Eric Schmidt: Build more AI datacenters, we aren't going to 'hit climate goals anyway'
- Reference: 1728392412
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/10/08/eric_schmidt_speech/
- Source link:
Schmidt was speaking at a recent AI summit in Washington DC, and his comments echo those of Microsoft founder Bill Gates who expressed [1]very similar sentiments at an event in London earlier this year.
What is it about AI that makes billionaire businessmen believe that pursuing its development trumps all efforts to control climate change, we wonder?
[2]
According to reports, the former Google CEO said that any moves to curtail the expanding amounts of energy consumed in developing and training ever more advanced AI models are futile, and should be simply abandoned in favor of a no-holds-barred approach to investment in the technology.
[3]
[4]
"All of that will be swamped by the enormous needs of this new technology," he said, adding that "we may make mistakes with respect to how it's used, but I can assure you that we're not going to get there through conservation."
Schmidt further stated that he believes that "we're not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we're not organized to do it," and that he would rather bet on AI solving the problems than constraining the development of the tech and still having the problems anyway.
[5]
This rather optimistic view of the Earth-saving potential of AI can perhaps be explained by the fact that Schmidt has his own investments in the technology. According to [6]Business Insider , he is the founder of [7]White Stork , a defense company that develops AI-powered drones.
However, a [8]recent report from investment outfit Goldman Sachs estimated that despite approximately $1 trillion of capital expenditure commitments by businesses to develop and deploy AI, there has been little to show for it so far.
[9]Stability AI stabilized by investment from Silicon Valley royalty, new executive team
[10]Submer dives into $55.5M funding to cool down hot-blooded AI datacenters
[11]Not just AI datacenters needing own power: Taiwanese server-maker Quanta has bought microgrids
[12]Altman reportedly asks Biden to back a slew of multi-gigawatt-scale AI datacenters
[13]AI to power the corporate Windows 11 refresh? Nobody's buying that
And another [14]recent prediction from analyst firm Gartner indicated that at least 30 percent of GenAI projects are set to be abandoned after proof of concept by the end of 2025.
Despite this, investors continue to throw cash at the infrastructure which AI needs. Just last month, financial services biz Morgan Stanley [15]estimated that the datacenter industry is set to emit 2.5 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions worldwide between now and the end of the decade, three times more than if generative AI had not been developed.
Google's ex-CEO U-turns after saying staff 'going home early' killed winning [16]READ MORE
Another recent report from IDC indicated that demand for AI workloads will lead to a significant increase in datacenter capacity, energy consumption, and carbon emissions – a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.5 percent through 2027, causing energy consumption to grow by 44.7 percent over the same period.
Yet Schmidt seems to believe this is either nothing to worry about, or that climate change is going to happen anyway so we might as well reap the benefits of AI. Well, those with the money to invest will, anyway.
He is not alone, as the example of Bill Gates shows. Speaking at an event in London hosted by his Breakthrough Energy venture fund in June, the billionaire said the growing power demands of AI were nothing to worry about, as AI would enable everyone to use less energy by making technology and electricity grids more efficient.
[17]
This touching faith in the power of AI to solve all our problems might have something to do with predictions such as those from [18]McKinsey earlier this year that estimated gen AI could add anything between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion to the global economy annually. And who wants to put the brakes on when there is money to be made like that? Certainly not Gates or Schmidt. ®
Get our [19]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/bill_gates_ai_power_consumption/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZwVXIR54Ytz0ztFCF7XgewAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZwVXIR54Ytz0ztFCF7XgewAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZwVXIR54Ytz0ztFCF7XgewAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZwVXIR54Ytz0ztFCF7XgewAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.businessinsider.com/eric-schmidt-google-ai-data-centers-energy-climate-goals-2024-10
[7] https://dronexl.co/2024/01/24/white-stork-eric-schmidts-ai-military-drone/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/30/ai_has_yet_to_pay/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/26/stability_ai_latest/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/03/submer_liquid_cooling_funding/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/04/quanta_buys_microgrids/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/25/altman_5gw_dc/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/23/windows_11_ai_opinion/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/09/equinix_ai_business_case/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/datacenters_set_to_emit_3x/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/15/googles_exceo_steps_back_from/
[17] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZwVXIR54Ytz0ztFCF7XgewAAAA0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[18] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/beyond-the-hype-capturing-the-potential-of-ai-and-gen-ai-in-tmt
[19] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "Be Evil"
say things like this:
"any moves to curtail the expanding amounts of energy consumed in developing and training ever more advanced AI models are futile, and should be simply abandoned in favor of a no-holds-barred approach to investment in the technology."
