Extensive article written by Dawn Stover for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on the nuclear power ambitions of big tech and LLM chatbot companies. The KOS architecture reduces power and water use by approximately 90% primarily due to a focus on high quality data relevant to each entity, rather than very large scale.
Founder & CEO of KYield. Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence, Data Physics and Knowledge Engineering.
One of the most comprehensive articles to date on the vast waste of electricity in LLMs, and related environmental damage, by Dawn Stover. Among the most tragic aspects of this still relatively new development is the alignment of big government, big tech and big energy against everyone else, hence the green light from the U.S. government (but not yet nuclear regulators...). The nuclear power industry has embraced this trend due to years of slow pace in commercialization of modular reactors--a technology I've long supported, albeit safely and without controlling influence from Big Tech. The USG has embraced this trend (in some cases promoted) due to unhealthy relationships between Big Tech and politicians, technocrats frustrated by slow progress, and some national security hawks who wrongly believe LLMs provide the U.S. an advantage over China (in reality LLMs have rapidly accelerated the China AI threat). Big Tech has embraced nuclear power of course because LLMs are aligned with their need to break through the scale ceiling and expand dominance over more of the economy in an attempt to keep the market cap bubble inflated. Unfortunately for everyone, including the families of all of the above, LLMs are the highest risk AI method possible (cyber and catastrophic--deaths are already occurring), and causes what would have been unthinkable waste in electricity and water just three years ago. And that's before we even mention that all that waste is due to regurgitating stolen IP from everyone else and transferring the knowledge economy to a handful of companies. Meanwhile, safe, responsible, affordable, and accurate AI systems like our KOS are growing organically without a $trillion in subsidies (historic misallocation of capital) badly needed for other purposes across society. Fortunately for us, we are much more aligned with the actual needs of customers. This long article would make an appropriate chapter in a book titled something like: 'How Big Tech and Big Government Lost Their Minds and Credibility Due to Supporting LLM Chatbots'...
