Microsoft patents to potentially turn gamers into an income source. Earn money by letting them use your PC's idle graphics power to train AI.
Patent details opportunistic fine-tuning and potential cash rewards for idle GPU usage
Convert idle CPU and GPU cycles into revenue for users with high-end graphics processors. The technology transforms a previously dormant asset into an active player in the AI landscape.
- Power Consumption Impact: 250W additional load
- Estimated Monthly Cost: $10.50 (at $0.35/kWh)
- Reward Mechanism: Software, points, or cash
Microsoft's patent describes an opportunistic fine-tuning model for edge devices. It only comes into play when your gaming GPU or other processing resource is not in use. The concept is to break down AI tasks into smaller chunks.
Taking GPU utilization, VRAM, temperature, power limits into account. Enabling background AI training tasks that don't interfere with your main gaming sessions.
The estimated electricity bill works out to $10.50 per month based on 4 hours of additional 250W utilization per day (assuming $0.35/kWh per PCGH calculations). Microsoft wants to reward you in some form of software or with points or even cash. The patent describes how to manage the energy costs and assign tasks to suitable devices.
Of course, this is still a patent. Nothing is currently in any product for consumers. There is no data yet on how Microsoft would award the rewards.
What the rewards would look like. But it's an interesting concept for how to use graphics processing units in a different way. Nothing is changing in the near future in terms of existing services or pricing according to the patent filing.
so my 3090 is just a unpaid ai intern now 😅