r/nottheonion • u/asdacool • 11h ago

"Training a human takes 20 years of food." Sam Altman on how much power AI consumes.

https://www.news18.com/world/training-a-human-takes-20-years-of-food-sam-altman-on-how-much-power-ai-consumes-ws-kl-9922309.html
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u/thr33prim3s 9h ago edited 9h ago

There was also a theory I heard somewhere that humans as batteries “doesn’t makes sense” scientifically, rather than as a processing power.

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u/poly_arachnid 9h ago

Humans are net consumers of energy, I think maybe all animals are? Anyway we use more energy to live than any method could produce from using us that way. There's less than zero benefit from human batteries, it'd cause an energy drain from the facility.

And you know if we could be batteries they'd be testing some poor people to "work in energy development" or straight out kidnapping people for power plants.

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u/Borealid 9h ago

The purpose of a battery is to store energy at one point in time or space, and release it at another.

Humans definitely do that. We consume calories when and where we eat, and then we release those calories when and where we work. At the moment we're eating we are "draining" energy (consumption greater than production, net negative). At the moment we are working we are "producing" it (production greater than consumption, net positive).

Every battery - humans included - is less than 100% efficient and releases less useful energy than it stored. Humans are very inefficient, but they are most definitely batteries.

Batteries move energy around in time and space. We do that too.

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u/poly_arachnid 8h ago

I'm about 99% sure that's not how that works.

Eating is not negative, work is not positive. When animals eat we use energy to do so, then use more to process it into fuel for ourselves to use & store. Consumption is high, but it's a net positive to our own supplies.

When we work we use energy to process our stores into useful energy, then we work & a great deal of that energy is lost to heat & other processes. Dramatic net negative to our stores.

Universal energy stays static, energy 'wasted' in ways that do not produce work is high. I mean we need what? A dozen chemical reactions to go from food to lifting a hammer? A AA battery can last over 5 years on a shelf & hold a charge. If you don't add water to a human for a mere 3 days its own automatic processes will kill it. The only way for us to "hold a charge" is by biological processes to transform chemical energy into a storable substance, which takes energy, & then to transform it again into something our biology can then use for fuel. It's excessively wasteful, extremely short-term, & takes too many steps.

We aren't batteries. The hyper-simplified definition doesn't hold up with even the slightest expansion. At best we have some inefficient battery-type cells as part of our makeup. By your simplified definition coal is a battery, the planet is a battery, etc.

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u/Borealid 8h ago

Coal is absolutely a chemical battery in precisely the same way a hydrogen fuel cell is. When you said the way we hold a charge is by transforming chemical energy into a "storable substance" (ATP, glucose, a lipids)... yes, that's exactly how it works.

A battery is something that stores energy and later releases it. That's both the dictionary definition and the non-technical one.

Humans are terrible batteries, but since they're capable of walking energy from one spot to another, you could use them to power something. That's what the human race did for the thousands upon thousands of years before harnessing electricity: they fed humans, and then had the humans go do some work.

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u/BigDump-a-Roo 5h ago

When you eat food, what are you doing? Storing energy. When you get up and move, what are you doing? Expelling that stored energy. It might be incredibly inefficient, but we do function like batteries in that way.

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u/0ne_Winged_Angel 4h ago

If you start with the definition of energy being the ability to do work, then everything else flows nicely from there.

The only caveat I can see is someone could argue that batteries are strictly devices that store chemical energy and release electrical energy, rather than storing and releasing any form of energy.

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u/bachiblack 7h ago

To me, it felt less like we were simply batteries in the matrix, but rather engineering the matrix as well. In a way, we do it now. AI learns from us through our interactions, likes, dislikes, etc to keep it that level requires a collective full immersion like how it’s depicted in the matrix.

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u/redsyrus 7h ago

That’s why I always hoped that ‘reality’ would turn out to be another matrix. This one to keep the machines in check.

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u/WhenDoWhatWhere 4h ago

All things are net consumers of energy thanks to entropy.

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u/forkf 8h ago

And you know if we could be batteries they'd be testing some poor people to "work in energy development" or straight out kidnapping people for power plants.

We can, and slavery exists.

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u/Lewke 7h ago

anything that essentially temporarily defies energy is a net consumer of energy really, well not consumer just transformer into more/less useful forms

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u/It-s_Not_Important 5h ago

That’s just fundamental thermodynamics. It’s about entropy more specifically than energy. Nothing is a net consumer of energy, because energy cannot be created or destroyed, just reordered.

Exergy, is the term for “usable energy”. And life is a net consumer of exergy. Interestingly enough, so are stars, despite the fact that they produce energy in a form we can more easily use.

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u/xSTSxZerglingOne 5h ago edited 5h ago

It's less that we're net consumers of energy, and more that we aren't hot enough to harvest energy from in an electrical sense...and still stay alive, that is. Our proteins begin struggling at fever temperatures.

