Sam Altman of OpenAI has put out some whoppers on energy and water use of his AIs. Perhaps even hallucinated the source of his unsourced figures. Still, he claims one-fifteenth of a teaspoon of water is used for the average query, and only .34 watt hour of energy. "The price of inteligence will soon be the same as the price of electricity". (That's not intelligence, honey bunny, it's an 80s style expert system running on stuff that can finally handle it. But the quote is also to mean AI will become as invisible as electricity, if that is a good thing).
Narrow AI tasks are tremendously successful and centaurs (people armed with AI) are beating the pants out of physics problems. Literally brute forcing their way though sample spaces like a slimemold to find the optimum stuff (ala Hollander's evolutionary algorithms from the 90s). Coming up with solutions that are hard for our little pink brains to figure out. Superintelligence? Only in the sense that Nature is superintelligent.
Keep in mind these LLMs and machine learning algorithms and neural nets and what have you are all reverse engineered from brains because we couldn't figure out how to build a mechanical brain. So we scraped our biology knowledge base and in turn replicated what the bots do, statistical inference, to approach brain.
But one human brain makes AI run on GPUs look like poop in terms of performance efficiency. The human brain runs on 20 watts, a dim incandescent bulb, that can process an exaflop: 10 to the 18 mathematical operations per secomd. So there!
Anyway I got the neurosurgeon to look at my back today. I set up the appointment in March. Damn our healthcare system is broken. It seems I'm not the only who notices getting specialist care is harder and harder to get. This feels like the socialized medicine horror stories conservatives tell of social democracies, but of course this is the privatized version which is even worse.
Anyway, no surgery. If I need to I can get the injection to reduce inflammation but the plan is to continue with the physical therapy exercises I have learned. I'm fine with that. I asked if I could ever get the pain down to zero and the doc was not optimistic. On the other hand, he said I was young and fit, despite the arthritic lumbar spine and stenosis, there was no need for surgery. Young and fit? I'm 68. I know, he said. Well, he has a point, but I wonder if he is biased? Compared to his other elderly patients, I looked like Superman. Fat old Superman.
I don't look 68. Stay out of the sun, kids. And the past athletic performance reviews I've had at the college gym? Rated me from excellent to superior (for my age). I decided a long time ago, looking at all my decrepit relatives, that I didn't want to be an invalid when I was elderly. Stay active. So far, so good. I guess this is just part of getting old, gettng used to the mileage.Get used to the pain, the constant burning pain in the legs. Weird thing is, I have had brief moments of zero pain, and those are good enough because I'm used to the pain. But moments of less pain are almost as good as zero pain.
It makes me wonder if I have a berserker gene, if such a thing exists. We Kurmans do seem to be able to take hits, major big hits, so you got to wonder what is in the genertics of haplogroup I-1A, the Northern Barbarian, is more inured to pain? Inbreed enough and maybe.
Anyway, I am doomed to eternal excercise for the rest of my life. That's fine.
Oh yeah, the art show. That was my public transportation adventure and the gallery is in Bucktown.
Mark and his wife Terry (or is it Terri? regardless she's vivacious) visited and were a welcome addition to the opening. I knew maybe two other people and I am not good at interacting with strangers.
Thank goodness Mark's brother CJ showed up with them. I was substantially less awkward. We went to a Thai place, they bid goodbye, I took the train home.
My mother who wasn't all that active to begin with and a life long smoker sat down on her 60th birthday and declared that she was old now and so she didn't have to do anything. she started deterioting before our very eyes and I decided then, not me. Joined a gym in my 40s, became a river gidue that decace as well, and have stayed active since. Mostly gardening, yoga, and walking now at 75. I am more fit at 75 than my mother was at any time in her life I think. Keep moving. That's what I tell people who wonder about aging. Once you stop, that's it.
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