this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities.

Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world.

Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.

Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects.

In other words, policy needs to be designed not to pick sectors or technologies as “winners”, but to pick the willing by providing support that is conditional on companies moving in the right direction. Making disclosure of environmental practices and impacts a condition for government support could ensure greater transparency and accountability.

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[–] paf0@lemmy.world 80 points 5 months ago (7 children)

Yes it does, and wait until you hear about literally every other industry.

[–] bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 108 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (16 children)
[–] index@sh.itjust.works 8 points 5 months ago

You are on lemmy, a decentralized and open platform. Cryptos are to money what lemmy is to their centralized and proprietary counterpart.

[–] UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee 6 points 5 months ago (40 children)

Cryptocurrencies have no real world applications. AI does.

[–] bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 31 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] balder1991@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

AI evangelists act like it’s already perfect and anybody who dares question the church of LLM is declared a Luddite.

I don’t think that’s the case, though. The only people I see actively “evangelizing” LLMs are either companies looking for investors or “influencers” looking for attention by tapping on people’s insecurities.

Most people just either find it useful for some specific use cases or just don’t care. And a large part actually hate on it.

[–] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

You're doing it right now. You're criticizing that user for saying it's okay to talk about AI's failures. You're the example, evangelizing and shilling. My advice: STFU.

[–] balder1991@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

You're doing it right now. You're criticizing that user for saying it's okay to talk about AI's failures. You're the example, evangelizing and shilling. My advice: STFU.

It seems like you missed the memo on reading comprehension. I literally quoted the exact part I'm criticizing, which clearly isn't what you claimed.

And being overly emotional and telling people to STFU online? That's a masterclass in civility right there.

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[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)
[–] bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 5 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)
[–] Turun@feddit.de 2 points 5 months ago

I've used it to improve selected paragraphs of my writing, provide code snippets and find an old comic based on a crude description of a friend.

I feel like these interactions were valuable to me and only one (code snippets) could have been easily replaced with existing tools.

[–] BlushedPotatoPlayers@sopuli.xyz 0 points 5 months ago

As far as I know there would be, it's just that nobody is using them that way

[–] manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml 0 points 5 months ago

Yeah! Accelerating societal collapse!

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[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 26 points 5 months ago

Guys guys! There's room for all of us to eat our fair share of natural resources and doom the planet together!

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