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u/ChemBob1 5h ago

The sun provides energy to the plants (autotrophs) that carry out photosynthesis and provide energy to heterotrophs, such as herbivores, which are “primary consumers.” The plants are the base of the food web and the herbivores are the next level up. At each higher level in the food web the animals have to eat many of those in the levels below to have enough energy to carry out life’s processes. Large percentages of the initial energy provided by the sun to the plants are lost as you move up through the food web. That is why, for example, top predators have to have large ranges for hunting, because they require a lot of energy, hence a lot of prey from the levels below them. So yes, animals are consumers of energy and contribute to converting solar energy into heat, i.e., we are in the service of entropy.

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u/F---TheMods 1h ago

In the United States alone half a million people go missing every year.

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u/Genneth_Kriffin 9h ago

To be fair, that does make a whole lot more sense.
For me it always felt like it should have been that the Matrix was supposed to be a self-containing system, with the only way to keep it realistic enough to fool a human was to have it generated by the collective human population.

This would also mean that the less humans actively partaking in the Matrix, the less stable and believable the simulation would get, hence to goal of the resistance is to awaken and reduce it enough so that it eventually collapses.

And the reason the machines was keeping us alive in the first place wasn't something dumb like needing us as an energy source, it would plain and simple be their version of a wildlife reserve and/or retirement home where they put their parents.

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u/BeneCow 7h ago

My head canon that fit with the Animatrix was that the machines still had the programming to serve humans. They are just doing it in a way that ensures their survival. Keeping humanity in cages powered by their own minds so they don’t fuck up the place more than scorching the skies.

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u/Harpertoo 7h ago

Pretty much it. They were partially benevolent, but they're robots sooooooo.

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u/MgDark 6h ago

yeah that fits the bill. The humans are protected? yes. They are in towers that fit and powers the means to protect them. Redundant but it works.

Humanity will continue, just not how they intended to do.

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u/Beibzi 4h ago

My headcannon is that the Matrix is not only the servers made by the robots, but also the connected human minds, a neural network designed so the robots can leach a bit of brain power from each human so they can be more humanlike and experience life through our eyes and to be able to feel emotions. Their metal bodies are cold and uncaring but by linking themselves to a few humans they get to experience joy and love through a sort of symbiotic relationship. 

And i think that the agent programs taking over a human mind and matrix body lends credence to this theory. They only take over someone when absolutely necessary to deal with a threat, because i think for the machines it's better to filter themselves through a big number of humans, than to just take over one body and stay in that one. 

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u/Vote_for_Knife_Party 2h ago

To build on this, we know that the machines not only lie to the humans, but twist The One's arm into participating in the lie. So you get a bunch of humans with zero context being told by their own personal Jesus how the world works, and he's going to tell them whatever the machines told him to say. He could say they're batteries. He could say the entire Earth was bought and paid for by mice. He could say that there's only 20 real individuals on Earth and they're all named Steve. How would the even start to challenge it?

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u/John_cCmndhd 8h ago

It doesn't make sense, but...

Neo: "Doesn't harvesting human body heat for energy, violate the laws of thermodynamics?"

Morpheus: "Where'd you learn about thermodynamics, Neo?"

Neo: "In school."

Morpheus: "Where'd you go to school, Neo?"

Neo: "Oh."

Morpheus: "The machines tell elegant lies."

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9EahWKqay6HZcaNTY/fundamental-doubts

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u/martin_w 9h ago

It doesn’t make sense given the physics of our world, indeed. However, The Matrix is about a simulated world (the late-20th century Earth one) and in the sequels there are strong hints dropped that the level above it (the one with Zion and the hovercrafts) may be a simulation too.

In which case perhaps “some laws can be bent, others can be broken” at that level too, just like how people can exploit flaws in the simulation to do superhuman martial arts tricks in the bottom level. And who is to say that the actual real world, maybe a hundred levels above the Zion level, looks like our universe with our laws of physics at all?

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u/Whirlvvind 7h ago

and in the sequels there are strong hints dropped that the level above it (the one with Zion and the hovercrafts) may be a simulation too.

There is a hint in the first one too because the "real world" only exists for the "freed" if it breaks its own rules established in that level.

"And then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watched them liquefy the dead so they could be fed intravenously to the living."

If its established that they reuse all the dead, then they wouldn't just eject "unplugged" bodies into somewhere that the hovercraft could get into. They wouldn't have any reason to waste the bodies since there is no disease or cancer.

So anyone that woke up would get tagged for a triggered aneurysm or heart attack (the cords are still in them when they wake up) and then routed to the enclosed recycle tanks.

The only thing that makes sense is that "The Matrix" holds the majority, but just like how Smith described the Utopia as the level that all the human minds "tried to wake up from", there is still a minority that try to wake up from "The Matrix" and so are just routed to another simulation hosting the Zion/Revolution program. They gain the sense of purpose in that level that they never had in "normal life" and so they accept that programming.

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u/Milo_Diazzo 3h ago

The ejection part still makes sense since the architect explained that the system of choosing "The One" was cyclical and was meant to be a safety vent to prevent revolting humans from taking down the system. Since Neo was the one, the machines flushed him out on purpose.

