solve the software problems fully yet, then, yeah, we can be inefficient and dump some of the heavy lifting on the hardware guys to get a small edge.
But I’m pretty sure that the real breakthrough that needs to happen isn’t on the hardware side. Like, my existing PC and GPU already are more capable than my brain from a hardware standpoint. The hardware guys have already done their side and then some compared to human biology. It’s that we haven’t figured out the software to run on them to make them do what we want.
The military or whoever needs AI applications can ask for more hardware money to get an edge relative to competitors. But if you’re the (well, ex-) head of Google, you’re where a lot of those software and computer science guys who need to make the requisite software breakthroughs probably are, or could be. Probably the last people who should be saying “the hardware guys need to solve this”.
It’s going to be some more profound changes to what we’re doing in software today than just tweaking the parameters on some LLM model, too. There’s probably some hard research work that has to be done. It’s not “we need immense resources dumped into manufacturing more datacenters and powerplants, and chips”. It’s translating money into having some nerdy-looking humans bang away in some office somewhere and figure out the required changes to what needs to be done in software to get us there. Once that happens, then okay, sure, one needs hardware to make use of that software. But in July 2025, we don’t have the software to run on that hardware, not yet.
artifex@piefed.social
on 18 Jul 13:39
nextcollapse
Give yourself some credit! Your human-level intelligence is only using about 20W. The other 80 is for the meat robot it has to pilot to get stuff done.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world
on 18 Jul 15:21
nextcollapse
Tower, moving into refrigerator area
Hands, prepare for food extraction
Stomach stand by
Stomach stand by
Eyes show doors within range
Extending arm, prepare handle grasp
Handle secured
Contract arm for open
Door is opening
*alarm siren*
Unauthorized food ejection ALERT
Eyes reporting the raspberries fell out again
*launch expletives*
Stomach, stand by
All arms, hands defend against the animals
Emergency cleanup all hands
*launch expletives, threaten animals*
Head warning, open refrigerator door - repeat: Head warning
Stomach, stand by
*auxilliary cursing: ON*
YesButActuallyMaybe@lemmy.ca
on 18 Jul 15:55
collapse
Yeah and you can survive outside of a data center and walk through a room with a full cup of coffee without spilling it.
roofuskit@lemmy.world
on 18 Jul 14:18
nextcollapse
The crisis they created by chasing gains with no regard to efficiency.
Edit: I just have to add this is typical capitalist behavior. They are chasing gains at with no regard to the consequences it will have on the public. And now here we are and these CEOs are starting to lobby that the public needs to do something about the electric grid that THEY have overstressed in their pursuit of profit.
Privatize profits, socialize costs, the American Capitalist way.
HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth
on 18 Jul 14:25
nextcollapse
I for one would be happy if the collapse of the power grid killed AI. I would be, if it didn't also mean the collapse of the entire global economy and the death of thousands of people.
This greedy motherfucker can't think but 5 minutes ahead.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
on 18 Jul 14:27
nextcollapse
One of the add more LLM to get AGI guys, alright.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
on 18 Jul 15:02
nextcollapse
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub
on 18 Jul 15:57
nextcollapse
It’s a crisis because they want somebody else to pay for it, especially if the AI bubble would pop and all that infrastructure left would stay their responsibility and sunk cost.
thelivefive@startrek.website
on 18 Jul 16:45
nextcollapse
If AI is so smart, why don’t we just ask it to fix the power grid crisis?
captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org
on 18 Jul 17:13
nextcollapse
Because it will only fix it for AI and not for the inefficient meat puppets.
PushButton@lemmy.world
on 18 Jul 18:30
nextcollapse
You might be interested in a movie called “The Matrix”
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 18 Jul 19:59
nextcollapse
tetrachromacy@lemmy.world
on 18 Jul 20:26
collapse
This part of the Animatrix is the most eerie, twisted short I’ve seen. It makes me shudder even now years after I watched it. Should be required viewing for any billionaire AI nerds.
because the people in power would still have to listen when it says trains and socialism
mierdabird@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 18 Jul 16:53
collapse
Funny that decades of the GOP sabotaging progress on renewable energy like solar and wind, and torpedoing research into modernizing the power grid - specifically because it would make deploying renewable easier, will end up helping to hand the lead of possibly the most consequential industry of the 21st century over to China.
threaded - newest
No Climate Change will
Nawwwwwww, so sad.
