- Microsoft has a patent for a system which uses your spare GPU resources to train AI
- The graphics card would process micro-tasks in combination with other PCs
- You’d be paid some kind of reward for this, but there are issues, and many doubts and concerns, around how such a scheme would work
Microsoft has been granted a patent for a system whereby it could use the GPU in your PC to train its AI (given your consent, naturally), paying you in some way for the privilege.
German site PC Games Hardware noticed the Microsoft patent (via VideoCardz) which was originally flagged by Patentlyze, and is for an ‘Opportunistic Micro-training on Edge Devices Using Spare GPU Utilization’. Which is technobabble for using your spare graphics card resources to run parts of AI training routines.
Microsoft has gaming PCs in mind here – given that they can run powerful GPUs, and when sat at the desktop in Windows 11, those graphics cards are doing very little – but the system could work with any device in theory.
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As detailed by the patent, AI training tasks would be splint into small elements (or micro-tasks) which would be distributed across various participating PCs, and the results tied back together after those individual jobs had been completed. Various checks would be in place to detect errors or results that had been manipulated.
Any given micro-task would be appropriately assigned to a PC with a matching amount of spare GPU and system resources, as the patent states: “The system monitors end devices to detect available computing capacity and breaks down training tasks into independently trainable subtasks.”
As to what payment you might receive for giving Microsoft the benefit of using your PC, that isn’t made clear as you might expect, but there would be some reward – either a direct payment, or perhaps some form of credits.
Of course, there are already similar ideas out in there in the computing world, such as Folding@home whereby your PC contributes to medical research (and SETI@home before that).
Analysis: AI@home4Microsoft
There are a lot of issues with this plan, if Microsoft was ever to attempt to go ahead with it. For starters, I think the payment would have to be clearly worthwhile considering what you’re giving Microsoft here – I’m not sure credits, or, say, Microsoft Rewards Points (to pluck a speculative example out of thin air) are going to cut it.
As we’re looking at the future, Microsoft may well be thinking of credits for using AI (when it inevitably becomes pricier for everyone), but there’s a degree of risk in this process which a lot of folks are already finding very off-putting or alarming. (Even though, as noted, this is just a concept, and nothing’s happening with it – at least not yet).
That includes concerns around giving Microsoft the ability to monitor your system beyond Windows 11’s standard telemetry and into deeper territory to ascertain what your GPU is up to and further data on system load.
The second potential stumbling block is that the AI training system would supposedly limit RAM usage, and ensure a GPU isn’t overheating due to the load it’s being put under – but do Windows 11 users trust Microsoft to do that reliably? Given the bugs in its operating system, I think there’d be more than a few worries about this side of the equation going awry. Cue posts on Reddit about ‘Microsoft burnt out my graphics card’ and so on. Doubtless something like game stuttering might be blamed on this tech, too (when it could be related to another entirely different problem – like a recent Windows 11 update, ahem).
There’s also the cost of the power to ramp up the GPU, and whether that does actually balance out with whatever reward the user is being paid (which, as noted, we don’t have a clue about yet). And finally, there’s the wear-and-tear on your GPU, because with the card being used a lot more – and possibly being pushed more consistently – it won’t offer nearly the same level of longevity as it would otherwise.
It feels like a seething nest of potential problems to me, and I’m skeptical Microsoft would ever move forward with such a scheme given that. Still, it is clearly an idea the company is mulling, so we shall see if we hear anything more about this in the future.
The idea is already sparking bad feelings on Reddit, with some folks having trust issues that it isn’t a signal of Microsoft’s broader intention to sneak in some kind of AI training routines with its hardware.
As this cynical Redditor said: “Oh great, SETI for AI training: 1. This is probably gonna happen on idle Xboxes whether you want it to or not. 2. They won’t give you Battlepass for free or anything fun.”
Another Redditor declared: “That’ll definitely finally bring in the year of the Linux desktop.”
To be fair, not everyone is so skeptical, and this commenter observed: “Honestly if it pays more than the electricity costs it could be a win.”
Those who are more positive are the minority, though, and they are very much stressing that Microsoft would need to compensate PC owners well enough.
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