In my masters degree I always ran many computations as did all my peers
The reality is that more of us are than not are using huge HPC clusters / cloud computing for many hours on each project
The industry is just GPUs going BRRR
I’m wondering if this has potential implications for ML in society as AI/ML becomes more mainstream
I could see this narrative being easily played in legacy media
Ps - yeah while there are researchers trying to make things more efficient, the general trend is that we are using more GPU hours per year in order to continue innovation at the forefront of artificial inference
“Bad for the environment” is a bit too vague IMO to take meaningful action and drive change. Some products use machine learning to detect illegal logging or capture useful environmental data. In those cases, ML is being used to HELP the environment.
So I would zoom in more on the specific issues and externalities you want to resolve.
One simple shortcut is to electrify your entire setup and then ensure that only renewable energy is providing your electricity.