Rising Demand for AI Computing Power: Balancing Speed, Cost and Accessibility
Summary:
This news article reports the rising consumer usage of generative AI tools, with a growing demand for computational power to maintain the technology's rapid progression. Industry experts, like Doug Petkanis from Livepeer, are striving to manage this increased demand. He highlights the critical need for a balance between AI speed and cost, underlining how a lack of GPUs suitable for AI computation exacerbates costs. Petkanis emphasizes the significance of the open-source AI movement to tackle concerns of centralization and to promote global accessibility of this innovative technology. He also raises awareness about a potential economic, environmental and social impact due to the AI boom.
In the past year, consumer use of user-friendly generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools has skyrocketed. This technology has become a common component of everyday life, handling everything from simple inquiries to complex tasks. Concrete data reflects this trend, showing a significant surge in user engagement on major AI platforms. As of January 2024, OpenAI's widely used AI chatbot, ChatGPT, registers approximately 180.5 million users monthly. The rapid progression of generative AI technologies, however, has incited an unprecedented demand for computational power. Entrenched in the struggle to facilitate this surge in computational necessities, industry specialists are seeking practicable solutions.
Doug Petkanis, co-founder and CEO of video infrastructure network Livepeer, provided insights into the surging need for AI computational power in 2024 during his interview with Cointelegraph. He also discussed potential management strategies for meeting this escalating demand necessary to operate these technologies.
Computing power lies at the core of both AI development and implementation. Functioning as the determiner of AI models' speed and effectiveness, it is a critical factor. Petkanis outlines three crucial AI lifecycle stages - training, fine-tuning, and inference - which demand substantial computing power. Inference signifies the manifestation of outputs or predictions from the trained and refined model based on certain inputs, also known as prompts.
However, the call for prompter responses clashes with the financial reality of high costs. Petkanis elucidated, "Amplified computing power typically corresponds with swifter responses. However, a fine balance must be maintained between user experience (speed) and the financial feasibility of the project (cost)."
OpenAI’s daily operational costs are approximated to hover around $700,000, heightened by a dearth of GPUs suitable for AI computation. Petkanis stated, "On the bright side, GPUs currently performing tasks like video transcoding and 3D rendering in crypto-coordinated DePIN networks are perfectly adaptable to AI." This is a driving factor behind the invaluable role these crypto-networks play in the thriving AI industry. Owing to this, DePINs and AI have been hailed as this year's trendsetting duo.
Nonetheless, while the growing need for computational power raises worries amongst developers, general consumers remain largely oblivious. Utilities such as infrastructure, power source, internet functionality, search costs or carbon footprints typically don’t make it to their list of considerations. Similarly, they rarely contemplate the energy, usage or computational expense of their AI inputs on their favourite chatbot. As per Petkanis' observation, "Users only start noticing issues when they directly feel the impact - in terms of increased ad frequency, degraded response quality or speed, or climbing subscription charges.”
Speaking of broader implications, Petkanis voiced concern regarding the monopoly of major AI platforms. Analogous to the birth of the internet leading to the formation of “Big Tech” conglomerates, the AI advent is witnessing a competitive race among these corporate giants. Petkanis reiterated the crucial role of the open-source AI movement to counter the risks of centralization and ensure universal accessibility. He emphasized, "Supporting these movements is significant for countries to ensure that this innovation wave benefits the global population.”
Firmly ensconced at the forefront of the AI boom, Petkanis predicts emerging "economic, environmental and social considerations" in the pipeline.
Published At
1/12/2024 3:45:38 PM
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