Post #3367220

2026-06-21 11:30 UTC

I just had "the talk" with my 9yo. He came to me asking "Dad, why does AI use so much water just for generating one answer?" So I explained to him how LLM works, how GenAI came out of that and why AI is a marketing term and absolutely wrong in that context. Then I loaded GPT4All on my laptop and asked the thing what the result of 9+7 is. It took my poor laptop cpu 12 seconds to come up with an answer and another 12 seconds to generate the sentence with the answer. I showed him how fast kcalc (using the CPUs ALU functions) comes up with the answer for that specific question. And then I asked a followup question, which almost take 2 minutes to compute. I showed him how the previous question and its answer became part of the prompt which made the calculation longer more complicated just to emulate a dialoge. He noticed that my laptops CPU fan stepped up and started to roar to get rid of the core heat. Then I explained to him how AI datacenters solve all this ineffitiency by running millions of servers in parallel and how this generates so much heat that it "uses" cooling water by just boiling it until it vapourizes. I then explained the current business model and how the companies currently burn through their cash to be the last one standing on the market when everyone else dropped out or became bankrupt. What we user pay for using this and what we actually would have to (and in the future probably will) pay for this service. Needless to say, my kid is not a big fan now.

Replies (29)

@0xcaffebabe@mastodon.bachgau.social 2026-06-21 14:49

@momo@social.linux.pizza cool post, thankx!

Open ##3379739
@OliverNoble@mastodon.world 2026-06-21 16:02

@momo@social.linux.pizza I suspect your 9 year old now has a better understanding of #AI than politicians whose stated aim is to "mainline AI into the veins" of the UK https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/12/mainlined-into-uks-veins-labour-announces-huge-public-rollout-of-ai

Open ##3379740
@hhttg@mastodon.online 2026-06-21 17:02

@momo@social.linux.pizza Can't think of a better explanation of the current AI business model.

Open ##3379751
@energisch_@troet.cafe 2026-06-21 17:16

@momo@social.linux.pizza Thank you for this excellent summary. 😽

Open ##3379752
@Alison@beige.party 2026-06-21 17:17

@momo@social.linux.pizza An excellent example! And faster still if you just used the onboard calculator which provides instant results to math questions.

Open ##3379755
@stevendbrewer@wandering.shop 2026-06-21 17:29

@momo@social.linux.pizza I used a variant of this approach that resulted in my kids never asking me a second question.

Open ##3379762
@Lazarou@mastodon.social 2026-06-21 17:29

@momo@social.linux.pizza they should do this to Government ministers to explain why they shouldn't throw taxpayers money at this hustler. Most of them should get it....most of them.

Open ##3379763
@suriele@eldritch.cafe 2026-06-21 17:30

@momo@social.linux.pizza Except none of it us true ... evaporative cooling is almost entirely unused in the AI industry because it doesn't work. Every NVIDIA chip (which is like, almost the entire industry at this point) uses either air cooling with giant fan walls, or closed loop water cooling with heat exchangers (For GB200-GB300s) Not arguing the business model of large AI labs though ...

Open ##3379768
@wiert@mastodon.social 2026-06-21 17:45

@momo@social.linux.pizza typo: ineffitiency Great post. Very good idea to show it that way.

Open ##3379783
@CatboyCody@tech.lgbt 2026-06-21 18:05

@momo@social.linux.pizza Guess I should have "the talk" with my 69yo. dad, too... :floofWoozy:

Open ##3379784
@Uair@autistics.life 2026-06-21 18:11

@momo@social.linux.pizza Good on ya. The youth need facts, not marketing bullshit. Way to raise yours right :)

Open ##3379785
@vnikolov@ieji.de 2026-06-21 18:18

This nine-year old child is amazingly good at listening.

Open ##3379786
@nuintari@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-06-21 18:59

@momo@social.linux.pizza That is some good work you are doing, sir.

Open ##3379787
@geonz@mathstodon.xyz 2026-06-21 19:32

@momo@social.linux.pizza no, needing fans means he's not one....

Open ##3379788
@sinabhfuil@mastodon.ie 2026-06-21 20:27

@momo@social.linux.pizza "When a billionaire and his money love each other very much…"

Open ##3379789
@jackemled@furry.engineer 2026-06-21 21:05

@momo@social.linux.pizza There are datacenters that use less water by using actual normal cooling systems, but they still use water too when they "overheat" (so probably all the time) & still too much of it. No matter what, these LLM datacenters are a waste of water, power, & money.

Open ##3379790
@mukto_manob@mastodon.social 2026-06-21 21:10

@momo@social.linux.pizza we are trying to leave a better planet for our kids, so if they realise this AI is actually going to ruin their future (environmentally and also morally, socially and psychologically), we have hope!

Open ##3379793
@Ramses_X@chaos.social 2026-06-21 21:14

@momo@social.linux.pizza Thank you for this nice story. I will send it to all my annoying colleagues who love their AI "tools".

Open ##3379797
@Netzblockierer@tech.lgbt 2026-06-21 21:24

@momo@social.linux.pizza better honest on that one than lying…

Open ##3379798
@econproph@mastodon.social 2026-06-21 21:26

@momo@social.linux.pizza Bravo. Brilliant answer to your kid. Not only did you get to the answer, but you modeled how to think. Thanks for sharing.

Open ##3379799
@mlanger@mastodon.world 2026-06-22 01:10

@momo@social.linux.pizza @rpmik@avgeek.social Smart kid. Smart dad.👍🏻

Open ##3379800
@tom@subdued.social 2026-06-22 03:30

@momo@social.linux.pizza "The talk" can mean different things to different people in different circumstances, and you've given us one more good meaning for it. In the United States, today is Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to you!

Open ##3379801
@brezelradar@norden.social 2026-06-22 06:53

@momo@social.linux.pizza @echopapa@social.tchncs.de Das könnte man so als Skript für eine Sachgeschichte in der Sendung mit der Maus nehmen.

Open ##3379803
@harry_wood@en.osm.town 2026-06-22 09:02

@momo@social.linux.pizza Sounds a bit like conversations I have with my 10 year old, except I thought the punchline was going to be... "Needless to say, my kid wasn't listening any more had gone back to watching YouTube" 😄

Open ##3379806
@Slash909uk@mastodon.me.uk 2026-06-22 10:06

@momo@social.linux.pizza brilliant! This is perhaps the only justification for installing an LLM on my system 🙂 to show how inefficient it is! Will be setting this up myself now...

Open ##3379807
@grant_h@mastodon.social 2026-06-22 10:09

@momo@social.linux.pizza I teach HS CompSci, including a topic on Ethics which covers AI. I stream my lessons, so I tell them that my (12 core i7) laptop doesn't have the capacity to run GPT4All _and_ stream. That generally does the trick.

Open ##3379809
@melroy@mastodon.melroy.org 2026-06-22 11:21

@momo@social.linux.pizza so what was this kid response then?

Open ##3379820
@colorblindcowboy@mastodon.art 2026-06-22 14:55

@momo@social.linux.pizza OK, now can you do that demonstration for congress?

Open ##3379821
@Laird_Dave@chaos.social 2026-06-23 06:24

@momo@social.linux.pizza well done 😂 My kid sees how AI is basically a swear word around here and acts accordingly.

Open ##3379822