Ai data centres used about 0.5% of global electricity production last year. Electricity production is about 26,000 TWh annually, versus total energy production of 185 TWh annually, so AI was about 0.07% of all energy consumption. Energy production causes the bulk of greenhouse emissions: 73.2%, putting AI on 0.05% (this is unfair to AI, because electricity is cleaner than the average energy production which includes just burning gas for heat).
A large TV might consume about 100W while on, so 100Wh to watch for an hour. To reach the same consumption with AI, you’d need to run about 55 expensive (the upper estimate I found was 6700J - I assume this means long coding answers, research or image generation) chatgpt queries.
Personally I think it unlikely that someone would reach that 1 prompt per minute at that expensive estimate, so ask yourself: is AI really “burning entire areas” compared to just watching TV?
It has its problems but this is a moral panic.
If you’re downvoting, leave me a comment to say why.
It all well and good comparing data centre energy usage with global production. But you miss out the important reality that a good chunk of the data centres running today and in the near future are using fossil fuel power on-site, without a grid connection, which is so much worse.
Be honest. Even if every single data centre did that, would it worse enough to really change the picture? It’s still going to be less than paper production by a long way for a long while.
You’re fighting a losing battle here, some people just have decided that AI is bad no matter what. There are quite many here on lemmy, which is a shame because there are good and bad sides about AI, but IMO it for sure is here to stay, so discussions would be interesting, again IMO.
You’re one of the persons I describe, a shame there is no discussion, because you have “made up your mind”. I mean I don’t have all the information about it all, so I’d like to know more, and I sincerely doubt that there is absolutely no good side of “AI”, lots of people disagree with that statement.
I mean 6 months ago people said exactly the same thing as you do today, but without the medical & research. Seems they were wrong.
AI is bad, but it’s bizarre to point to its energy usage, out of all things. It’s really missing the forest for the trees. As top commenter’s data shows, even gaming on a gaming PC is so much worse (considering a 650W PSU, which is 6.5 times the TV example).
Yep, I’ve not had a productive discussion about it that I remember. It’s not just that people have made their minds up; they also will not hear anything that is misaligned with their belief, even if ultimately compatible: you don’t need to think that ai is useful or good to realise its energy use is not especially important. But if it’s bad everything about it must be bad.
They seem to be talking more about reliability than capacity. And you’ve not commented on the numbers, and comparison with other activities, which I’d take as more reliable and significant than the pronouncements of a damn lobbyist.
I mean you’re talking to a guy who has halved his total energy usage over the past four years including watching fewer shows, playing fewer games, and sharing more books with friends from our already existing libraries. Trying to convince me that AI isn’t that bad because it only adds a little more energy usage is a real lost cause when I’m constantly trying to push things to less energy usage in every way I can because I hear climate scientists sounding all the alarm bells.
It’s an extra 0.5% that didn’t need to exist on top of everything else we need to reduce.
Do you complain that everyone is being immoral for continuing to watch TV? Or do you accept that energy usage for entertainment is allowed?
How do you compare the relative moral value of using AI, watching TV, driving 10 miles, eating a steak and catching a flight?
If I wanted to halve my carbon footprint I’d further reduce my meat consumption. I would do nothing about gaming, safe in the knowledge that it’s basically irrelevant.
Everyone should be doing what they can was more my point. I went for the biggest things for myself. I already was mostly vegetarian and didn’t drive much so nothing to change there. Most of my carbon footprint was gaming, TV, and AC. Things I was able to work on easily. I do understand I’m fortunate enough to be able to add more insulation to my house and get more efficient appliances and so on. I do know we need to tackle things at the industrial level for best effect.
My point, again was that adding more power consumption and heat generation is definitely not the way.
Sure, but everyone needs to stay sane and alive - so whether someone is generating a slop meme, or watching TV - or using Claude to keep their boss happy, or whatever, these are relatively morally equivalent things. Yet here, AI is singled out as if it were uniquely damaging, when in fact it’s similar. Just more hated.
However there is sharp growth in demand being predicted and I don’t see any sign of humanity trading in some other power usage to get their data center power allocation. Even if we’re are greening the grid it is all for nothing if the extra capacity has to be filled in by more fossil fuels.
So? Matrix rules motherfucker, I don’t care if you’ve been manipulated into trying to kill me, I just care that you’re trying to kill me and it’s not my responsibility to deprogram your death cult ass. Fuck em, every last one.
And also made to be susceptible to that level of stupidity by capitalists & their owned politicians gutting education / failing to fund it adequately to begin with. (For US anyway.)
I don’t know where you got the 2% number and I think the real number is probably a lot higher, but let’s assume that number is right for a moment. I know what you’re probably thinking because I used to think the same thing. IF vaccines were not as safe and effective as claimed, that number would be a lot higher than 2%. Four vaccines to cause SIDS, cancer, autoimmune diseases, autism, etc. that would mean that a massive amount of very smart people we’re either dumb or lying.
