Cryptocurrency Miners Are 'Limiting' the Search For Alien Life Now (vice.com)

Since the latest graphics processing units (GPUs) are so popular with cryptocurrency miners, the SETI project -- short for "Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence" -- can't find the graphics cards it needs to expand its operations. The SETI@home project helps provide some computing power, as it involves thousands of volunteers who turn the power of their computers over to the project, but it's only a portion of the SETI project's total computing power. Motherboard reports: Searching the stars is intense work that "uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow-bandwidth radio signals from space." Analyzing all of the data from these telescopes uses a lot of computing power. "We'd like to use the latest GPUs and we can't get 'em," Dan Werthimer, chief scientist of SETI, told the BBC. "That's limiting our search for extraterrestrials." Manufacturers such as Nvidia are struggling to keep up with demand for graphics cards. It recently told investors it would rise to meet its manufacturing challenge while focusing on its core market -- gamers. It even suggested vendors limit purchases of graphics cards from individual buyers in an effort to stop miners from buying up all the cards. "This is a new problem, it's only happened on orders we've been trying to make in the last couple of months," Werthimer told the BBC. "We've got the money, we've contacted the vendors, and they say, 'we just don't have them.'"

Comments

Simple solution

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"We've got the money, we've contacted the vendors, and they say, 'we just don't have them.'"

Offer more money and more hardware will get manufactured.

Re:Simple solution

[jrumney]

Unfortunately they only take bitcoin

Re:Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a solution to both problems: make a cryptocurrency where the work product is some large quantity of SETI search. Here's an idea for a name...

Star...

(hmm, what indication of money can we think of ? Ah that's it)

...bucks

Yeah! We'll mine for Starbucks. Surely that name isn't taken :)

Re:Simple solution

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Offer more money and more hardware will get manufactured.

Well, why aren't the manufacturers investing in new factories to increase capacity? Probably because they see the current high demand as a passing fad, and that demand for their cards will return to normal levels after the bubble burst. They don't want to get stuck with a big new factory, when no one is buying cards for mining any more.

Re:Simple solution

[mysidia]

There's a simple economical solution.... INCREASE THE PRICE the graphics cards will be sold at from the manufacturer until the excessive demand is suppressed down to the level of the supply.
If the SETI work is more important than the crypto mining work, then they should be able to justify paying more per graphics card than the miners, thus the GPU power will go to SETI. ALTHOUGH as I see it NEITHER the miners nor SETI are the "intended" audience for those products ---- ultimately they're meant for consumer gamers, BUT if consumer gamers aren't willing to pay the top dollar plus premium due to the supply shortage, then those cards should go to whoever can justify paying the most for them, instead.

The additional money coming in can be used to fund more manufacturing infrastructure, which should mean that the supply shortage gets rectified.

Re:Simple solution

[mysidia]

Nvidia has pretty much said this

NVidia is EXTREMELY shortsighted if they believe the demand for their cards caused by Cryptomining and other compute applications is a temporary fad.

People have been buying GPUs for mining since 2009, and it's been ramping up over the past few years --- the name for something lasting almost a decade that only seems to be growing is not a fad.

In the future better decentralized cryptos should also likely spur MORE demand for GPUs not less; not to mention the demand for GPUs for research, deep-learning, and scientific applications such as SETI's.

Plain and simple... GPU makers have materially FAILED to (1) Create sufficient manufacturing capacity to meet demand, AND (2) To sufficiently increase the price of their products in response to shortages.

These are some serious failures that their investors should be quite pissed about -- as they're leaving money on the table now, and in the future ----- AND there is a big fat opening for a competitor that you could drive a truck through, if you only have the resources to develop and manufacture a competing GPU....... frankly, AMD and Intel have screwed up there by failing to capitalize as well.

Re:Simple solution

[Oswald McWeany]

Yeah! We'll mine for Starbucks. Surely that name isn't taken :)

You need to drink a cup of coffee to clear your mind. Starbucks is a name already taken. It was a major character in Battlestar Galactica. I don't think the show owners would like you mining for any of their characters.

I'm pretty sure if you get sign off from the owners of that show though the name is not used anywhere else.

Fermi Paradox -

[sheramil]

- answered. They're all too busy mining cryptocurrency. Good lord! Charles Stross was right!

Duplicate content

[Matt_H]

This is a duplicate of this story

Re:competition...

[Viol8]

I agree about cryptocurrency, but I fail to understand why you think that discovering signs of aliens would be no use to humanity. Sure, its not going to affect you on a day to day basic, but it means life has arisen elsewhere and this in turn will influence scientific thoughts about biology and its origins. A lot of science is blue sky research that may lead nowhere, that doesn't make it pointless.

