If obscene means "I dislike demand for X personally", then sure. But if the actually useful definition of "demand for X will unavoidably collapse society" is used, then you need to actually read the second link.
Bitcoin is especially obscene because it counteracts efficiency gains. If a new Bitcoin miner that is 10x more efficient for hash rate comes out, Bitcoin won’t use 10x less energy, instead the difficulty will get 10x harder so it continues using similar amounts of energy.
With AI, on the other hand, efficiencies help. Of someone comes up with AI hardware that does inference or training 10x more efficiently, people will incorporate that and the energy usage for the same amount of work will decrease.
You are fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of the difficult mining in Bitcoin. It is to keep the currency scarce and difficult to obtain. If it didn’t scale with increases in technology all the Bitcoin would quickly be mined and you’d have money printing like the fiat money we are trying to escape.
Phiwise_|2 years ago
epolanski|2 years ago
Whereas Ethereum has clearly shown that you can have a safe chain without this craziness.
But from reddit to Bitcoin talk to Bitcoin core development, there's a handful of people that control everything and want the status quo preserved.
zzzeek|2 years ago
RcouF1uZ4gsC|2 years ago
With AI, on the other hand, efficiencies help. Of someone comes up with AI hardware that does inference or training 10x more efficiently, people will incorporate that and the energy usage for the same amount of work will decrease.
Mistletoe|2 years ago
foobar_______|2 years ago