It seems inconceivable. But, the pharmaceutical industry is incomprehensively, wealthy and powerful in part because they own or effectively own pretty much every major scientific and medical journal and every med school and medical textbook. And they have a government that mandates their products and protects them from lawsuits. You can’t sue a vaccine manufacturer.
Under those circumstances, at least one and 50 medical professionals is screaming from the rooftops that vaccines are not safe, even when the industry is dedicated to destroying their careers and reputations for doing so and is willing to throw essentially unlimited money at it.
And there’s the fact that every study done that truly compared vaccinated and unvaccinated, such as the recent Henry Ford health study, has found that the vaccinated had significantly higher rates of every disease studied. Whereas the unvaccinated had close to zero.
I didn’t take the vaccine at first because they pushed it as having “no potential risks”. Every medical procedure has risks, so I knew they were bullshitting and was therefore unwilling to risk it. Mind you I worked through the entire pandemic as essential medical personnel (running a weed dispensary lmao)
Eventually, accurate risk information about the myocarditis / etc became available. That actually made me more comfortable because at least it was fucking honest. So I could evaluate, what is likely to cause me more harm, the vaccine or COVID?
The clear, science-based answer is COVID. You aren’t a free thinker, you just opted into a different lane of dogma.
You know that phrase when people show you who they are believe them? You knew they were lying. They told you they knew for sure it was safe and you knew they couldn’t know that. Then they admitted a little bit that it might be a little bit unsafe, and suddenly you trusted them?
Imagine a wife, who knows that her husband has cheated on her with dozens of women. She knows that he is currently sneaking out behind her back again and confront him. After some arguing and denial, he eventually admits that he did see another woman, but insists that they only kissed. Should she believe him?
The vaccine did not work well for me: I got COVID at least 3 times. Was wearing N95 masks from the start (happened to have some). Stayed at home except for vital shopping. Grew my hair out. Social distanced the best I could. Played a lot of Animal Crossing. But interacting with work and family is unavoidable, and that’s who I believe I got it from every time, as they were generally not taking it seriously.
From what I read, when I got the shot and boosters I should have had some kind of mild reaction. Felt bad for a day or at least a few hours, something like that. But that never happened to me. However, others I talked to did have a reaction, and they also didn’t seem to get COVID. So I’m inclined to believe that the vaccine probably did work, for at least some segment of the population, just not for me for some reason. It was a rush job, so it not working for everyone isn’t a conspiracy, to me it’s somewhat expected. And maybe one of the other brands would have worked, but I don’t think you were allowed to mix them.
The conflation of antivaxxers with tin foil hat conspiracy theorists is the product of huge marketing and PR budgets. I read that Pfizer had something like 112 employees just dedicated to Reddit.
It’s not a grand conspiracy theory. It’s just money and perverse incentives.
People like Biden and Fauci went on TV and said “when you get vaccinated, the virus stops with you… you can’t get it and you can’t transmit it.” They forced people to get the vaccine or lose their jobs.
And as you noted, it didn’t work, or at least not well. The data shows that it offered some protection to the initial variant, but the protection waned quickly, and once it wore off, your immune system was primed for a variant that no longer existed, which meant that you were actually at increased risk for new variants.
I know vaccinated people who have been hospitalized with COVID multiple times, and unvaccinated people who can’t seem to get COVID if they tried. It didn’t work. They lied and made billions on that lie.
But this time no cure until we wipe out all the anti mask/ anti vaccine idiots first
And “AI” idiots who insist on burning entire areas just to generate shrimp Jesus memes
And the fascist oligarchs. Maybe lock em in submarines and drown the lot of em.
We don’t need a covid-style lockdown to do that. Just saying.
i know the perfect company for that one, im sure they still use a logitech controller.
Ai data centres used about 0.5% of global electricity production last year. Electricity production is about 26,000 TWh annually, versus total energy production of 185 TWh annually, so AI was about 0.07% of all energy consumption. Energy production causes the bulk of greenhouse emissions: 73.2%, putting AI on 0.05% (this is unfair to AI, because electricity is cleaner than the average energy production which includes just burning gas for heat).
In comparison, trying to find something small on https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector my favourite comparison is that energy for making paper consumes more than 10x as much as does AI.
A large TV might consume about 100W while on, so 100Wh to watch for an hour. To reach the same consumption with AI, you’d need to run about 55 expensive (the upper estimate I found was 6700J - I assume this means long coding answers, research or image generation) chatgpt queries.
Personally I think it unlikely that someone would reach that 1 prompt per minute at that expensive estimate, so ask yourself: is AI really “burning entire areas” compared to just watching TV?
