Nils Durner's Blog Ahas, Breadcrumbs, Coding Epiphanies

The Environmental Impact of AI: From Individual Use to Data Centers

Recent discussions about artificial intelligence like to focus on its environmental impact, particularly its energy consumption. The intricacies of this issue surfaced first in private conversations, then on LinkedIn, prompted by a comprehensive article from BloombergNEF, a respected strategic research provider covering global commodity markets ... Read more...

AI Overview: Costs, Performance, and Language Considerations

The current state of Large Language Models, their costs and performance was discussed following up on Dr. Holger Schmidt, Editorial Editor at German newspaper FAZ, advertising an “AI Overview” article. [Update 2025-01-06]: the FAZ benchmark used results from Artificial Analysis Quality Index. In this benchmark, GPT-4o mini ranks higher than GPT... Read more...

AI Agent efforts underway

WirtschaftsWoche, a German business magazine and key source to decision makers, features German-led (but US-based) AI startup uiAgent. Having prototyped something somewhat similar and with top AI Labs preparing launches (1, 2, 3, and more), their core tech appears unremarkable to me. But their overall narrative is: replacing up to 50% of offi... Read more...

Google Search AI Summary: ficticious Encanto 2

Simon Willison has surfaced renewed cases where Google Search shows so-called “featured snippets” (🇩🇪 “hervorgehobene Snippets”) that answer the user search flat-out wrong. Simon writes on Bluesky: This is a particularly bad case-study in how badly AI summarization can go when its exposed to the wilds of the internet Read more...

2024 Quantum Computing Review

With end-of-year roundups and predictions being in season, it’s also worthwhile to consider what hasn’t, despite ceaseless cheerling, been achieved or announced: Read more...