To put this into perspective: imagine smoking 4.32 grams of weed every day and imagine how that would add up.
So this is kind of an apples and oranges thing, I on my phone so I can’t fully convert the numbers, but I took a few minutes to poke around and I think I found some stats that should put this in perspective.
www.arbor.eco/blog/ai-environmental-impact
Each query sends out roughly 4.32 grams of CO₂e (MLCO2), which may seem trivial on its own but adds up millions of queries a day, and you’re looking at a staggering daily output. 1 million messages sent to ChatGPT is equivalent to 11,001 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle
Which is yikes and without a doubt unsustainable energy usage, but comparing this to wikis article on COVID environmental impacts
en.wikipedia.org/…/Impact_of_the_COVID-19_pandemi…
In 2020, carbon dioxide emissions fell by 6.4% or 2.3 billion tonnes globally.
My napkin math says that we would need ~532,407,407 AI queries to match the 2020 work for home drop, but unfortunately, Chat GPT alone is estimating 2.5 billion prompts, daily.
I started writing this assuming the opposite was true but unfortunately AI is a bigger environmental impact than an RTO. Which is honestly shocking. I hope someone corrects my math and tells me it isn’t this dire. Work from should be the norm, but AI is truly just a massive environmental burden.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 6 days ago
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days ago
its more like 0.0017% of 4.32grams of weed, see my response above
a_wild_mimic_appears@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 days ago
you got an error in magnitude there: its 5.32*10¹⁴ requests, so 532 407 407 407 407 requests
(2.3 × billion tonnes)/(4.32 grams) 2.3 billion tonnes = 2.3 trillion kilos = 2.3 quadrillion grams ≈ 532 407 000 000 000 requests needed for equivalence to Covid CO2 drop ≈ 912 500 000 000 requests made per year
912 500 000 000/532 407 407 407 407 ≈ 0.001 7% (2.5 × billion) × 365 = 912 500 000 000 (2.3 × billion tonnes)/(4.32 grams) ≈ 532 407 407 407 407
See what i mean? Stop ChatGPT, achieve 0,0017% of the reduction that Covid brought.