this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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The real cost of AI is being paid in deserts far from Silicon Valley | Rest of World (restofworld.org)
submitted 2 months ago by stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net to c/technology@slrpnk.net
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[–] perestroika@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Regarding AI, some simple examples of likely computing expense:

  • performing 1 + 1 in assembly language: 1 CPU cycle
  • performing 1 + 1 in a high level interpreted language: maybe 10 CPU cycles
  • performing 1 + 1 using an LLM: millions of CPU cycles
  • asking "why was the rabbit an animal after 1 + 1": probably priceless, maybe a billion cycles
[–] keepthepace@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 months ago

Nowadays with JIT #1 and #2 are very close. There was less than a x2 performance gap when I compared a direct simple task in C and javascript.

About #3 no one does that.

#3 and #4 will be on the same scale, every token generated is roughly the same amount of CPU.

[–] Ugurcan@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

To be honest we lost that war when JavaScript dominated everything.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago

PHP would like a word.

[–] MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

And that translates directly to energy consumption - a single ChatGPT-style conversation can use as much electricity as charging a smartphone, which is why companies are scrambling to build more efficient AI chips and why they need so many power stations (you can compare some on gearscouts.com to see the best $/Wh values for emergency backup).