Use FPGA boards instead?

[randomErr]

There are a ton of cheap FPGA boards left out there that were used for Bitcoin mining. Why not repurpose them? I can pick a decent one on Ebay for $60-100.

BeauHD is a moron

[TheRaven64]

The other post is still on the front page. I know it's too much to ask 'editors' to check in the archives that a story hasn't been posted, but not even reading the front page of the site that you're working for? Why is BeauHD still employed?

Re:BeauHD is a moron

[DaveV1.0]

When you limit your pool of applicants to those who will pass a drug test, you wind up having to take any gibbering idiot who will come along — usually some kind of evangelical, and those people are universally batshit insane.

I don't use illegal and/or non-prescribed drugs and I am neither evangelical nor batshit insane. I do think that people who use illegal and/or non-prescribed drugs are personally and mentally weak. If you can't deal with your life without using drugs, there is something wrong with you and your life and you should change yourself and/or your life. Grow the fuck up and take responsibility for your problems instead of hiding in drug induced stupor.

Re:BeauHD is a moron

[gnick]

I do think that people who use illegal and/or non-prescribed drugs are personally and mentally weak.

Square. Anyone who didn't try pot in college is someone I don't understand. And for the people who tried it and decided it improved their quality of life? Toke on, laws be damned. Maybe when I need someone to judge me I'll visit your mountaintop.

If you can't deal with your life without using drugs, there is something wrong with you...

I won't entirely disagree, but that does imply that there's "something wrong" with just about everybody. A perfectly healthy body shouldn't NEED aspirin. It should produce everything it needs. But, aspirin's good for some people. Some people just find their morning more pleasant with a cup of coffee or a cigarette. Caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, THC, Prozac, Lipitor, cocaine, Viagra, Xanax, these are all drugs that enjoy popularity. Sugar's kind of on the fence and factors in heavily to the average American diet. Maybe when you said "drugs" you meant the "drugs D.A.R.E. warned me about", but drugs is drugs. The fact that the fed classifies pot as more dangerous than coke should tell you they don't know WTF they're talking about.

Waste of GPUs...

[thegarbz]

They could be used to process the incredibly large number of stories on Slashdot to detect dupes instead.

Re:There are no Aliens

[MrKaos]

Oh, there almost certain are aliens somewhere in the universe. However, the chances to them being anywhere even vaguely close to Earth is practically nil, and even if they were,

That's right. If they were already here for 10's maybe of hundreds of thousands of years we would know. I mean it would be just like if we were hiding in the bush observing wild animals. We would know that a species 10,'s of thousands of years ahead of us would not be able to hide from us, there would be strange signs everywhere. We would know.

Besides, our governments would tell us immediately that aliens were here and give up the power they have over us. Plus the elite would want to give up their positions of power over us so that we could all live together in peace, hold hands and sing kom-by-yah. Personally, I'd spent more time on the beach. I'd probably keep coding if I could. I wonder what sort of computers aliens would have?

if they are smart enough to overcome the incredible vastness of interstellar space...they are smart enough to not come here.

For sure. Earth would be the top selling reality TV show amongst the races in the galaxy. Imagine the cheesy announcer voice saying ToNight On EAAAARRRRRTTTTTHHHHHHH..... Watch these crazy primates choose between two equally crazy candidates to control the.largest.super.power.ever (they think). The insanity of these barley evolved chimps with powers over the atom to destroy .E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G. is palpitation inducing. WILL THEY EVER LEARN???

So yes, SETI in it's current form is mostly a waste.

It is unknowable. Even if Aliens wanted us to know, our governments have a pretty large dragnet of technology to control us with. None of us plebs walking around our cities and towns know anything more than we've been told and most of us are too apathetic and insular to even look up from our phones to whatever truth is supposedly out there. Maybe this is all we're evolved enough to handle and we'd be dangerous with anything more powerful than what we have.

But hey, may as well laugh at the absurdity of it all :)

Re:Good

[azrael29a]

Searching for "alien life" is probably one of the most useless human activities ever invented.

Yeah, right, because computing hashes of transactions of essentially worthless virtual money (or money-wannabe) is so much better.

Taken [Re:Simple solution]

[Geoffrey.landis]

Yeah! We'll mine for Starbucks. Surely that name isn't taken :)

You need to drink a cup of coffee to clear your mind. Starbucks is a name already taken. It was a major character in Battlestar Galactica.

You spelled "Moby Dick" wrong.

Re:There are no Aliens

[supremebob]

Yeah, I have to wonder what's a bigger waste of energy... looking for broadcasts from aliens that are probably too far away to reach us, or minting Internet funny money for drug dealers.