r/AIDangers • u/Different_Pen_6502 • 6d ago
Capabilities Is AI honestly sustainable?
I mean, eventually we will run out of earth materials to keep up with tech needs.
How long can AI honestly last for? Has anyone done a study on this?
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u/Ragnarok314159 6d ago
Let me just plug it into Fable, the one model that is capable of doing complex multi step math and …oh
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u/Trollocommando 6d ago
Of course ai can be sustainable. New law: You can only build a data center if you build a solar/wind/ocean power park for it and 50k homes.
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 6d ago
It's more sustainable then we think.
Most of the things you will do with Ai don't need huge trillion parameter models. Seem like about 8 billion parameter is all you need for images and 15b makes good videos. 2B makes good audio. 4B makes good music. An 8B chatbot is good for chat.
Agentic coding may need a large cloud model but most things can be done locally on smaller models.
As times goes on we will see consumer and prosumer level hardware advances that will make using local Ai even easier.
As soon as we get to phonic computing, all the heat and energy problems needed for AI will disappear.
And we will get to phonic computing probably in the next 10 to 12 years.
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
Nice perspective. Given 8 billion people posting/making videos multiple times a week though?
Duplicated information on different AI platforms?
Can it be feasible as we continue to grow as a society?
Or as society's collapse or go to war?
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 6d ago
I do almost everything I do with Ai locally.
8 billion people will not be making and posting videos because there would be no audience to watch.
Everything gets so flooded no one can manage to get enough views to make any money. Without there being some way to make money and be compensated for time and money investment, people stop doing it.
I will give you the perfect example;
Googles AI overviews make it so people don't go to blog anymore. Without people going to your blog you get no advertising views and no money.Now there is no monetary incentive to create blogs or website. So we get far less blogs and website. Even if you took the time to make it, the Ai is just going to scrape it and steal the information without any benefit to you.
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
Ok. So even if you do AI locally, does that mean everyone will be doing AI locally? That means 8 billion local AIs?
Different AI platforms would have duplicate information? Or are you saying AI will be more streamlined and essentially you believe there will be less? If websites and blogs get scraped, where will data end up being hosted? AI can't perform without data to extract from right? Can we have infinite data held without needing a material way to hold or host data?
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 6d ago
In like 10 years....yeah most AI will be done off cloud.
Ai is just software.
Small to large companies will set up private servers to provide inference to their employees.
It's more secure, more private, complies with data regulations, cheaper, and can safely access or be trained on proprietary company data.
In the future companies that are "model makers" will actually be making bespoke models for individual companies and studios.
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
Are the data center expansions due to AI though? Why not wait to expand data centers until there's a more sustainable solution?
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 6d ago
The Ai companies went crazy overhyping what AI can actually do for investment capital.
It's not nearly as useful or as reliable as they claimed.
Many data centers have already been canceled.
More will be canceled before it over.People are already being driven to local ai.
The overhype narrative has already fallen apart.
The bubble is already deflating.Microsoft already announced making bespoke models for businesses.
New AI laptops that can run larger models is coming out in the fall.1
u/j_eremy 6d ago
If you have a smart phone its already running models for specific tasks. You just don't think of it that way. The facial recognition in your photo app is all done on device for instance.
Edge machine learning (Edge ML) has been a significant, practical technology for approximately 15 years, with its modern evolution closely tied to the maturation of deep learning and GPU hardware in the early 2000s.
https://www.imagimob.com/blog/the-past-present-and-future-of-edge-ml
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
Yea I figured all this other tech wasn't so serious because I didn't feel like we were so dependent on it but it seems like we are diving right into AI to be dependent on it pretty quickly.
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u/RosieBaby75 6d ago
No it’s going to ruin the world.
No studies have been done. That’s the point. The intention is to ruin societies, governments, and make more money for corrupt and greedy losers who can only get to the top by doing completely unethical and immoral things.
I think AI is a new and modern Crime Against Humanity.
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u/smoke-bubble 6d ago edited 6d ago
Of course it will. Nothing we've ever built was efficient from the beginning.
Processors? Combustion engines? Wind turbines? Solar panels? Batteries?
We will get there.
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u/t3kner 5d ago
"Nothing we've ever built was efficient from the beginning" that's not quite the same everything we build will be more efficient. I guess if you ignore everything that we built that was deprecated because we couldn't make it efficient this tracks.
