Let's talk about Artificial Intelligence

[nomadpete]

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but....

The very first task that AI should complete successfully is to redesign itself to use far less electricity and no water. If it can't solve that problem, why should we trust it to do anything else?

 

[old man emu]

A big AI company wants to create data centres in Australia that will require more electricity than we are capable of generating. Data centres' demand for energy will increase more than sixfold from

2024–25 to 2040, surging from 2 to 13 per cent of the country's total energy use.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-27/ai-data-centres-pressuring-energy-transition-greenpeace-says/106722390

[willedoo]

I'm trying not to fall into the habit with Google of just reading the top section only which is the AI response to the question. The reason being it can be quite misleading. Like Wikiedia, it's not gospel and is all about the source reference. I Googled a question yesterday and the two answers AI came up with were just posts harvested from a Facebook group. What AI was saying was just what some bloke on a FB group said about the subject. It might well have been true, but not a reliable reference source in my opinion.

 

Wikipedia can have the same issues. Sometimes the reference, if the reader bothers to check it, can be just a newspaper article and a journalists opinion only and not established fact.

[willedoo]

The other issue I wonder about with Google AI is the revenue effect it will have on website operators. Most websites are funded by click per view payments from the advertising (sponsers) on their website. Google AI is harvesting information from their sites to use as a response to Google search questions. But if people don't go past the top of the page where the AI answer is, all those websites are missing out on site traffic which equals income. I wonder if Google pays them a royalty for using their information.

Edited 17 minutes ago by willedoo