- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Please actually read the article before downvoting me into oblivion, or debunk it before just shouting AI = BAD I’m also against AI for privacy reasons, but can we please stop pretending that it’s destroying the environment.
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I think this is a bad faith argument because it focuses specifically on chatgpt and how much resources it uses. The article itself even goes on to say that this is actually only 1-3% of total AI use.
People don’t give a shit about chatgpt specifically. When they complain about chatgpt they are using it as a surrogate for ai in general.
And yes, the amount of electricity from ai is quite significant. https://www.iea.org/news/ai-is-set-to-drive-surging-electricity-demand-from-data-centres-while-offering-the-potential-to-transform-how-the-energy-sector-works
It projects that electricity demand from data centres worldwide is set to more than double by 2030 to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh), slightly more than the entire electricity consumption of Japan today. AI will be the most significant driver of this increase, with electricity demand from AI-optimised data centres projected to more than quadruple by 2030.
I’m not opposed to ai, I use a lot of AI tools locally on my own PC. I’m aware of how little electricity they consume when I am just using for a few minutes a day. But the problem is when it’s being crammed into EVERYTHING, I can’t just say I’m generating a few images per day or doing 5 LLM queries. Because it’s running on 100 Google searches that I perform, every website I visit will be using it for various purposes, applications I use will be implementing it for all kinds of things, shopping sites will be generating images of every product with me in the product image. AI is popping up everywhere, and the overall picture is that yes, this is contributing significantly to electricity demand, and the vast majority of that is not for developing new drugs, it’s for stupid shit like preventing me from clicking away from Google onto the website that they sourced an answer from.
Yeah, one or two AI datacenters is not so bad. But I think it will become unmanageable when it grows with 30 companies building 10 each
And that would still be a drop in the bucket compared to beef or taking a flight.
You’re missing my point
What’s your point? “There are other things that pollute the environment even more, so this thing that pollutes the environment a bit less is totally fine”? I hope you understand why you’re getting downvoted.
My point is that people shouting that they care about the environment, while being silent on things like beef or flights etc. are being hypocrites. I’ve seen many people say AI IS BURNING THE PLANNET, when that is simply not true
There is no single one polluter that’s killing the planet, it’s the sum of them all, adding AI into the mix is only making it worse for no reason at all
I think you’ve got a bit of a strawman going here
Those who complain about the environmental impacts of AI almost invariably complain about flights and beef as well
people shouting that they care about the environment, while being silent on things like beef or flights etc. are being hypocrites
As others have said, most people that take issue with AI due to its negative impact on the environment will also take issues with those other things. Of course one might argue that to some extent pollution is acceptable for the purpose of producing food, while to a lesser extent for the purpose of powering magical text completion toys.
I’ve seen many people say AI IS BURNING THE PLANNET, when that is simply not true
How is it not true? You’ve agreed that it has a negative impact on the environment. It’s not burning the planet on its own, but its contrubution to the burning is non-negligible and only expected to grow. According to all scientific findings, we have to reduce our carbon footprint, not increase it even further, to make the impact of climate change maybe somehow bearable. Therefore, everything contributing to an increase has to be scrutinised thoroughly as to the value it provides net its impact on pollution. Currently, that calculation results in a net negative value of “AI”.
I doubt it’s an honest mistake or simple hypocrisy. You can see that AI is both supposed to be useless and see hugely increased usage. Sure, people can be pretty dumb but this is really heavy.
Well, whatever the reason for this may be… You will certainly not reason these accounts out of posting this stuff with numbers.
elon is using the fresh aquifer drinking water of the memphis sands aquifer to cool grok. he promised to build a wastewater plant for cooling but he hasn’t. shocked-pikachu.gif
he’s also powering it off of lng turbine generators that are flooding south memphis with air pollution.
please do not use grok.
“ChatGPT could write this post using less energy than your laptop uses over the time you read it.”
I think gpt did write the article and it’s bragging
Considering that several companies are planning on using nuclear power to run ai data services, instead of providing power to cities.
Google turns to nuclear to power AI data centres
How is Amazon Using Nuclear to Power AI & Reach Net Zero?
I’m pro-nuclear power, but why not use those reactors and replace fossil fuel sites instead? We don’t ai to consume that much power, which in turn requires morec graphite/uranium/thorium mining, which causes direct environmental damage
It’s called opportunity cost.
Removed by mod
Well, I didn’t regret reading the article, I’ll probably even recommend it to others…
It would be strange if we were having a big national conversation about limiting YouTube watching or never buying books or avoiding uploading more than 30 photos to social media at once for the sake of the climate.
… but I’m certainly a bit amused over how often the author just stumbles into a natural segue to an anti-consumerism rant and then just… takes a U-turn 🤦
The numbers clearly show that discouraging individual people from using chatbots is a pointless distraction for the climate movement
That synopsis would’ve been better instead of the warning.
More than one thing can be bad
Netflix / Hulu never resorted to this fuckery https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/elon-musks-xai-accused-of-lying-to-black-communities-about-harmful-pollution/
Not saying they’re good either, but you cannot ignore the blatant environmental disregard of AI companies.
There are many reasons to be Anti-AI, the biggest one for me is Privacy & Manipulation.
But saying AI is brining the planet is BS (when you compared to other basics)
Without reading the article everything indicates AI is bad for th environment. There are articles on how bad it is regularly.
So yeah, hard to get past the title on this one.
Read the actual article, that’s my whole point. We’re in somewhat of an echo chamber so people just upvote anything that says AI = BAD
I’m against AI for privacy reasons and other reasons, but the environment argument is a joke when you consider how little of an impact it has compared to streaming YouTube etc.
Saying it’s not bad is too strong. All human activity has undesirable side effects.
But yes. People who peddle that environment narrative are definitely not interested in improving matters.
Fair, it’s not bad in comparison with things like Beef or Streaming 4k
But it’s still bad
It would be fantastic if our other GHG-producing activities were held to the same level of criticism as AI.
You’re gonna get downvotes defending AI on Lemmy - our Overton window is *tiny*.
A ChatGPT prompt uses 3 Wh. This is enough energy to:
Leave a single incandescent light bulb on for 3 minutes.
Leave a wireless router on for 30 minutes.
Play a gaming console for 1 minute.
Run a vacuum cleaner for 10 seconds.
Run a microwave for 10 seconds
Run a toaster for 8 seconds
Brew coffee for 10 seconds
Use a laptop for 3 minutes. ChatGPT could write this post using less energy than your laptop uses over the time you read it.
