Invited talk: Gael Varoquaux

Frugality is social, and its absence is a problem

While algorithms and hardware keep getting more efficient, computing, and in particular AI, keeps requiring more power. AI research has embedded in its current dominant narrative tales of a “bitter lessson”, where bigger alway wins. I will discuss how the importance of size is a simplied narrative, leaving out crucial mathematical and algorithmic ingredients, also leaving out tasks and application. I will also explore the societal and political economy mechanisms and consequence of our current race to scale, as summarized in our paper on the “Price of the Bigger-is-Better Paradigm in AI”.

• Tags:
• Nlp