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Would AI Be Hated As Much If It Wasn't As Resource Intensive? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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If LLMs used very little RAM and processing power, was light weight even for Mythos or Sol, would people be as opposed? Like no data centers, no memory shortages, like it was able to run on a calculator with the same performance.

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[–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

I read the first few sentences, but already I disagree before your thought train had a chance to leave the station.

Think of your phone. Your phone might have AI, but mostly thats just connecting to the data center.

But imagine if it didn't. Imagine if the AI ran directly from your cell phone. Suddenly you have no need for data centers.

But it's not magic. In 1985 Nintendo released the NES to America. Previously released in Japan as the Famicom.

In 1985 if I asked you "what if there was a device like on star trek, wheere you could call someone, and it's a calander, and a camera, and a calculator, and a step counter, and a source of news, information, and a flashlight??? Oh, plus it can play NES games right on the device!"

You would say in 1985 thats magic. Except it's not magic. It's just tech that didn't exist YET.

Today it's called literally any cheap cell phone.

Now we know time will always move forward. I'm fairly confident that within 10 years AI run locally CAN exist. It probably can exist right now. The reason it doesn't and won't is because 5 years ago the tech just wasn't there yet.

So they bought a lot of land. They bought a lot of ram. They spent a lot of long term money on this early model of AI from 5 years ago.

So in 10 years, you'd expect there to be more fully functional local run AI. But here's why that won't happen.

When these rich assholes buy land, and all the buildings to be built and paid for by them, they feel obligated to use it. Even if NOT using it weilds better results.

Studies have shown that workers working from home result in more productivity, more work done, and more profit. Yet employers keep the big 12 story office with outdated windows xp computers running legacy software. Why? Because they already paid for it. So, "Come back to work dickhead!" says the boss.

Otherwise he'd have a big office, thats already paid for, but its empty.

So every data center that gets built should be considered permanent, even though from a tech standpoint it doesn't need to be.

So what they're simply asking is, what if the AI didn't drain towns of water and electricity? What if it just ran on your phone?

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    That's fine to disagree with me but I think it's a pretty generous reading of OP's phrasing to take away that all she's asking is "What if AI ran on your phone?" Having said that: you're still making some huge leaps here that do approach sci-fi if not magic outright. Firstly quantum computing as a field has stalled. To compound on this, transnational technological collaboration is also slowing. What this means is that it's unlikely we'll see another spurt of insane growth in mobile tech that will rival a $24,000,000 rack of Vera Rubins any time soon. The processor tech we have today seems pretty well plateaued.

    Locally run AI can exist, and has for a long time now. It's very feasible, and also resource-intensive, especially on hardware that wasn't designed for it. The issue of data centers also isn't really removed here, just mitigated. First and most pedantic: data centers have been a thing since the internet was created. When you pull up a video on YouTube, that data is being served through a data center, it's only against the insane demands of AI generation that our existing supply of data centers isn't enough. YouTube doesn't need to generate that video every time you watch it, just store one copy and fetch it for you whenever you ask. The second point is that locally run AI still needs to be trained. Even offline models need basic updates to prevent model drift and keep accurate knowledge (to be useful). This training data needs to come from... a data center. Admittedly, in possibly smaller amounts than full-access to an online generalized LLM.

    Anyway, another point: there was a lot of trial-and-error to get to the cheap smartphones of today from 1985. 41 years of it. In retrospect, most people would say it was worth it (most). Will people say the same about AI? It's doubtful. This is for the exact reasons I said above: the criticisms of AI come from when it works right! They're criticisms against the product itself, not like those against early smartphones ("It's too expensive!" "The battery dies too fast.") It's almost a given that efficiency will improve, but is this a good thing? More slop and more surveillance for cheaper? I don't think so.

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