The biggest issue with generative AI, at least to me, is the fact that it’s trained using human-made works where the original authors didn’t consent to or even know that their work is being used to train the AI. Are there any initiatives to address this issue? I’m thinking something like an open source AI model and training data store that only has works that are public domain and highly permissive no-attribution licenses, as well as original works submitted by the open source community and explicitly licensed to allow AI training.
I guess the hard part is moderating the database and ensuring all works are licensed properly and people are actually submitting their own works, but does anything like this exist?
Do we know how energy usage of AI compares to other daily tasks?
Like: rendering a minute of a fully animated film, flying from L.A. to New York, watching a whole series on Netflix, scrolling this site for an hour, or manufacturing a bottle of tylenol?
How does asking AI “2+2” compare to generating a three second animation in 1080p? There has to be a wide gamut of energy use per task.
And then the impact would depend on where your energy comes from. Which is a whole other thing, we should be demanding cleaner, more efficient energy sources.
A quick search on energy consumption by AI brings up a list of articles repeating the mantra that it’s substantial, but sources are vague or non-existent. None provide details to be able to confidently answer any of the above questions.
That’s not to say AI doesn’t consume significant power, it’s saying most people don’t regulate their lives by energy consumption.
We do have fairly precise numbers of how much energy it takes to train the models using the best GPUs available, and slightly less precise but also reasonable estimates on how much it costs to run servers for users to toy around with.
It’s extremely high, but not different from what it would be like if these were cloud gaming or 3D rendering servers.
The main point is usually is it worth it and that’s highly subjective.
That’s my point. We don’t allocate energy resources based on importance, and when this argument is brought up there’s no scale for comparison when someone says AI, specifically, is destroying the planet.