Watched the Satya Nadella portion of Microsoft Build today, and the few minutes with Sam Altman, then skimmed through the other news. Microsoft is doing a lot, not all of it relevant to me. Importantly they plan for data centers to be powered by renewable energy (in 2025) despite scaling up for AI.

@manton what about water usage?

ChatGPT uses 0.5 litres of water for every 5 to 50 prompts

https://theconversation.com/ais-excessive-water-consumption-threatens-to-drown-out-its-environmental-contributions-225854

@manton there’s a lot of info out there on AI water usage

https://www.ft.com/content/6544119e-a511-4cfa-9243-13b8cf855c13

@manton The water usage is something that has found traction among people who don’t like AI. Water is used for cooling servers so technically they’re ‘consume’ water similar to how hydroelectric power stations use water. There’s a small difference. Some water is lost to evaporation. Some server farms are mitigating this by capturing it. Others are taking it further with this capture method by locating their farms underground.

@pratik it is not about NOT LIKING “AI”, but about using “AI” responsibly.

@rom I struggled with the right term to use. I meant, people opposed to AI

@pratik LLM != “AI”, “AI” > LLM