I mean, maybe in the very long term that’s a fundamental limit, and you face things like Dyson spheres.
But right now, I’m personally running one human-level AGI on roughly 100W of power, so I’m just gonna say that as things stand, the prominent limitation is software not being good enough. You’re, like, a software guy.
Ultimately AI is an optimization problem, and if we don’t know how to solve the software problems fully yet, then, yeah, we can be inefficient and dump some of the heavy lifting on the hardware guys to get a small edge.
But I’m pretty sure that the real breakthrough that needs to happen isn’t on the hardware side. Like, my existing PC and GPU already are more capable than my brain from a hardware standpoint. The hardware guys have already done their side and then some compared to human biology. It’s that we haven’t figured out the software to run on them to make them do what we want.
The military or whoever needs AI applications can ask for more hardware money to get an edge relative to competitors. But if you’re the (well, ex-) head of Google, you’re where a lot of those software and computer science guys who need to make the requisite software breakthroughs probably are, or could be. Probably the last people who should be saying “the hardware guys need to solve this”.
It’s going to be some more profound changes to what we’re doing in software today than just tweaking the parameters on some LLM model, too. There’s probably some hard research work that has to be done. It’s not “we need immense resources dumped into manufacturing more datacenters and powerplants, and chips”. It’s translating money into having some nerdy-looking humans bang away in some office somewhere and figure out the required changes to what needs to be done in software to get us there. Once that happens, then okay, sure, one needs hardware to make use of that software. But in July 2025, we don’t have the software to run on that hardware, not yet.
Give yourself some credit! Your human-level intelligence is only using about 20W. The other 80 is for the meat robot it has to pilot to get stuff done.
Tower, moving into refrigerator area
Hands, prepare for food extraction
Stomach stand by
Stomach stand by
Eyes show doors within range
Extending arm, prepare handle grasp
Handle secured
Contract arm for open
Door is opening
*alarm siren*
Unauthorized food ejection ALERT
Eyes reporting the raspberries fell out again
*launch expletives*
Stomach, stand by
All arms, hands defend against the animals
Emergency cleanup all hands
*launch expletives, threaten animals*
Head warning, open refrigerator door - repeat: Head warning
Stomach, stand by
*auxilliary cursing: ON*
Yeah and you can survive outside of a data center and walk through a room with a full cup of coffee without spilling it.
Our CPUs and GPUs are many orders of magnitude simpler than our brains.
scientificamerican.com/…/100-trillion-connections…
But I largely agree! We need to optimize software. OTOH, some of the smartest people in IT have been working on this, who are we to second guess them.
Oh no… anyway
The crisis they created by chasing gains with no regard to efficiency.
Edit: I just have to add this is typical capitalist behavior. They are chasing gains at with no regard to the consequences it will have on the public. And now here we are and these CEOs are starting to lobby that the public needs to do something about the electric grid that THEY have overstressed in their pursuit of profit.
Privatize profits, socialize costs, the American Capitalist way.
I for one would be happy if the collapse of the power grid killed AI. I would be, if it didn't also mean the collapse of the entire global economy and the death of thousands of people.
This greedy motherfucker can't think but 5 minutes ahead.
One of the add more LLM to get AGI guys, alright.
Good
The power grid crisis that your AIs cause?
It’s a crisis because they want somebody else to pay for it, especially if the AI bubble would pop and all that infrastructure left would stay their responsibility and sunk cost.
If AI is so smart, why don’t we just ask it to fix the power grid crisis?
Because it will only fix it for AI and not for the inefficient meat puppets.
You might be interested in a movie called “The Matrix”
<img alt="you want the matrix, that’s how you get the matrix" src="https://i.imgflip.com/a0o26o.gif">
This part of the Animatrix is the most eerie, twisted short I’ve seen. It makes me shudder even now years after I watched it. Should be required viewing for any billionaire AI nerds.
because the people in power would still have to listen when it says trains and socialism
Funny that decades of the GOP sabotaging progress on renewable energy like solar and wind, and torpedoing research into modernizing the power grid - specifically because it would make deploying renewable easier, will end up helping to hand the lead of possibly the most consequential industry of the 21st century over to China.