At the moment AI is consuming about 3x as much total power as gaming (60 terawatt hrs/yr vs 20), so presumably 3x more environmental impact. So my question is, if one thing is 3x worse does it make the other thing okay? I mean, it seems fair that the power consumption should make us roughly 1/3 as outraged by gaming as we are by AI.
B-b-but…
AI training is less energy than AAA game development of which dozens come out each year.
It’s that something you have a source on, or do you just have a feeling about it?
Gpt 4 had a training cost of $78 million. Gta5 cost $300 million. 4000 developers each with the latest GPU burning hundreds of watts per employee to create the assets. A rough estimate of 750watt pc, 4,000 developers, 8 hour a day, 300 days a year, 5 years = 36 giga watt-hours.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPT-4
https://gamerant.com/rockstar-games-with-longest-development-cycles-ranked/ https://www.tweaktown.com/news/88292/over-6-000-people-worked-on-grand-theft-auto/index.html https://www.sportskeeda.com/gta/how-long-take-make-gta-5-a-brief-history-game-s-developmental-cycle
Off topic: while trying to find my post where I did the math I discovered that Blue Morpho is the name of an AI company. God damn it. AI ruined my Venture Bros reference.
Except their GPUs wouldn’t be at 100% power all the time. Most of that time will be with programming, texture artistry, planning mechanics etc. I have a feeling that “back of the napkin” calculation is incredibly inaccurate.