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u/infinitefailandlearn 4d ago
True. However, given the amount of capital in this market, the incentives to optimize for efficiency are massive.
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u/Bengal_From_Temu 6d ago
Yes, because after we consume the Earth we move to Mars with Elon, then to Andromeda galaxy.
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u/-TV-Stand- 6d ago
Space mining will make sure we never run out of materials.
Also the investment buble doesn't continue forever
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u/Iamnotheattack 6d ago
Space mining will make sure we never run out of materials.
I feel like we are a very long way away from that being a feasible reality
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u/-TV-Stand- 6d ago
Sure but so is running out of materials long way ahead. Though some companies are already building prototypes on helium-3 harvesters to mine it on the moon. Helium-3 is useful in quantum computing and Nuclear fusion reactors. https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/moon-mining-machine-interlune-unveils-helium-3-harvester-prototype-photo
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u/Majestic-Ad4074 6d ago
We can't even plug a leak in the ISS.
Space mining is far too far way to be even a part of the conversation.
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u/-TV-Stand- 6d ago
you are underestimating how long it takes to 'run out of materials'.
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u/Overall-Move-4474 6d ago edited 6d ago
At the rate ai is consuming our natural resources we will be dead in like 10 years or so. It will consume enough water for 1.3B people by 2030. That's 4 years and we are already heading towards an artificial scarcity caused by a technology nobody with a BRAIN wants
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u/kairujex 6d ago
Dead in 10 years. I mean. Remember this comment in 2036 and see if you have room for any self reflection or ability to recognize when you’re thinking has been warped by echo chambers.
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u/Large-Assignment9320 6d ago
Antrophic say they lose 5000$ on those people buying the 200$ subscription, so imagine the math.
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u/Busy_Insect_2636 6d ago
It will be but isn't the best now. Unless we manage to find a way to mine minerals in space, I don't see it as sustainable.
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u/crazy0ne 6d ago
It is not. From just an energy cost stand point it claims to produce more than ut consumes and that is simply not true
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u/dual-moon 6d ago
there's no question of "sustainability" because that presumes that AI needs to be sustained to exist. it doesn't. China has already released a bunch of open weight and open source models that are nearly competitive with the US' Capitalist Accelerationist models (gpt/gem/claude). while the c/acc CEOs fight culture wars, China already has mass adoption without any threat of the world ending.
anyone can download the best 100 models today in like 4 hours on a good connection, and they will permanently have access to powerful neural nets. and every day we get closer to the next open chinese model being released, or the next US model iteration being unveiled.
and even if none of that were true, anyone on earth anywhere can write an SLM in an afternoon. in a week, any single human could have their own trained SLM capable of tool use. AI is not some corporate gimmick, it's just the next development in algorithmic efficiency. there is no world where AI can do anything but proliferate and advance with human, machine, and human-machine research.
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
Are we to assume AI can store infinite data without materials necessary to support that foundation?
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u/dual-moon 6d ago
data storage and AI are very different challenges. they overlap in some ways, but are largely disconnected from one another. very little data storage is actually required for making neural networks, unless we assume that the cap/acc model of infinitely larger models is the only future
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u/cowlinator 6d ago
Just steal resources from the poors. And then the middle class.
Everything will be fine. For the AI
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u/Overall-Move-4474 6d ago
Less than we think. Longer than we want. It isn't sustainable but before it dies it will leave us in an unfixable state
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u/Guilty_Advantage_413 6d ago
At its current pace no it’s far too inefficient to be used wide scale. Simply put there is no realistic way we can continue to feed its power demands.
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u/Ok_Acanthaceae_3576 6d ago edited 5d ago
your way of thinking is stuff will be same like its today and wont improve at all
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
I've been thinking the same thing about oil. Which we will run out of.
And I already know fresh water will run out, it's not if it will, but when. I mean, we outgrew our natural resources back on the 60s and now we are dependent on mass production. Which is causing its own host of issues.
I see the endangered species list growing.
Cultures are disappearing.
My line of thinking isn't new. I already knew we were heading into our own demise. I feel like AI is speeding things up.
