this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

People say this, but almost every time the time interval is left off it's hours.

Either way, the numbers in this meme are clearly made up. Most image generation uses fewer than 10 watt hours.

[–] Engywuck@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 months ago

People say this, but almost every time the time interval is left off it's hours.

This is new for me. Must be some engineering thing. I'm a physicist and and I feel guilty if I leave out some units just because, lol.

[–] boonhet@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Maybe it's comparing the total power rating of the brain to a data center dedicated to AI

Which is also a stupid comparison because the data cenrer will be processing a lot of parallel requests. That's why you want the unit to be energy rather than power in this case

Or maybe it's all made up.

[–] absentbird@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think it's all made up. The most power hungry data center in the world consumes 150MW of power, and that's from a massive 11 million square foot facility in China that's significantly larger than any other data center.

EDIT: an hour of heavy thinking does consume approximately 12 watt hours though, so that figure seems reasonable.