this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
661 points (99.4% liked)

Not The Onion

20532 readers
1412 users here now

Welcome

We're not The Onion! Not affiliated with them in any way! Not operated by them in any way! All the news here is real!

The Rules

Posts must be:

  1. Links to news stories from...
  2. ...credible sources, with...
  3. ...their original headlines, that...
  4. ...would make people who see the headline think, “That has got to be a story from The Onion, America’s Finest News Source.”

Please also avoid duplicates.

Comments and post content must abide by the server rules for Lemmy.world and generally abstain from trollish, bigoted, or otherwise disruptive behavior that makes this community less fun for everyone.

And that’s basically it!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

“But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human,” Altman said. “It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you.”

So in his view, the fair comparison is, “If you ask ChatGPT a question, how much energy does it take once its model is trained to answer that question versus a human? And probably, AI has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis, measured that way.”

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 32 minutes ago

creating the "ai" in the first place also required the evolution of those 100 billion people. So by that argument, he was behind before he even started, and it's impossible to catch up

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

His argument is his computer is more important than other people, and he's willing to deprive them of resources to death.

[–] ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works 12 points 3 hours ago

Fuck Sam Altman, fucking cunt

[–] whoisearth@lemmy.ca 25 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Aren't humans and biological creatures in general found to be extremely efficient with energy? Given the computing power in our brains the fact it runs on so little is amazing no?

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 2 points 1 hour ago

Yes, it's disingenuous for him to bring up all the time used for humans to evolve as well. If we're going to go that far, we also ought to include the energy/time used by the engineers who created ChatGPT, and all the energy used by plants/animals in the evolution leading to those engineers. Not to mention all the time/energy/training of all the people who created the training data over the past few centuries.

Frankly, at that point, any human artist is more "efficient" than AI - they're able to master their field in mere decades.

[–] collar@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Doesn't the human brain do what it does on like the same electricity as a lightbulb?

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 29 minutes ago

12 watts maybe. But there is no currents and flashes like internet bullshit images.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

What kind of bulb are we talking here?

In Altman’s case it’s a dimbulb.

[–] REDACTED 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I really don't think he meant it that way. Think of it like this - if I want to generate some images, my GPU will run at 100% for few minutes. If I want to play cyberpunk, my GPU will run at 100% for hours.

[–] UltraMagnus@startrek.website 1 points 1 hour ago

I think if he meant it that way he would have said that, instead of talking about the energy that humans use and particularly talking about food.

[–] kamen@lemmy.world 10 points 7 hours ago

It's like he asked his chatbot to come up with this argument.

[–] Alberat@lemmy.world 6 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

a master class in what-about-ism

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 22 points 11 hours ago

Humans should not have to compete for resources hogged by tech.

[–] presoak@lazysoci.al 1 points 7 hours ago

More like 40, but I get your point.

[–] Cantaloupe@lemmy.fedioasis.cc 50 points 19 hours ago

People fucking hate AI now, surely talking about humanity as if they are a bunch of livestock will turn that sentiment right around.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 27 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

And humans also built the fucking power plants and pay for the energy they use, asshole.

[–] fritobugger2017@lemmy.world 15 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Altman, Thiel, Musk, et al, need to be headed to the gallows.

[–] dan1101@lemmy.world 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

The problem isn't so much their reckless careless behavior, but that they can get so many people to go along and invest.

That's because capitalism is a mental illness, these people are all sick and need treatment

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 9 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe we could use altman to fuel the ai? As charcoal?

[–] Bazell@lemmy.zip 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Not that efficient since most of him is just water.

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

Don't forget about the hot air

[–] Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Well maybe we need to compensate for the inefficiency by including all his CEO and Billionaire buddies as well.

[–] _lilith@lemmy.world 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

by this logic AI has also used the knowledge of 100 billion people and has the same starting energy debt as a person. with the added bonus that it can't actually create anything new. Even their dumbass arguments can't stand under their own weight

[–] Doubleohdonut@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago

According to the article, this was his literal next sentence:

And not only that, it took the very widespread evolution of the 100 billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever, to produce you.