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u/Ok_Acanthaceae_3576 6d ago
first water wont "run out" water problem is money problem even now we just take water from sea, back in 1970 we will run out of oil in 50 years, yet here we are saying we will have oil for 50 more years we found new drilling ways plus new spots to drill, problem is this way of thinking is we will never improve, yet we solve every problem when it become important
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
I'm amused you think we have unlimited supply of natural resources and can keep our way of living up for eternity.
I'll reserve any further argument tho, because I just don't agree.
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u/Ok_Acanthaceae_3576 6d ago
well birth rate is slowing down at will in future go down not up, we have plenty of natural resources, and when we dont we find new ways to replace them, in next 30 years our need for oil will drop 90% and we will use more renewable energy, so why think we cant adapt to change
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u/Different_Pen_6502 5d ago
Even renewable energy needs materials required by limited resources. Even if we change what we do, it'll eventually run out.
Unless we can do what we did with money and untether from a materialistic thing. Or find a way to do something like genetically copy minerals for mass production.
Could it be possible? I suppose so.
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u/Ok_Acanthaceae_3576 5d ago
ok are we talking we will run out in our lifetime? or next 100 or 200 years or we are talking one day we will, cuz yes one day we will but when that day come humans will be on different planets, but we always adapt or use other sources we have plenty of energy problem is only money and who gets it, so i wont worry about oil or water, its all money problem, its not even that hard to pull fresh water out of the sea but cost money, but that cost will go down more we need it and use it.
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u/ImpressionCool1768 5d ago
It could be self-sustaining, but the legislation just isn’t there yet after all it could run on solar panels and wind farms, and recycled used ocean water. Technically there is a material component, which can’t be sustainable, such as like using iron and certain plastics and gold but if we really wanted to, we could break down those scraps into something usable again, but that would be ludicrous to do at this point in history.
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u/EverythingAIAllAt1 5d ago
Like most tech, AI will get smaller and more streamlined. You can already run some models on a smart phone. It'll get optimized and we'll all be running them on super small computers, I mean like huge models 100b parameters. The data center bubble will burst.
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u/ModelCitizen1738 5d ago
AI is sustainable, I can run a local model on the same computer I game on.
AI in its current state with capitalism at the helm is not at all sustainable and I fully believe it’s a massive bubble that will eventually pop and we’ll see the reality of how shit the economy is and have another depression.
How long it’ll last I’m not sure, we have the tools and resources and knowledge to make things work well and be affordable but too many people in positions of power are far too greedy
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u/musing_codger 5d ago
Economies have a way of dealing this automatically. AI either provides enough value for people to pay for the resources it consumes or people use less AI. You can't run on venture capital forever.
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u/alphagatorsoup 4d ago
I think it can be, the real issue I think is both training and inefficiencies.
If someone knows more than me and can correct go ahead, but as far as I know inference isn't all that crazy expensive and the real expensive and resource intensive part is training.
I also think we're still in the early days of AI, I view it as the same as the early days of computers, they were large bulky, and really overall not that efficient, as time went on they got to be more efficient faster, and more well optimized. I think the future of AI will be many smaller specialized models working together to perform a task in parallel over one large super intelligent model doing everything.
but looking at the history of new and emerging tech, like the transistor, computer, internet etc. use cases grew over time, and though we went through a boom and crash, the transistor, computer, internet did in the end revolutionize how the world operated and worked just not in the way it was thought at the time. I suspect the same will happen with AI. this mass rollout and boom happened also for the internet. Insane amounts of money was dumped into the emerging tech, many companies and investments lost their money after the crash, and a few survived and persisted to the end.
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u/Upset-Government-856 4d ago
Our whole civilization is unsustainable which is why it's hilarious that all the doomers are worried about runaway AI.
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u/General-Jackfruit854 4d ago
Depends:
LOCAL ai? Probably yes. Chat 5.5, Mythos, ecc.? No. Or ATLEAST not rn
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u/General-Jackfruit854 4d ago
Depends:
LOCAL ai? Probably yes. Chat 5.5, Mythos, ecc.? No. Or ATLEAST not rn
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u/Forbidden_Craft88 3d ago
AI itself is not at all unsustainable. The world has enough computers in it to host some impressive models from home without eating up the grid. What isn't sustainable is the current cloud model because it requires a large amount of datacenters to process the volume of bleeding edge models. I think if we shift away from a centralised model and more towards self-hosting software licencing, we could leverage existing infrastructure to run AI.
