That would only be a problem if there were still rule of law in the US. If that were the case, they wouldn’t be able to run all those gas turbines either.

European data is an option too.

I guess the US will have to become more dependent on European earth and climate observation systems then, because a lot of industries actually need those. (unless they prefer other foreign services of course)

Where do you have the 3000 L of water for 1 kg almonds from? It is not in that paper. I read about 10000-15000L per kg almonds (here: https://berlin.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/oekologisch-leben/essen-und-trinken/32632.html) but that was admittedly not a scientific publication.

Just because datacenters are terrible with questionable use, doesn’t mean that combustion engine cars aren’t really bad either. Especially in urban areas traffic is causing a massive decrease in air quality and as a consequence are certainly the cause for respiratorial issues. It can’t happen soon enough to relegate these cars into museums. But of course, EVs are just solving the engine emission problem, they don’t solvbe all the other issues cars bring with them.

According to the numbers I found above, almond is pretty comparable to meat production in terms of water intensity. The only thing saving it is that there is a lot less almond production than meat production.

If I look at German sources almonds and beef/pork have the following overall water demand for 1 kg product:

Almonds: 10000-15000 L/kg, beef: 15400 L/kg, pork needs apparently half of beef

That does not necessarily sound like “less than meat”. Granted almonds are among the most water consuming plants. Potatoes need only 290 L/kg.

https://berlin.nabu.de/umwelt-und-ressourcen/oekologisch-leben/essen-und-trinken/32632.html https://www.landwirtschaft.de/umwelt/natur/wasser/wasserfussabdruck-wie-viel-wasser-steckt-in-landwirtschaftlichen-produkten

Those aren’t full prices though. You are aware of that, aren’t you? Nor are the current “full API” prices necessarily truly enough to cover full costs. It is not unlikely that even those are far away from profitability. If they weren’t, why all the financial gymnastics?

The real costs will only be known after the bubble bursts and the venture capital billions are going to dry up and the whole circular financing schemes are falling apart that are massively distorting numbers.

If the current subsidised rates are a good deal for you, nothing wrong with that. Just don’t make decisions that are binding you to what is doomed to explode in prices in the foreseeable future. Also, if all that productive is going through the roof with AI, why is software generally getting worse and buggier. Are all those big tech companies getting suddenly more incompetent, just when they are all moving to processes that are heavily using LLMs?

The AI bubble can’t burst soon enough but can anyone tell me how it is even possibly to burn that much money, at current token rates in a single month? How much inference would that be? Was that a huge customer with a lot of users or did they go bonkers with “claw”-stuff to exponentially increase their capacity to burn money in a bonfire?

“stochastic slot machine” What a great description. I have to remember that one. :)

I think you did not get the analogy. The point was that there was a canal bubble in the US which was mostly a huge waste of effort because the technology was outdated before a network could be completed to turn useless parts into a useful network. This was neither the case for rail or road networks. Both technologies experienced bubbles and overconstruction but they yielded large networks for generations to come.

Tokens are what an LLM actually predicts, one after another. If you have very slow models that produce less than 5 tokens/s or so, you can easily follow it with your own eyes. A token is what appears at once. Often it is an entire word but it can also be parts of a word or individual letters, digits, special signs for uncommone words or special formatting, number stuff.

Makes me wonder how the Chinese and European power grids can handle it just fine so far, with Norway being not that far away from full transition for example.

If the network is a limiting factor, why not push for dynamic pricing in combinatio with wall boxes that automatically use targetted loading during better prices. If that is implemention on a large scale, they would stabilise the network rather than destabilising it.

Curious, back in the early days they did not have to force young employees to embrace the web. Now with AI they have to.

Source? Has it progressed so much? I remember substantial double digit percentages.

I know, US style capitalism doesn’t put much value in it but loyal employees can be a win for a company, but you only get them if the companies are rewarding that loyalty. The cost of having disposable employees is often extremely high. In the worst case not only a lot of informal knowledge and skill is lost but sooner or later it will end up with the competition, no matter the clauses in the contract.

Currently, yes. However, if you build your business on highly subsidised temporary prices, you are probably like the CEOs that can’t think further than their shareholders. If you believe there will be flat rates in the end I have a bridge to sell to you.

Like I said, it counts almost double. Aviation makes up 4% of the impact when 90% of the global population isn’t even flying in a year. Traveler numbers are tiny compared to other modes yet it causes a 4% chunk.

Aviation is outright terrible in its impact compared to rail, on corridors where both are an option. Of course, for many travels, only aviation is in option. That is a reality but doesn’t make aviation any better.

The reason why aviation emissions are so bad is not so much the amount but where exactly they are emitted.

The equivalent of dinosaurs are mammals, not humans. But the biomass of humans isn’t really the issue, resource consumption and pollution are. Even if we transition to 100% renewable energies, which we have to sooner or later, unless civilization collapses before fossile fuel runs out, we rely on countless finite resources. The more people the more of a problem that becomes.

Agriculture is part of this issue, a lot of it is currently running on depleting soil snd much of the yield multiplier is coming from oil (fertilizer and fuel). Just because in recent time agriculture performance could keep up with population explosion, doesn’t mean this will be the case forever, especiall as car centric utban planning eats up fertile land at an excelerating rate and usable land for agriculture is already pretty much maxed out.

Providing everyone with a good live just gets harder with every billion more in the planet as resources are finite and exponential progress can’g go on forever.