It has its problems but this is a moral panic.
If you’re downvoting, leave me a comment to say why.
It all well and good comparing data centre energy usage with global production. But you miss out the important reality that a good chunk of the data centres running today and in the near future are using fossil fuel power on-site, without a grid connection, which is so much worse.
Be honest. Even if every single data centre did that, would it worse enough to really change the picture? It’s still going to be less than paper production by a long way for a long while.
You’re fighting a losing battle here, some people just have decided that AI is bad no matter what. There are quite many here on lemmy, which is a shame because there are good and bad sides about AI, but IMO it for sure is here to stay, so discussions would be interesting, again IMO.
Correct, because outside of scientific and medical applications (run by actual scientists and medical professionals), all AI is bad no matter what.
Nothing it can possibly do for you justifies the harm it does, and your reliance on it atrophies your cognitive skills.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say that.
Turns out doctors are just as susceptible to deskilling as anybody else who uses AI.
Fair, I was thinking more bruteforce-type applications like protein folding or synthesis pathways for certain medicines.
You’re one of the persons I describe, a shame there is no discussion, because you have “made up your mind”. I mean I don’t have all the information about it all, so I’d like to know more, and I sincerely doubt that there is absolutely no good side of “AI”, lots of people disagree with that statement.
I mean 6 months ago people said exactly the same thing as you do today, but without the medical & research. Seems they were wrong.
AI cannot possibly be a net good given the inherent pollution it causes. End of statement.
AI is bad, but it’s bizarre to point to its energy usage, out of all things. It’s really missing the forest for the trees. As top commenter’s data shows, even gaming on a gaming PC is so much worse (considering a 650W PSU, which is 6.5 times the TV example).
Yep, I’ve not had a productive discussion about it that I remember. It’s not just that people have made their minds up; they also will not hear anything that is misaligned with their belief, even if ultimately compatible: you don’t need to think that ai is useful or good to realise its energy use is not especially important. But if it’s bad everything about it must be bad.
If a single stream of water is polluted or a single living being is harmed for the benefit of producing AI slop, then yes, everything about it is bad.
“Net effect” is a concept for a reason.
Why? Do you apply the same reasoning to watching TV?
And yet the data center lobby says the EU should abandon its climate goals for AI
They seem to be talking more about reliability than capacity. And you’ve not commented on the numbers, and comparison with other activities, which I’d take as more reliable and significant than the pronouncements of a damn lobbyist.
I mean you’re talking to a guy who has halved his total energy usage over the past four years including watching fewer shows, playing fewer games, and sharing more books with friends from our already existing libraries. Trying to convince me that AI isn’t that bad because it only adds a little more energy usage is a real lost cause when I’m constantly trying to push things to less energy usage in every way I can because I hear climate scientists sounding all the alarm bells.
It’s an extra 0.5% that didn’t need to exist on top of everything else we need to reduce.
Do you complain that everyone is being immoral for continuing to watch TV? Or do you accept that energy usage for entertainment is allowed?
How do you compare the relative moral value of using AI, watching TV, driving 10 miles, eating a steak and catching a flight?
If I wanted to halve my carbon footprint I’d further reduce my meat consumption. I would do nothing about gaming, safe in the knowledge that it’s basically irrelevant.
Everyone should be doing what they can was more my point. I went for the biggest things for myself. I already was mostly vegetarian and didn’t drive much so nothing to change there. Most of my carbon footprint was gaming, TV, and AC. Things I was able to work on easily. I do understand I’m fortunate enough to be able to add more insulation to my house and get more efficient appliances and so on. I do know we need to tackle things at the industrial level for best effect.
My point, again was that adding more power consumption and heat generation is definitely not the way.
Sure, but everyone needs to stay sane and alive - so whether someone is generating a slop meme, or watching TV - or using Claude to keep their boss happy, or whatever, these are relatively morally equivalent things. Yet here, AI is singled out as if it were uniquely damaging, when in fact it’s similar. Just more hated.
That’s your belief they’re morally equivalent. Which is the core of the disagreement. Accepting the status quo is morally inferior is my belief.
What’s the difference?
However there is sharp growth in demand being predicted and I don’t see any sign of humanity trading in some other power usage to get their data center power allocation. Even if we’re are greening the grid it is all for nothing if the extra capacity has to be filled in by more fossil fuels.
Yes, about 12% per year these days. Not enough to really change the picture for a long time, though.
The anti-mask/no jab people were convinced to be dangerous by billionaire propaganda.
So? Matrix rules motherfucker, I don’t care if you’ve been manipulated into trying to kill me, I just care that you’re trying to kill me and it’s not my responsibility to deprogram your death cult ass. Fuck em, every last one.
And also made to be susceptible to that level of stupidity by capitalists & their owned politicians gutting education / failing to fund it adequately to begin with. (For US anyway.)
