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Hastur@sh.itjust.works

-9

AI is not bad for the environment in comparison with many other regular activities. (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by AnonomousWolf@lemmy.world to c/controversial@sh.itjust.works

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People on Lemmy love to cry AI IS BURNING THE PLANNET but have they ever really looked at the numbers?

1 kg Beef = 60kg CO2 - source
1000km Return flight = 314kg CO2 - source
1 Bitcoin transaction = 645kg of CO2 - source
1000 AI prompts = 3kg of CO2 - source including training

I'm a strong advocate for privacy, and I myself am Anti generative AI in many ways, but can we please stop shouting that AI IS BRUNING THE PLANNET, it weakens our position to push back at actual issues with AI like privacy.

Here is a detailed breakdown debunking that AI is destroying the planet: https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about

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[–] fakeplastic@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

And all the power spent by tons of companies now constantly scraping the internet?

And all the storage now that all the big players need to have local copies of the internet to train on?

All the power spent making all those hard drives? All the power it takes for Nvidia to make millions more GPUs than otherwise needed?

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 1 points 3 days ago

And the power their employees need to drive to work?

And the power for all the computers they used growing up?

And the power to make those computers?

And the power Intel used inventing the microprocessor?!

And the power the entire telephone grid used while AT&T developed the transistor?!?!

[–] AnonomousWolf@lemmy.world -1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Still a drop in the bucket compared to people taking flights to go on vacation.

If you're not angry at people taking flights, you shouldn't be angry at AI for environmental reasons.

There are plenty of other reasons to hate AI.

[–] fakeplastic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago

I agree that crypto and casual air travel are also wasteful and that there are plenty of other reasons to hate AI.

But it's reasonable for someone to believe that recreational travel is beneficial in a way that AI isn't. I could do without either, but there's nothing hypocritical about thinking that two very different things have different cost/benefit calculus.