Where's Alannis Morissette when you need her?

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 35 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I can outperform ai while being powered by a bag of cinema popcorn, sit your bitch arse down

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 11 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Hey don't get angry at me, it is them immigrants fault I had to dehumanize you

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 8 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Those lazy immigrants, sitting at home doing nothing, taking all our welfare and jobs.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

AI actually kind of manages to do that: it takes jobs and then doesn't do them (or at least doesn't do them nearly as well as the humans it replaces).

[–] RazTheCat@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

But, a 4% success rate! 

[–] davetortoise@reddthat.com 44 points 1 day ago (1 children)

These people fundamentally do not think about human life in a normal way.

[–] cmbabul@lemmy.world 7 points 22 hours ago

It literally warms my heart to know they are all just as temporary as the rest of us. And how afraid they are of being dust in the wind

[–] pjwestin@lemmy.world 64 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Someone on Bluesky pointed out that, even if you ignore the morality of this argument, AI is trained on human content, so if we're going to start examining the human energy cost, we'll have to factor in the cost of every single human whose work was used by ChatGPT on top of the data center costs.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] m3t00@lemmy.world 16 points 23 hours ago

wouldn't let that nerd fix a paper jam. visionary hallucinations. by that logic we should all die so ai might live cheaper. amen

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago

Started from "for good of humanity" and now we're at "humans use a lot of energy". Man why does everything have to suck like that.

[–] tootoughtoremember@lemmy.world 27 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There's an easy answer to this problem.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] lithiumground@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oligarchs see human as disposable resources

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] umbraroze@slrpnk.net 47 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Oh good, the Bitcoin argument.

"Sure, Bitcoin wastes a lot of energy, but you know what else wastes energy? The Visa payment network."

Yeah, but Visa handles six quadrispillion transactions per megawatthour, Bitcoin handles two drug purchases. Not the same results, is it?

So yeah, training humans takes a lot of energy. But in the end, you get a coherent, capable and well functioning individual. Spend the same energy on training LLMs and you get a system that'll happily tell you to glue the cheese on pizza or something.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] Sundiata@lemmy.world 8 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

he's full of shit. to the little fuck that downvoted me for saying this. suck sam altman's dick you little shit

fuckers like him are ruining and want to kill the middle class without thinking about what happens after everyone and everything is replaced with slop.

there is a difference between using AI for hobbies and using AI as a bullshit excuse to make most of the population homeless with no safeguards in place once they can't pay the bills. add onto the fact that cheeto orangutan president is making it more and more impossible to make out a living in all sectors of life in the western world.

[–] OctopusNemeses@lemmy.world 34 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Tech bros deal in false equivalencies. In general they rely on the playbook of logical fallacies. The one they rely on most is the presumption that the technology they're trying to sell is correct by default as if it's a fundamental law of the universe. And that the onus is on others to prove them wrong. Rather than them having to prove its correctness.

They often resort to ad hominem by implying their detractors lack intelligence or they're emotional. This again draws on more logical fallacy that because they deal in technology it means they presume to own the position of being purely objective and correct by default. So anyone who says otherwise is disputing science itself.

In other words they never have to prove the veracity of the technology they're trying to sell because they divert the discourse off topic to frivolous arguments about something else.

[–] one_old_coder@piefed.social 218 points 1 day ago

train a human

This guy has the same level of empathy as Zuck.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Won’t anyone think of the poor rich people and their AI?

[–] Bakkoda@lemmy.world 2 points 8 hours ago

I am. The rich people will compost just like everybody else.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] django@discuss.tchncs.de 100 points 1 day ago (8 children)

The humans still exist and need food, even if they are replaced by chatbots in the workforce. The comparison is therefore useless, unless you plan to murder the unemployed.

load more comments (8 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›