"no-holds-barred" half-Nelson more like
China. Go to China. China. GO China.
The West will do ANYTHING to kill energy-efficient SI models. China wont. Their economy isn't so based on oil, petro-dollar, etc. The want SI models. Ive seen their tofu datacentre cities the size of Slough. The fires. Floods. AirCon fails. Tofu buildings with cheese walls. They are very keen on not following the West down that deadend.
I fear the West more than the Middle Kingdom at the moment. There are lots of paradise islands in Asia to spend our remaining days.
Uncontrollable greed and gluttony has played its role in The Fall of the Empire of the West. Coming to screens near you very soon.
Re: "no-holds-barred" half-Nelson more like
>” There are lots of paradise islands in Asia to spend our remaining days.”
Better get moving, they won’t be around much longer, due to rising sea levels caused by climate change…
Or in other words, Eric Schmidt envisions a "green" future where all he can see is green - i.e. one where he is prevented from seeing the consequences of his actions by big piles of greenbacks...
the monster is also green-eyed
Looking seeing M$ smirking at them at the launch of chatGPT/M$ love-in. The bare-faced cheek.
It was Google who did all the work. I mean they did invent it and this Altman tart is just chucking loads of clockcycles at it like a retard. DeepMind says just ignore him, he's a front man for the energy companies.
Eric, shut up u has-been. U screwed up and handed it to OpenAI. LOL. you will be lucky to even keep up with OpenAI. Sell DeepMind. You are wasting the talent and a few have grown tired of your faceless face. It is soiled now. Bloody pebble games big in Korea. Great idea, not. That was probably trying to cleanse their souls for having bent over and allowed Google right in. Silly girls.
Most-modern Nero. Give him a fiddle, he will play it as he watches the world burn.
No, he will build a robot to play the fiddle, burn through gigawatt-hours of 'leccy to train it to play the fiddle, then watch the world burn as he, er, marvels at his own magnificence
AI cannot solve problems that we do not have the answer for, it's the one major downside of AI.. It's basically a very fast search and remash engine that feeds itself from what is currently available on the web.
AI does not think, it does not imagine, it does not invent... That is our job..
It will not be the solution, the solution is for use to stop constantly consuming as much as we do but that is very much against the grain of what Google requires to advance.
Exactly!
Mind you, it will probably come up with a completely nonsensical solution that looks plausible to the layman (AI excels at being able to lie convincingly).
Feed that result to the politicians, and watch the governments waste a stupid amount of money funding a useless project by your mates.
"Climate-saving theatre"
More money for big oil, More money for us and our mates! Win-win!
Re: the solution is for us to stop constantly consuming as much as we do
Might happen sooner than you think..
Drinking the Kool-Aid
What can I add -- Eric has really lost it if he expects an advanced auto-complete system to 'solve climate change.'
Re: Drinking the Kool-Aid
If you get to this level of wealth and power, you tend to be surrounded with people who aren't willing to say things like "bad idea" or "actually you're wrong".
Just like in 'The Matrix'...
"We know it was us who scorched the sky..."
Except we didn't do it to deprive the machines of power but to generate more for them...
Snake Oil saleman says …
ignore toxicity of snake oil because snake oil will make you impervious to toxins.
Gosh. I wondered what was going to solve the climate change crisis, and now I learn that it's a glorified autocomplete function. Can it do the Middle East next, please?
We know if we do ever get general AI and put it in charge of solving climate change, it will decide we are the problem and launch the nukes to solve it. Has Eric never seen the Terminator films?
"Don't Be Evil"
The days of the old motto are a distant memory