For anyone unsure: Jevon's Paradox is that when there's more of a resource to consume, humans will consume more resource rather than make the gains to use the resource better.

Case in point: AI models could be written to be more efficient in token use (see DeepSeek), but instead AI companies just buy up all the GPUs and shove more compute in.

For the expansive bloat - same goes for phones. Our phones are orders of magnitude better than what they were 10 years ago, and now it's loaded with bloat because the manufacturer thinks "Well, there's more computer and memory. Let's shove more bloat in there!"

[–] VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 87 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Case in point: AI models could be written to be more efficient in token use

They are being written to be more efficient in inference, but the gains are being offset by trying to wring more capabilities out of the models by ballooning token use.

Which is indeed a form of Jevon's paradox

[–] errer@lemmy.world 34 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Costs have been dropping by a factor of 3 per year, but token use increased 40x over the same period. So while the efficiency is contributing a bit to the use, the use is exploding even faster.

[–] VibeSurgeon@piefed.social 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think we're meaning the same thing.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yes, but have you considered if I just rephrase what you just said but from a slightly different perspective?

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