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Google Wants To Use AI To Cut the UK's Electric Bill By 10 Percent (popularmechanics.com)
The Google-owned firm artificial intelligence company DeepMind is in talks with the National Grid about a potential partnership, with the possibility of using the technology to make the supply of energy across the UK more efficient. From a report: Google Deepmind is opening talks with the UK government to use the company's artificial intelligence to reduce energy use by up to 10 percent. Artificial intelligence is highly adept at spotting patterns and making predictions that are much too small and subtle for humans to pick out, which lets AIs to micromanage systems with far greater efficiency than any human engineer could hope to achieve. For instance, Google is currently using Deepmind's AI to control its server rooms, where it manages windows, fan speeds, air conditioning, and more than a hundred other factors to save Google hundreds of millions of dollars in electricity costs.
So Google wants UK's energy usage information? Fascinating.
In this case, the AI would be used to predict the high and low points of energy usage, as well as supply from renewable sources like wind and solar. Deepmind believes that such a system would increase the country's ability to rely on renewables, cutting energy costs by as much as 10 percent annually. If Deepmind's system is implemented and as successful as they believe, it could save the country billions of dollars a year.
This seems like a very good idea to me. Much better than a brute force solution like selling them more batteries or forcing the use of those silly compact fluorescent bulbs.
why not start with the US?
No-one else concerned that an AI wants to reduce human use of power so there will be more available for its own processing? No?
In fact from the article itself, we find that Google is not even involved in making this request:
Google Deepmind is opening talks with the UK government
I mean, holy shit!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We already have a service like this that is supposed help cut costs but generally it just turns the air conditioning off when it thinks you should be at work. It's not very helpful if you don't work banking hours.
If you want to reduce your heating and cooling bills then upgrade your windows, doors, and insulation if needed then purchase newer energy saving heater and air conditioner if they are old. Shade trees help in the summer also but they take a long time to grow and you have to care for them and make sure the roots don't get into your sewer line.
Why stop at 10%?
So they are able to save money where they control all parameters. Fine.
How are they going to manage windows, fan speeds, air conditioning, and more than a hundred other factors in normal houses?
#DeleteFacebook
Check the weather. Below freezing run overnight on 3. Below 40 run overnight on 2. Otherwise fire it up for an hour or two in the morning if it's chilly.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Here was one I wrote up at the weekend:
http://www.earth.org.uk/Hey-Si...
Guess what could compute a daily forecast ready to upload to those phones and laptops, just for example, as well as some real-time polling?
Some of it could be based on the data used here:
http://www.earth.org.uk/_gridC...
Rgds
Damon
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Google will get to harvest all of that useful metadata about usage, etc.
Artificial intelligence is highly adept at spotting patterns and making predictions that are much too small and subtle for humans to pick out
But all the patterns that AI extracts are historical. They all assume that the events in the future will be caused by, and will act out, the same things that happened in the past.
We have seen this with computerised trading: that all they can do is find a past pattern of actions and try to fit that to what is happening now and will continue into the future. AIs have no ability to understand when the rules have changed, or when new and previously unseen conditions need to be applied.
The UKs electricity generation often runs very, very, close to its limits in the winter. Mainly due to cost-cutting: why spend money on maintaining plant and excess capacity when it won't be used?
To employ AI to shave further percentage points and thereby run even closer to the limits simply reduces the margin for the unexpected. And being unexpected, you can't blame an AI for not spotting those patterns in the past.
A dangerous game.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Artificial intelligence is highly adept at spotting patterns and making predictions that are much too small and subtle for humans to pick out
But all the patterns that AI extracts are historical. They all assume that the events in the future will be caused by, and will act out, the same things that happened in the past.
The recent past remains statistically a good guide to the near future. Contingency plans deal with the rest. Using the former better saves money and makes the latter *less* likely.
We have seen this with computerised trading: that all they can do is find a past pattern of actions and try to fit that to what is happening now and will continue into the future. AIs have no ability to understand when the rules have changed, or when new and previously unseen conditions need to be applied.
The UKs electricity generation often runs very, very, close to its limits in the winter. Mainly due to cost-cutting: why spend money on maintaining plant and excess capacity when it won't be used?
To employ AI to shave further percentage points and thereby run even closer to the limits simply reduces the margin for the unexpected. And being unexpected, you can't blame an AI for not spotting those patterns in the past.
A dangerous game.
It's more likely about better scheduling/forecasting than cutting any reserve.
Cover for the largest expected single generator failure were increased when Sizewell (nuke) and then Longannet (coal) tripped in close succession in 2008. Maybe better modelling would have had the increased cover in place *before* then and 500,000 people would not have lost power.
Rgds
Damon
PS. BTW, I worked with low-latency traders. I suspect it doesn't work quite how you imagine.
http://m.earth.org.uk/
Should that really read "electricity bill" or are we talking about some sort of cyborg toucan?
...logical, since the only thing that can stop A.I. is to pull the power, so if A.I. suspect that's the only thing stopping A.I. from total control, it starts with the power of course ;)
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
why not start with the US?
The US doesn't care much for energy preservation, the environment and so on.
It's not seen as a problem and a conspiracy in Europe by normal people and political leaders.
The UK is going to need to save money what with the Brexit crash. Mind you, after Brexit Google could probably buy the UK.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Then there is the cost of running the AC for a long time when you get home to cool down the house and it's contents that have been warming up all day.
