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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't sound biased to you?:

> While they do this, they also use vast amounts of energy and are happy using all the GPUs you can throw at them which is a problem we’ve seen before in the field of cryptocurrencies.

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This is written in a way that makes it clear that the author does not like the energy usage aspects of LLMs.

But is he wrong?

Yes. Cars use more energy than LLMs, we don't mind those.

What does "a lot of energy" even mean? It's meaningless. Do they use too much energy for their usefulness? If they did, people wouldn't be using them.

> we don't mind those.

Like with LLMs, some of us do. But still there are places in the world where one is imprisoned without car. Which is not case with LLMs (yet).

Really hit the false equivalence nail on the head.

Cars enable long-distance travel, which in many parts of the world is now essential for survival, and often that is, ironically, a result of climate change.

LLMs do nothing to aid human survival. In a post-apocalyptic world, cars would be sought after for both transport and shelter, but nobody would give a care that we lost ChatGPT.

I'm not sure if cars use more energy than LLMs; huge "citation needed" there. But for the sake of argument, let's assume that they do.

Cars use more energy than LLMs because most of the world is built around requiring a car to get to places.

It's not that we don't mind it; quite the contrary, in fact, as we're always reminded of when the price of gas/petrol shoots upwards.

When the cost of living forces you to live 45 minutes away from your job by car because living within walking distance is astronomical, many folks are conditioned to want a house with a garage "for the kids" because apartments are "for the poor," and EVs, in their current state, are not financially feasible yet (though that is changing!), it's more that we're forced to tolerate it.

That's about the cost of energy, not about the consumption. If you don't think the cost of gas is worth it, you don't use a car. If you don't think the cost of electricity is worth it, you don't use an LLM. It's literally priced in.

I know people don't mind the cost relative to the value they're getting, because if they did, they wouldn't use LLMs.

Is the consumption priced into LLMs? Seems like the free ones are losing money, surely they aren't using no energy.

There aren't LLMs that are free to run.

Are you giving my post a fair reading or are you trying to state that there are no LLMs that cost nothing to run? I'm referencing the LLMs that let me query them at no cost... It'd seem as if you didn't read my post at all if you thought I was making reference to something else.

Yes, those LLMs still cost someone something.

I know, did you even read my post?? "Surely they aren't using no energy"

I don't know how clear you meant to be, but it's two sentences. You may want to elaborate, because all I can see in your post is you attacking a straw man of "I can use ChatGPT for free, therefore it must use no energy, which MAKES NO SENSE".

Are you autistic or something? You're lack of self-awareness is astounding.

Not sure if it’s biased, it’s a serious limitation of the technology. Some countries are already struggling with their energy grid and water demands as is.

I think it’s fair to ensure that you create something that isn’t subject to possible quotas in the future

... But I mean this is the case. What do you mean by 'biased' here? Is it 'biased' to mention bad things about a thing? To be truly unbiased, must one praise everything while glossing over the problems?

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