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Today's Topics:
1. Re: AI advances limited by electricity supply (Roger Clarke)
2. Re: AI advances limited by electricity supply (Philip N Argy)
3. Re: AI advances limited by electricity supply (David)
4. Re: AI advances limited by electricity supply (Roger Clarke)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2025 12:13:55 +1000
From: Roger Clarke <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] AI advances limited by electricity supply
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> On 7/25/25 16:01, Antony Barry wrote:
>> https://qz.com/eric-schmidt-ai-limit-chips-electricity?lctg=1980929&utm_source=digitaltrends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:1980929&utm_campaign=DTDaily20250721
Given the well-known philosophical outlook that Eric Schmidt brings to
everything he talks about, how does it rate as news that he wants more
electricity at any cost?
____________________
On 27/7/2025 09:48, Tom Worthington wrote:
> Start clearing Crete. ;-)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
>
> More seriously, data centers could use off peak power, moving the power
> consumption around the world to wherever the wind is blowing or sun
> shining.
>
> The large estimates for data center water consumption assume the use of
> coal fired power cooled by water evaporation. If renewable energy, or
> event thermal using river or sea water for cooling, then there is not
> much water use. Also a data center can use closed cycle cooling, or
> water harvested from sewers.
--
Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected]
T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Visiting Professorial Fellow UNSW Law & Justice
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2025 02:21:34 +0000
From: Philip N Argy <[email protected]>
To: Tom Worthington <[email protected]>, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [LINK] AI advances limited by electricity supply
Message-ID:
<sy4p282mb36159301c4905c56f4b105d4d1...@sy4p282mb3615.ausp282.prod.outlook.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Aussie ingenuity to the rescue:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02871
Philip
-----Original Message-----
From: Link <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tom Worthington
Sent: Sunday, 27 July 2025 09:48
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] AI advances limited by electricity supply
On 7/25/25 16:01, Antony Barry wrote:
> https://qz.com/eric-schmidt-ai-limit-chips-electricity?lctg=1980929&utm_source=digitaltrends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:1980929&utm_campaign=DTDaily20250721
Start clearing Crete. ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
More seriously, data centers could use off peak power, moving the power
consumption around the world to wherever the wind is blowing or sun shining.
The large estimates for data center water consumption assume the use of
coal fired power cooled by water evaporation. If renewable energy, or
event thermal using river or sea water for cooling, then there is not
much water use. Also a data center can use closed cycle cooling, or
water harvested from sewers.
--
Tom Worthington http://www.tomw.net.au
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2025 13:17:54 +1000
From: David <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] AI advances limited by electricity supply
Message-ID: <5627232.E0xQCEvomI@ulysses>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
On Sunday, 27 July 2025 09:48:23 AEST Tom Worthington wrote:
> More seriously, data centers could use off peak power, moving the power
> consumption around the world to wherever the wind is blowing or sun shining.
But this is still energy needed for other, arguably more essential, purposes.
Any surplus can be stored in domestic batteries, in megawatt-scale batteries
owned by governments and/or the energy utilities, in pumped-hydro projects, et
cetera.
> If renewable energy, or event (sic) thermal using river or sea water for
> cooling, then there is not much water use. Also a data center can use closed
> cycle cooling, or water harvested from sewers.
Without affecting the ecology of those heat-sinks?
Most such arguments about the proper use of energy & planetary resources depend
on narrowing the scope of a large project's justification so its effect on what
economists used to call the "external global common" are ignored. This might
be fair enough for any given project, but these enterprises have a cumulative
effect as humanity is now beginning to realise.
And it's the cumulative effect which is the problem.
For example "Anthony Albanese offers Tuvalu residents the right to resettle in
Australia, as climate change 'threatens its existence'" - see
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-10/tuvalu-residents-resettle-australia-sea-levels-climate-change/103090070
Finally, just to set the record straight, I personally consider Labor is on the
right track with its policy of building gas-fired plants to meet peak-power
requirements while building more renewable-energy resources. It's also
possible to commit what amounts to the reverse error I described above.
This is all a bit much for a sunny Sunday, but you did goad me into
replying...!!
_DavidL_
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 2025 13:37:25 +1000
From: Roger Clarke <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [LINK] AI advances limited by electricity supply
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
On 27/7/2025 12:21, Philip N Argy wrote:
> Aussie ingenuity to the rescue:
> https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.02871
Another potential mitigating factor is that the maturity-stage of the
LLM game is 'Very Early'. So the assumption that vast reanalyses of
vast corpora will be required forever, or even for a materially long
period, may shortly be overrun.
Less-short version below.
Principles for the Responsible Application of Generative AI
Computer Law & Security Review 57 (2025) 106131
https://rogerclarke.com//EC/RGAI-C.html#GAI2
> GenAI technology is still new, and maturation continues. Small
Language Models (SLM) are emergent (Schick & Sch?tze 2021, Javaheripi
2023). A natural development is for a foundation LLM to provide lingual
structure, but to be combined with a specialised and perhaps curated SLM
containing semantic content relevant to, for example, melanoma diagnosis
or environmental regulation. A further refinement might then be the
abstraction of generic lingual models from LLMs, and their expression in
a compressed form, enabling combination with curated collections in
particular domains in a manner that is more convenient, and less
profligate of processing-power and energy.
[ Ergo pick your time to sell your Nvidia shares? ]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Link <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Tom Worthington
> Sent: Sunday, 27 July 2025 09:48
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [LINK] AI advances limited by electricity supply
>
> On 7/25/25 16:01, Antony Barry wrote:
>> https://qz.com/eric-schmidt-ai-limit-chips-electricity?lctg=1980929&utm_source=digitaltrends&utm_medium=email&utm_content=subscriber_id:1980929&utm_campaign=DTDaily20250721
>
> Start clearing Crete. ;-)
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
>
> More seriously, data centers could use off peak power, moving the power
> consumption around the world to wherever the wind is blowing or sun shining.
>
> The large estimates for data center water consumption assume the use of
> coal fired power cooled by water evaporation. If renewable energy, or
> event thermal using river or sea water for cooling, then there is not
> much water use. Also a data center can use closed cycle cooling, or
> water harvested from sewers.
>
>
--
Roger Clarke mailto:[email protected]
T: +61 2 6288 6916 http://www.xamax.com.au http://www.rogerclarke.com
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Visiting Professorial Fellow UNSW Law & Justice
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
------------------------------
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