Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ New tools are available to help reduce the energy that AI models devour

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I've seen this argument made a lot and I'm seeing it again here: "The majority of electricity powering data centers comes from fossil fuels, and water used for cooling is contributing to stressed watersheds." But while this article describes "tools to reduce data center energy use by power-capping hardware and by improving the efficiency with which models are trained" they're missing the main point: electricity shouldn't be generated using fossil fuels. Where I live, in Ontario, Canada, more than 93% of electricity is produced using non-fossil fuels. Europe, too, has dramatically reduced reliance on fossil fuels. MIT has a $24 billion endowment; why doesn't it just build non-fossil electricity sources? I don't want to hear about band-aids from the world's rishest institutions. They're not taking the issue seriously, and it's the rest of us who pay. Via Tara Calishain.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 29, 2024 1:47 p.m.

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