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by kelseyfrog 709 days ago
Great, improvements in efficiency will lead to greater resource consumption due to Jevons Paradox[1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

2 comments

Jevon's paradox is not inevitable, and only happens in a very few situations, and certainly not all.

And your statement of it is incorrect. It can result in greater demand, but it's not about resulting greater resource usage.

Some minority of efficiency improvements can sometimes lead to greater resource consumption, but overall efficiency does result in less resource usage.

How do we know if this particular instance will result in Jevons paradox?
>the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced

This is just saying throughput is increased, yes? The time to train, and thus iterate (i.e. dialing in hyperpaprams) will decrease.

It calls into question the byline "which could mean lower energy demands."

Ie: more efficient steam engines lead to both an increase of steam engine throughput as well as coal consumption, an increase in AI efficiency can lead to an increase in training throughput and energy consumption.

The paradox is a result of prevalence scaling faster than efficiency and efficiency driving prevalence.