It's funny, I had a similar experience taking a nap in the office. I listen to the home of the spinny hard drives all around me, and suddenly my mind zoomed out, and I became aware of how many computers there were around me, and try to imagine how many there were in a 10-mile radius.
replyThat radius kept expanding and I became painfully aware that most of them were just sitting there, not doing anything useful at all.
Not a very original idea — I was familiar with SETI@Home — but it was weird to me how little it had caught on.
Most computers are just spinning their wheels most of the time. That's a lot of power just sitting there.
Most of them these days are smart enough to NOT spin their wheels when idle.
replyWell I was thinking mostly of the CPUs. They're just sitting there. It's a waste of power sure, but more importantly it's a waste of a massive amount of useful computation that could have been happening.
replyThat's what the AIs are going to say when they harvest the whole world to make more AIs.
replyIt's still a big waste of compute power. Most of the lifecycle emissions come from manufacturing, not electricity.
replyThe comic doesn't answer the question "how many energy slaves is 100 horsepower?" but based on the assumptions therein, the answer is 4,706 energy slaves.
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