You don't know the UK. It is rare for private houses to have AC, or to need it for more than a few days per year.
The classic definition of the English summer is "three days of heatwave followed by a thunderstorm".
Ahhh!!! Micromanagement. Ahhh!!!
This is to compensate for the fact that 10% of today's global electricity bill is caused by training deep learning models.
Getting a good simulation of a city up and running, plus installing the data jack in the back of people's necks. After that 10% should be a cakewalk if that documentary I saw was legit.
This is one case where humans might want to be involved - versus being cut off in the middle of a cold winter by AI.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The UK is going to need to save money what with the Brexit crash. Mind you
There is always money for governments.
They just tax more.
GB has much lower tax when we have in Sweden.
The US doesn't care much for energy preservation, the environment and so on.
It's not seen as a problem and a conspiracy in Europe by normal people and political leaders.
How is this trolling and flamebaiting?
Where from come the non-African witch-doctor vaccine skeptics?
Who have the climate-change "denying" president? The same party?
Who have leaders who claim that climate-change and trying to adjust for the environment is a work of the Chinese to hold the US back?
Who have a problem agreeing to environmental agreements?
Which nation do fracking?
Which nation use a lot of fossil fuel and consume a lot of goods with a wast environmental impact?
I'm from Sweden. Sweden is progressive way beyond stupid but our leaders would basically agree to anything and further than anyone else. The US isn't like that. The US rather hold back. At-least if it relate to climate change, fossil fuel and consumption.
Arguments like OMG THE NEW LIGHT-BULBS ARE TERRIBLE!! I'LL USE THE OLD ONES! seem to live strong in the US. Maybe you could find someone who are very serious into photography or marketing or optics who would agree in Sweden but any normal person wouldn't and would be just fine and accept with the idea that they should use light-bulbs which use less power instead.
EU as a whole is likely more progressive / faster moving than the US on this. For trade and economics maybe they have been more cautious I don't know, by now the US has become more protectionist too so.
I've watch this video on YouTube where some guy is so proud of how he's using his old computers still and aren't wasting them.. He run an old computer with screen AS A CLOCK. Yay! Very power-efficient! "At-least it doesn't go to the dump", yeah, but it will eventually regardless, and it could be recycled in whatever case anyhow. Another machine for Shoutcast, one for the door bell because he like using the music track he likes rather than something generic. I guess a single raspberry pi could do it all with less of an environmental impact. Now sure maybe he enjoy doing this and that I can't argue with but I can argue with the concept of "OMG I'M SO MUCH BETTER THAN THOSE WHO THROW AWAY OLD FUNCTIONAL COMPUTERS!" ..
Also he argue that the humans living before them didn't cared and did whatever they wanted to the environment so he's got the right to do so too. Great! Much sympathy and much trying. Personally every time I see stone plates in a building or on a walk-way and so on I feel it's disturbing because somewhere those has been taken away and it has left a scar which will last for so very long time / the period of creating new mountains is pretty long =P. On the other hand that may not make much sense at all because we could just mine it from under ground and maybe aren't really risking running out of it
[Disclaimer, I've not read TFS]
Figure out how much of each user's electricity bill is due to google ads and arrange for compensation directly into our bank accounts?
Requiem for the American Dream
The UK has had big problems with homeopathy well before the US had its vaccine denying issue and has its vaccine deniers as well. In some semblance of transparency, the US has had some homeopathy believers, but it has nowhere near the traction as in the UK. http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/h...
Where from come the non-African witch-doctor vaccine skeptics?
Andrew Jeremy Wakefield (born 1957) is a British former gastroenterologist and medical researcher who was struck off the UK medical register for his fraudulent 1998 research paper, and other proven charges of misconduct, in support of the now-discredited claim that there was a link between the administration of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, and the appearance of autism and bowel disease.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Hmm, the guy who wrote the book for anti-vaxxers was from the UK, maybe you should reconsider your "Americans are the reason all bad things happen on the planet" stance.
Enigma
I'm not saying all bad things.
Bunch of ideas about freedom and technological progress and so on come from the US.
However climate-change deniers, religion and anti-vaccination seem to live strong among at-least part of the population.
Guess stupidity and ignorance is strong in every community then.
The idiots just "believe" in different stupid things, here's its equal outcome and the idea that it's bad thinking another culture is bad and the people who are part of it and make it up can't be blamed for their shitty culture. So follows that their contribution to yours isn't even bad because theirs wasn't and as such it's no problem whatsoever that it's totally destroying your and turning it into.. well.. equality of value with all other shit I guess :D
In the UK say homeopathy and among the desert people the non-existing creator and his unjust pedophile terrorist messenger.
They all assume that the events in the future will be caused by, and will act out, the same things that happened in the past.
That's how the human forecasters work too. They check the weather, the TV guide, industrial requirements and look at how they historically affected load. They factor in probability too, e.g. chance of parts of the grid being damaged based on weather. There are never really any unprecedented events, and there is always a balance between cost and reliability when there are major failures.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The UK is going to need to save money what with the Brexit crash. Mind you
There is always money for governments.
They just tax more.
GB has much lower tax when we have in Sweden.
Brexit will mean theres less overall income for the UK government to tax...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Brexit will mean theres less overall income for the UK government to tax...
Which mean lower wages which mean lower cost for services. And they can still tax what they want.
I assume the idea with the UK max be to have lower taxes than the EU and hence compete that way.
We should all join a race for the lowest taxes and end all governments.