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by estreeper 833 days ago
Energy use should be a concern, but it’s important to understand the magnitude of the problems and not simply conflate crypto and AI. To compare the technologies against each other:

Bitcoin: 145B = 145,000M kWh/year

ChatGPT: 0.5M * 365 = 182M kWh/year

Based on the numbers from the article, ChatGPT is using 3 orders of magnitude less electricity for something that provides high utility for vastly more people.

There are of course many other uses of AI aside from ChatGPT and more cryptocurrencies aside from BTC, but these are very different power consumptions.
3 comments
goatmeal 833 days ago
it's important to understand that most crypto doesn't even use proof of work. out of the top ten, only two are mined and they have less actual usage combined than the other eight.
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ffsm8 833 days ago
Isn't it pointless to keep that in mind considering that Bitcoin remains the defacto standard and dwarfs any other coin combined wrt value?
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Mistletoe 833 days ago
It’s important to not conflate all crypto with BTC. Ethereum moved to Proof of Stake and uses drastically less energy now.

>Ethereum will consume 6.56 GWh of electricity annually. To put that into perspective, the annual electricity consumption of the Eiffel Tower is 6.70 GWh

There is no need to hate all crypto because you hate the energy consumption. It’s as easy as people buying and using coin #2 instead of #1 and the problem all goes away. The only reason Bitcoin continues to be mined is that it is profitable. If the coin value goes down, mining goes down.

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wyager 833 days ago
> something that provides high utility for vastly more people

We have a really nice mechanism of distributed utility measurement called "prices" which suggests otherwise.

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cloverich 833 days ago
Prices dont reflect utility they reflect supply and demand. High price can mean high demand, or low supply. Crypto currencies are designed to artificially constrain supply specifically to maintain a stable price because they want to be a currency. AI works in the opposite manner -- its a race to drive demand by providing more utility or lower prices.
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