alt Hacker News> The environment wins (less tokens burned = less energy consumed)
This is understandable logic, but at a systemic level it's not how things always go. Increasing efficiency can lead to increased consumption overall. You might save 50% in energy for your workload, but maybe now you can run it 3 times as much, or maybe 3 times more people will use it, because it's cheaper. The result might be a 50% INCREASE in energy consumed.
Replies
skybrian • yesterday at 3:14 PM
Yeah, probably. I wonder where speed-running fixing all the low-hanging fruit for AI-related efficiency improvements will leave us? It still seems worth doing. Maybe combined with a carbon tax.
This is the standing reason that is always given for why we must all sit in freeway traffic clogs, and I think it's B.S., because it assumes that there are viable alternatives available in near-medium term, but that isn't always the case. The alternative to freeways that are supposed to compensate is a joint combination of denser housing and mass transit, which in California, is not happening at all...zoning laws and the slow pace of building mass transit due to regulation slow-down and the need to service urban sprawl, prevent that solution from relieving traffic pressure. Don't speak of busses, because taking two hours to get to work is not better than one hour. So..the freeways stay the same number of lanes and my commute time continues to grow, and I am tired of hearing it is for the best.
So yes, lower LLM costs would probably lead even more LLM usage and greater energy expenditures, but then again, so does having a moving economy, and all that comes with that.