Computers are starting to use staggering amounts of electricity. There is a trade-off here between the utility of the tasks they perform and the climate damage caused by generating all the electricity they need. Bitcoin mining is thought to be currently using 2% of America's electricity and seems an especially egregious waste of energy.
Radically diminishing computer's electricity requirements as they become more powerful should be seen as an urgent task.
Aren't modern computers taking way less energy than before per work? We just keep using more of it faster than the energy use decreases?
Yes and yes
It has an even larger load in China. The invention of cryptocurrency has been a blight on the environment.
So the whole chip is a complicated lens, that somehow can perform multiplication using 'analogue computation'.
So first we tricked rocks into doing math, and now we've figured out how to trick glass into doing math? This is truly amazing.
We tricked the same rocks we use for doing math into bending light like the glass, and we use that for doing math, yes.
Reality is mind boggling sometimes.
Digital is also analog.
Automobile analogy: there is no replacement for displacement.... until there is?