Yeah, the people with the blood clots, myocarditis, infertility, and skyrocketing rates of ass cancer are the smart ones.
They knew that COVID is stopped by a mask, except you’re sitting down at a restaurant.
They get COVID again and again because the vaccine works!
Hmm. The Lemmy antivax crowd.
“Crowd” being, in this case, one guy lol
Decades of doctors, researchers, and Nobel prize winning immunologists willing to endure endless derision and destroy their careers.
Hundreds of thousands of parents with identical stories.
But we’re just the antivax crowd. Smart people believe the ads on TV.
Decades is a way to count people now? I think the number you’re looking for is 2%.
I don’t know where you got the 2% number and I think the real number is probably a lot higher, but let’s assume that number is right for a moment. I know what you’re probably thinking because I used to think the same thing. IF vaccines were not as safe and effective as claimed, that number would be a lot higher than 2%. Four vaccines to cause SIDS, cancer, autoimmune diseases, autism, etc. that would mean that a massive amount of very smart people we’re either dumb or lying.
It seems inconceivable. But, the pharmaceutical industry is incomprehensively, wealthy and powerful in part because they own or effectively own pretty much every major scientific and medical journal and every med school and medical textbook. And they have a government that mandates their products and protects them from lawsuits. You can’t sue a vaccine manufacturer.
Under those circumstances, at least one and 50 medical professionals is screaming from the rooftops that vaccines are not safe, even when the industry is dedicated to destroying their careers and reputations for doing so and is willing to throw essentially unlimited money at it.
And there’s the fact that every study done that truly compared vaccinated and unvaccinated, such as the recent Henry Ford health study, has found that the vaccinated had significantly higher rates of every disease studied. Whereas the unvaccinated had close to zero.
I didn’t take the vaccine at first because they pushed it as having “no potential risks”. Every medical procedure has risks, so I knew they were bullshitting and was therefore unwilling to risk it. Mind you I worked through the entire pandemic as essential medical personnel (running a weed dispensary lmao)
Eventually, accurate risk information about the myocarditis / etc became available. That actually made me more comfortable because at least it was fucking honest. So I could evaluate, what is likely to cause me more harm, the vaccine or COVID?
The clear, science-based answer is COVID. You aren’t a free thinker, you just opted into a different lane of dogma.
You know that phrase when people show you who they are believe them? You knew they were lying. They told you they knew for sure it was safe and you knew they couldn’t know that. Then they admitted a little bit that it might be a little bit unsafe, and suddenly you trusted them?
Imagine a wife, who knows that her husband has cheated on her with dozens of women. She knows that he is currently sneaking out behind her back again and confront him. After some arguing and denial, he eventually admits that he did see another woman, but insists that they only kissed. Should she believe him?
That’s
not a remotely comparable analogy lol
Someone lied to you. Then they sort of quietly admitted a tiny part of it when called out. You believed them.
There’s gullible written on the ceiling.
I could not be less concerned with your approval lmao
The vaccine did not work well for me: I got COVID at least 3 times. Was wearing N95 masks from the start (happened to have some). Stayed at home except for vital shopping. Grew my hair out. Social distanced the best I could. Played a lot of Animal Crossing. But interacting with work and family is unavoidable, and that’s who I believe I got it from every time, as they were generally not taking it seriously.
From what I read, when I got the shot and boosters I should have had some kind of mild reaction. Felt bad for a day or at least a few hours, something like that. But that never happened to me. However, others I talked to did have a reaction, and they also didn’t seem to get COVID. So I’m inclined to believe that the vaccine probably did work, for at least some segment of the population, just not for me for some reason. It was a rush job, so it not working for everyone isn’t a conspiracy, to me it’s somewhat expected. And maybe one of the other brands would have worked, but I don’t think you were allowed to mix them.
The conflation of antivaxxers with tin foil hat conspiracy theorists is the product of huge marketing and PR budgets. I read that Pfizer had something like 112 employees just dedicated to Reddit.
It’s not a grand conspiracy theory. It’s just money and perverse incentives.
People like Biden and Fauci went on TV and said “when you get vaccinated, the virus stops with you… you can’t get it and you can’t transmit it.” They forced people to get the vaccine or lose their jobs.
And as you noted, it didn’t work, or at least not well. The data shows that it offered some protection to the initial variant, but the protection waned quickly, and once it wore off, your immune system was primed for a variant that no longer existed, which meant that you were actually at increased risk for new variants.
I know vaccinated people who have been hospitalized with COVID multiple times, and unvaccinated people who can’t seem to get COVID if they tried. It didn’t work. They lied and made billions on that lie.
Now think about what else they’re lying about.
Genocide is cool so long as it’s targeting the people I think are vile and sub-human.
Disingenuous bullshit for 300 Alex.