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Comment by Mertax | Hacker News Reader

Don't you think we'll get to the point where individual AI instances will be as ubiquitous as calculators? Or will it always require massive compute power that keeps the generative AI population low?

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I think we will, but I think at least for a while they'll be cloud-connected. And at the very least, they'll be battery-dependent. I wouldn't want to be unable to write well when my AI assistant runs out of juice for the day.

I'd be surprised if we have solar-powered AI assistants in my lifetime, in the way that we have solar-powered calculators.

I’m damn sure that someone will make a solar powered AI assistant by 2024.

Just saying, Guanaco LLama model just got released that actually beats GPT-3.5 in a fair few metrics. So right now it's already possible to run a local version with a beefy GPU and it'll only get better as time goes on.

In a strange coincidence I've recently been doing some tests with small 10 W solar panels and with two or three of those plus an Nvidia Xavier (20 W TDP) one could actually run a solar powered LLM right now with only about as much solar as fits on a person's back (though only the smaller 13B versions).

Give it a few years and we'll have them integrated into smartphones. So yes, you will in fact always have an LLM in your pocket just like the ol' calculator excuse.

Good to know! I'd still be surprised if we had solar-powered AI assistants that are powered via ambient indoor lighting in the next few decades.

That I doubt, but then again we've come ridiculously far in the last 20 years and having AI assistants will only accelerate research further. If the singularity is really just 6 years out as some calculate, then anything and everything is possible afterwards. If you believe such things of course.

If the Singularity is only 6 years out then that means fusion power must be only 10 years out.

But who, these days, can write much without power-dependent devices? I still use a notebook but within days I have little ability to parse my handwriting, and I rarely transfer anything handwritten to device.

One of my brothers writes on a typewriter daily. It's just his preference and hobby.

I think we could switch back fairly quickly if we needed to do so.

With all due and complete respect, I think not being able to read your own handwriting a few days later is a minority position...

True, I have disgraphia, which runs in my family. But my sense is that many young people barely did any handwriting in the last few years so I’m guessing handwriting is still less likely to be employed during power outages than just putting off writing.

We have both itty bitty calculators and supercomputers, so pretty feasible to have both edge AIs and central ones.

individual AI instances = we (humans)

different, humans experience the world, machines can handle way more information and operate at speeds imperceptible to humans

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