This story about Microsoft and nuclear power underscores how big a deal AI is:

If approved by regulators, Three Mile Island would provide Microsoft with the energy equivalent it takes to power 800,000 homes, or 835 megawatts. Never before has a U.S. nuclear plant come back into service after being decommissioned, and never before has all of a single commercial nuclear power plant’s output been allocated to a single customer.

Love it or hate it, AI is not just a new feature, like a revamped Clippy. It’s going to have a profound impact on computing.

@manton let’s hope the regulators won’t approve this.

@manton Yup. Ultimately, while I think the hype is overblown, there's actual user functionality here and users want the promise of this technology unlike other failed pivots (crypto / metaverse). Saying this will resolve in the same way is hopeful thinking for many

@manton ...and the environment.

@manton Which is why I need to stop procrastinating and start diving into learning ChaGPT and the legion of other AI tools.

@manton TMI is essentially in my backyard, 10 miles or so. Has been interesting to hear about it coming back online for this purpose.

@aa Curious what you think of it being so close. In the past I’ve been concerned about nuclear, but it is clean and efficient, and on the whole I’m sure safer than coal plants.

@manton my concern with the impending subprime generative AI crisis is that those of us who are actually using AI for something specific and useful will be tarred by the same brush. It’s difficult enough explaining without the people turning against it.

@manton I really, really hope so. My use case is niche certainly and I'm competing against incumbent ways of working and methods which are fairly hopeless. I can make my target audience a better offer but I might just ditch the reference to AI, wave my hands and refer to the 'math-a-magic' 🙂

@manton I posted a comic about AI power consumption then read this article later that day lol. Art imitating life? 😂

logicalconclusionscomic.com/2024/09/2...​

@jpcamara Haha, that's good!

@manton thanks!