Well a local model responding to a prompt on less than 20gb of vram (gaming computer) costs less power than booting up any recent AAA high fps game. The primary cost in power is r&d. Training the next model to be “the best” is an Arms race. 90% of power consumption is trying to train the next model in 100 different ways. China was able to build off of chat cpt tech and built a model that has similar abilities and smartness for only 5 million. I think I won’t update my local model until there is actually more abilities in the next one.
And there is also a cost in the brain atrophy that these are causing in people who use them regularly. LLMs will make a huge segment of the population mentally and emotionally stunted. Who knows what these will do to this generation of children (many of whom will virtually raised by LLMs). Television and smartphones have done similar brain damage, particularly to attention spans, but these things will really wreak havoc on humanity on another level entirely. Like potentially a Fermi paradox/great filter solution level of harm.
When you say “And there is also a cost in the brain atrophy that these are causing in people who use them regularly. LLMs will make a huge segment of the population mentally and emotionally stunted.” I have difficulty believing it.
A mit professor did a study where she asked students to use llms to write a paper in one prompt then copy and paste and submit, she then checked and found none of them remembered the next week. Everyone else who wrote down the essay actually remembered and had good brain scans. This is bad evidence because there are other examples of people trying to learn a language who learn faster and with better articulation with llm as a tailoring tutor. There are examples of people feeling isolated at work using llms as a “rubber duck and / or inexperienced intern from a foreign country” and the daily collaborator increases creativity and productivity and mental health of the human. As such, I don’t see conclusive evidence either way.
Generally I find using llms for brainstorming has led me to think outside of my tunnel vision. I have found using a llm for vibe coding ( I am not a programmer) is a lot of frustration. They are too verbose for their own “time savings”.
I think social media and short form videos like tick tok do far more harm to attention spans than the rounding error of a llm. I think attention spans are more closely linked with regular handling one’s own boredom.
Thanks for your engagement, I look forward to conversations like this. Also if you have a source for your claim of brain atrophy, please give it!
Well a local model responding to a prompt on less than 20gb of vram (gaming computer) costs less power than booting up any recent AAA high fps game. The primary cost in power is r&d. Training the next model to be “the best” is an Arms race. 90% of power consumption is trying to train the next model in 100 different ways. China was able to build off of chat cpt tech and built a model that has similar abilities and smartness for only 5 million. I think I won’t update my local model until there is actually more abilities in the next one.
And there is also a cost in the brain atrophy that these are causing in people who use them regularly. LLMs will make a huge segment of the population mentally and emotionally stunted. Who knows what these will do to this generation of children (many of whom will virtually raised by LLMs). Television and smartphones have done similar brain damage, particularly to attention spans, but these things will really wreak havoc on humanity on another level entirely. Like potentially a Fermi paradox/great filter solution level of harm.
When you say “And there is also a cost in the brain atrophy that these are causing in people who use them regularly. LLMs will make a huge segment of the population mentally and emotionally stunted.” I have difficulty believing it.
A mit professor did a study where she asked students to use llms to write a paper in one prompt then copy and paste and submit, she then checked and found none of them remembered the next week. Everyone else who wrote down the essay actually remembered and had good brain scans. This is bad evidence because there are other examples of people trying to learn a language who learn faster and with better articulation with llm as a tailoring tutor. There are examples of people feeling isolated at work using llms as a “rubber duck and / or inexperienced intern from a foreign country” and the daily collaborator increases creativity and productivity and mental health of the human. As such, I don’t see conclusive evidence either way.
Generally I find using llms for brainstorming has led me to think outside of my tunnel vision. I have found using a llm for vibe coding ( I am not a programmer) is a lot of frustration. They are too verbose for their own “time savings”.
I think social media and short form videos like tick tok do far more harm to attention spans than the rounding error of a llm. I think attention spans are more closely linked with regular handling one’s own boredom.
Thanks for your engagement, I look forward to conversations like this. Also if you have a source for your claim of brain atrophy, please give it!
lol and how much does does 20gb of vram cost right now?
About 600$ before tax and shipping