"Understanding the influence of computational infrastructure on the political economy of artificial intelligence is profoundly important: it affects who can build AI, what kind of AI gets built, and who profits along the way. It defines the contours of concentration in the tech industry, incentivizes toxic competition among AI firms, and deeply impacts the environmental footprint of artificial intelligence."

#ai #technology

https://ainowinstitute.org/publication/policy/compute-and-ai#h-what-is-compute-and-why-does-it-matter

Computational Power and AI

By Jai Vipra & Sarah Myers WestSeptember 27, 2023 In this article What is compute and why does it matter? How is the demand for compute shaping AI development? What kind of hardware is involved? What are the components of compute hardware? What does the supply chain for AI hardware look like? What does the […]

AI Now Institute
@hrheingold “It enables dominant firms to extract rents from consumers and small businesses dependent on their services, and creates systemic harms when systems fail or malfunction due to the creation of single points of failure. Most concerningly, it expands the economic and political power of the firms that have access to compute, cementing the control of firms that already dominate the tech industry. “ … this will be true for any hyper centralized services e.g. fusion reactors.