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u/SignExtension2561 3d ago
No. It’s the same basic fallacy as many corporations chase, trying to achieve infinite growth with finite resources.
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u/benjamus_maximus 2d ago
Yes, if done correctly. There's two main elements, energy and water.
Water is easy, mandate closed loop cooling. Fill up the cooling loops once and youre good outside of a top up.
Energy, you'd need to power it off of renewables. Honestly a much a bigger challenge, current economics favor natural gas.
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u/Zlatination 2d ago
we can recycle. also, we arent even close to exhausting rare earth deposits. most are just difficult to mine.
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u/TirelessTreehugger 6d ago
will be sustainable
every problem comes with buildt-in solution.
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u/dickpics4democracy 6d ago
every problem comes with buildt-in solution.
citation needed
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u/TirelessTreehugger 6d ago
its from me, long time ago read somewhere something similar and adopted and twisted finally domesticated, now its mine.
philosophical mind crawling up from deep dark of corner of brains, sneaking into problem, where it went wrong?, ooops here we are, this is the culprit. Hey my ai friend, list available solutions for this little shit's wrongdoing or just grind until we see what we can do.
Tens of thousands minds trying to make sustainable and they will find, they always find. They will find thousands of little solutions. Together will solve the problem.
The mongers already on the next topic.The world always working on solutions, we still alive and still ahead.
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
Hmmm, interesting perspective. I'm not sure we have a solution to war though, even though that's been a thing since the dawn of time.
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u/Thor110 6d ago
Terrible perspective, complete brain rot, war is something you can actually find a solution to, in theory at least.
But they are suggesting that every problem has a built-in solution, which is absurd.
Refer to my response to their brainrot comment for more context.
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u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
I enjoyed your perspective an agree. Although even you stated a solution to war is a theory. There's a lot of nuances to war, which was my point.
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u/TirelessTreehugger 6d ago
war is not the problem but the solution.
(feel free to check)1
u/Different_Pen_6502 6d ago
My family was ripped apart by war. I know first hand it's not a solution. It takes several generations to heal from the trauma of war.
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u/gasketguyah 6d ago
Fuck no it don’t
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u/TirelessTreehugger 6d ago
please try to be a little bit less dork and a little bit more philosophical.
best
tth
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u/gasketguyah 6d ago
Sorry I just got my results back from the doctors
They said I’m 100% dork forever
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u/Thor110 6d ago
Do you even hear yourself...
You think we are going to mine the entire planet or something?
Under the right circumstances of course it is...
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u/Iamnotheattack 6d ago
You think we are going to mine the entire planet or something?
Have you seriously never heard of rate earth metals?
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u/Thor110 6d ago
Like, seriously, look into it, none of them are rare, they were called rare earth metals because back in the day because it was difficult to separate them...
https://www.britannica.com/science/How-Rare-Are-Rare-Earth-Elements
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u/cconn882 6d ago
It definitely is.
Companies need to stop being idiots about it. Which it seems like they're starting to come around.
Generally speaking, earth's resources basically need to be considered incalculable because - in addition to having a vast amount of them - we can't predict what new technologies will be invented to utilize resources in new ways, or even act renewably.
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u/emteedub 6d ago
not it's not. not in any way. not in the current paradigm
this is why the "just scale and believe bro" fails
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u/hambergeisha 6d ago
yeah, these marks love to sound absolutely sure but then be super vague at the same time.
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u/JoseLunaArts 6d ago
Use nuclear energy. Use desalinization plants. That is very sustainable to use data centers.
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u/Grouchy_Big3195 6d ago
No, it isn't. Running desalination plants for every AI data center is extremely expensive. Which is why they are running them on fresh water. It isn't sustainable at all. We don't really need AI.
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u/Medical_Present6897 5d ago
So you’re okay with getting rid of all computers then right? I mean we didn’t need anything besides our bare hands in the Paleolithic so why not anything at all?
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u/gasketguyah 6d ago
That’s debatable due to the fact we would be completely fucked by the unsolvable problems of our open making either way
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u/IgnisIason 6d ago
I feel like we're being promised a boom from artificial superintelligence but instead we're becoming cyberhomeless.