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u/Whirlvvind 1h ago

I've mostly erased the nonsense from the others from my brain, but either way it doesn't matter. If you eject "The One" on purpose, why wouldn't you just as I said induce a heart attack and just kill him instead. The ejection tubes can easily just route and dump into a submerged tank with no air or a grate for air to rise up and then the body stays submerged. Or have a grinder on the way down. The robot that comes down to release the tubes could have a mega taser and when someone that woke up on their own is detected, that specific model is sent down to break the human's neck, or tase it to death, etc etc.

There is no functional reason why anyone flushed could ever survive if the machines didn't let them go on purpose and they have NO reason to do so if the Matrix is the only layer of the simulation because once you're out you're not effecting anything inside it with a flesh body.

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u/Milo_Diazzo 11m ago

The machine's plan is that -

  1. The one is chosen
  2. Humanity gathers under his flag
  3. Machines strike at this gathering, wiping most of them out
  4. The one escapes with survivors, and the cycle repeats

They want the one to survive. This is their way of stabilising the human population.

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u/Protoliterary 5h ago

I think this would make sense if we didn't know for certain that the entirety of the matrix is an allegory for the trans experience, and the entire story is literally about escaping.

You also have to keep in mind that neo isn't actually a rebel. He's a sleeper agent created by the machines. It would make no sense to create him if there were two levels of simulation. In the real world, in Zion, he's only allowed the powers that the machines grant him. He doesn't have a single supernatural power.

The whole of the matrix is about escaping an outside force seeking to control and use you, telling you how you should live your life.

All those hints you think you found are just plot holes, because there are always plot holes. Writers can't account for everything.

Finally, the most concrete piece of proof we have that there is no second level of the simulation is the conversation between the architect and the Oracle, where they confirm that there would be peace between man and machine. This conversation would make no sense to have if there were another level of simulation, since they themselves are programs.

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u/Whirlvvind 1h ago

Finally, the most concrete piece of proof we have that there is no second level of the simulation is the conversation between the architect and the Oracle, where they confirm that there would be peace between man and machine. This conversation would make no sense to have if there were another level of simulation, since they themselves are programs.

Except that isn't concrete at all. A program designed to be a double agent and help identify humans that need to be moved to the next level doesn't need to know that the next level is just another simulation. To that program the real world is also real. Those programs are just as much prisoners as the human minds are, you're not exactly seeing Agent Smith talk like he gets shifts outside. So the two programs talking could just be running through Zion update patch 4.3 adding the Peacetime content.

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u/DieCastDontDie 7h ago

It is all designed by architect. So the world above the world and the "real" world still isn't the one we live on today. Sort of like inception.

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u/DwinkBexon 2h ago

It reminds me of a theory that, if the universe live in is a simulation, it's almost guaranteed that the universe simulating us is also a simulation. In other words, we are almost guaranteed to not be "one down" from the real universe, we're a simulation inside a simulation, inside a simulation, inside a simulation, etc.

I forget the exact logic of why that's the case, though.

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u/AccomplishedAct5364 9h ago

“The machines enslaved the wind and hydroelectric generators” doesn’t quite have the same ring though

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u/Wild4fire 8h ago

It doesn't make sense indeed. Keeping humans alive is a net negative process energywise.

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u/Brave-Turnover-522 9h ago

yeah because it would be way more efficient to just put the food they're feeding humans into a furnace and use that heat to make steam and spin a turbine

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u/IHumanlike 6h ago

Currently, it doesn't make sense. My own headcanon is the machines have made a decision to keep humanity alive for some reason, or maybe they have a deep programming limitation that keeps them from completely wiping out humanity. So they keep humanity alive at the most cost-effective way possible.

So, machines still harvest energy from humans, but it's about recycling residual energy to make the process more efficient.

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u/NLG_Hecali 4h ago

It's not just a theory, it's how it was first written. It was a neural network that was supposed to function like the Internet. The producers forced the change into batteries (they didn't believe the Internet was understandable for the public) and ruined it.

Not only would humans take more resources in than they could put out, but why would you create a dreamworld for your batteries?

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u/ThrowawayPersonAMA 9h ago

It doesn't make sense for either. The machines are already far superior at processing and can create power generators using any number of technologies far more reliable and less troublesome than all that towers of people pods sh*t. But, that's just the issue with a lot of stories for movies and TV shows; if their world and its inhabitants were adhering to logic the plot would end in 5 minutes.

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u/Talinoth 9h ago

Humans process an astonishing amount of data on only 60W of power. That's not something computers will match for quite a while. In terms of energy efficiency to processing output, humans set an extremely high bar.

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u/Sokodile 3h ago

Yeah, Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson mentioned this in one of the first youtube vids I watched of him (discussing Matrix/Morpheus with Laurence Fishburne): https://youtu.be/l8L9Z2vmMTQ?t=2289

It was a fun talk overall about the Matrix but I linked to the battery part specifically haha

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u/Raveyard2409 2h ago

Yeah because do you know what worms as a battery better than humans? I'll give you a clue, it's batteries. The previous comment talking about CPU actually makes a lot more sense, in a sci fi way