Yes, obviously AI is emitting way too much. It shouldn’t even be producing 0.2% of global emissions, let alone 2%. My main grievance is that no one ever talks about improving industrial and agricultural processes even though they produce around 29% of emissions and 20% of emissions respectively.
The kicker is we need agriculture and industry, like it or not. Whereas no one apart from some billionaires and tech bros want or even need AI.
The problem is, the models are really good at some things. We’ve been using these things since before chat gpt hit the market. It’s identified tumors, cured a dog of cancer evidently, and with adversarial training beat the AI that beat the chess master in a matter of hours.
This is one of those disruptive technologies that isn’t going back in the bottle. We’re stuck with this crap.
(Note: I was convinced the dog cancer vaccine thing was bullshit but there’s quite a bit of actual data, a fucking tech bro actually did it.)
If you don’t farm, people will starve. If you don’t use AI, billionaires will starve.
OP is obviously sponsored by Altman.
Emissions from AI datacenters offend because of just how unnecessary they are.
I eat food, and the food I eat doesn’t just walk to my place.
So… sure I’d rather have a lot less energy spent on agriculture and industry but if there is one place where I feel energy use is legitimate, it’s feeding us.
Meanwhile I do NOT want better tools for scammers, spammers and fake experts.
Like that one commercial with the cow said, “eat mor chikin”
“General populace”?
This meme wildly overestimate that the genpop has the faintest clue about the cost of AI. In my very few discussions with people that even bother to bring it up with curiosity absolutely none of them understood how big of a resource hog data centers are. A few might’ve had a clue that AI results can be wrong, but then they went on to basically apologize for AI’s current errors by stating how much good it could do via research while not having any idea what was different between say medical AI and one they use to make their animated memes or converse with.
What I really meant by “general populace” is the funny people in my phone with strong opinions about everything. For some reason almost everyone IRL cares so little about basically everything, no matter it’s importance.
Note that OP is using a bit unrelated title. They’re doing it in case you forget to click their image.
“improving industrial and agricultural processes” sounds like something nuanced and complicated that should be (and probably is) discussed by field (both meanings) experts. Not the general public.
Motherfucker the AI bullshit isn’t better than the rest of the emissions; it’s actively compounding them in a way we do not fully comprehend, and is absolutely moving the timeline of our extinction up by decades. As a wicked sick bonus, AI is also destroying all the funding systems we would’ve used to try and fight Climate Change in the private market.
Fighting AI is not ignoring the rest of the problems; it is fighting to make sure we CAN CONTINUE to try and deal with those problems.
Looks to me like 1/3 the industrial emissions are fossil fuel production, which are best handled by exactly what we’re already focusing on: renewable energy and EVs.
Now if we can only encourage everyone to eat less beef, that brings over the agriculture sector
Turn electricity into wind, solar, and nuclear, and you’ll not only shrink electricity’s impact to a sliver, but also bite a chunk out of industry due to removing the need for oil, gas, and coal.
Those two are the biggest global emission contributers.
Agriculture needs to move away from land use and into significantly more GM and vertical farming, “organic” products be damned.
