Whether you use AI, think it's a "fun stupid thing for memes", or even ignore it, you should know it's already polluting worse than global air travel.

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Submitted ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Reygle@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://archive.is/nn6Av

archive.is link to article from allabout.ai at www.allaboutai.com/resources/…/ai-environment/

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ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Your article doesn’t even claim that. Do you have any idea just how carbon intensive a flight is?

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- interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I imagine people making that claim accept air travel as useful and “AI”, really, all datacenters as not useful. I’ve had people tell me oh, air travel is more efficient per mile that road travel. But this ignores that people wouldn’t drive thousands of miles if it was not as easy as booking a flight.
  
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- MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Or a LLM query?
  
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lime@feddit.nu ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
idk if that’s the intended takeaway from those numbers.

According to AllAboutAI analysis, global AI processing generates over 260,930 kilograms of CO₂ monthly from ChatGPT alone, equivalent to 260 transatlantic flights, with 1 billion daily queries consuming 300 MWh of electricity.

according to the faa there are on average 5500 planes in the air every day, and while i couldn’t find an exact number there seem to be between 350 and 1 200 transatlantic flights every day, depending on season.

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- otp@sh.itjust.works ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Just goes to show that you don’t even need AI to spread misinformation! Haha
  
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- Artisian@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thank you.
  
  Idk if LLMs can tell which number is bigger. But we already knew humans can’t.
  
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- leftthegroup@lemmings.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yes, but there’s zero fucking actual benefit.
  
  Seeing memes posted here that use AI while sitting on it is the most confusing thing to me.
  
  Just… don’t use it, people. The hole burning in AI bros’ pockets will close up if you just stop making it profitable. Even the free ones are making money with ads. Don’t use it, even for a joke.
  
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  - lime@feddit.nu ⁨40⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    we do a lot of things for no benefit. video games, golf, horse racing, grilling… all those have far larger carbon footprints. as someone else said, focus on the actual negatives of generative ai, like the proven cognitive decline and loneliness.
    
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  - SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Frankly focusing on the carbon output of AI models is a red herring. It’s not a significant part of the problem and just makes people complacent in the form of feeling like we’ve achieved something if it succeeds. It’s not worse than stuff like video games
    
    Focus on the actual negative effects of AI, but carbon intensity isn’t a major one
    
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  - Grimy@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Image
    
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  - FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    People like you wouldn’t have seen the benefit in cars vs horse and carriages, computers vs typewriters and books, or watches vs sundials.
    
    I bet you think that the only thing AI is used for is ChatGPT style conversations too.
    
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- very_well_lost@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  260,930 kilograms of CO₂ monthly from ChatGPT alone
  
  ChatGPT has the most marketing, but it’s only part of the AI ecosystem… and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if other AI products are bigger now. Practically every time someone does a Google search, Gemini AI spits out a summary whether you wanted it or not — and Google processes more than 8 billion search queries per day. That’s a lot of slop.
  
  There are also more bespoke tools that are being pushed aggressively in enterprise. Microsoft’s Copilot is used extensively in tech for code generation and code reviews. Ditto for Claude Code. And believe me, tech companies are pushing this shit hard. I write code for a living, and the company I work for is so bullish on AI that they’ve mandated that us devs have to use it every day if we want to stay employed. They’re even tracking our usage to make sure we comply… and I know I’m not alone in my experience.
  
  All of that combined probably still doesn’t reach the same level of CO² emissions as global air travel, but there are a lot more fish in this proverbial pond than just OpenAI, and when you add them all up, the numbers get big. AI usage is also rising much, much faster than air travel, so it’s really only a matter of time before it does cross that threshold.
  
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  - lime@feddit.nu ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    they list the others in the article.
    
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Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Which is why I threw up in my mouth a little when my boss said we all need to be more bullish on AI this morning.

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- BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Same. And they basically jizz their pants when they see a practical use for AI, but 9 out of 10 times there’s already a cheaper and more reliable solution they won’t even entertain.
  
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  - magikmw@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    There's practical use for AI?
    
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- Reygle@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  My boss is also a fuckwit
  
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- HugeNerd@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Replace your boss with it.
  
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- GhostlyPixel@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I’ve mentioned it before but my boss’s boss said only 86% of employees use AI daily and it’s one of his annual goals to get that to 100%. He is obsessed.
  
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  - ramble81@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    They’re salivating at the chance to reduce head count and still make money. Employees are by far the largest cost for any company. They hate paying it out when it could be for them.
    
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- SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  You should correct their spelling of “bullshit”
  
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AndiHutch@lemmy.zip ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It also pollutes the mind of ignorant people with misinformation. Not that that is anything new. But I do think objective truth is very important in a democratic society. It reminds me of that video that used to go around that showed Sinclair Broadcasting in like 20 some different ‘local’ broadcast news all repeating the same words verbatim. It ended with ‘This is extremely dangerous to our democracy’. With AI being added to all the search engines, it is really easy to look something and unknowingly get bombarded with false info pulled out of the dregs of internet. 90% of people don’t verify the answer to see if it is based in reality.

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fittedsyllabi@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Image

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- interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What is this masterpiece ? Pro-pornography subliminal propaganda ?
  
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REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Bitcoin or crypto?

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blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Makes me wonder what they are doing to reach these figures.
Because I can run many models at home and it wouldn't require me to be pouring bottles of water on my PC, nor it would show on my electricity bill.
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- FatCrab@slrpnk.net ⁨12⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Most of these figures are guesses along a spectrum of “educated” since many models, like ChatGPT, are effectively opaque to everyone and we have no idea what the current iteration architecture actually looks like. But MIT did do a very solid study not too long ago that looked at the energy cost for various queries for various architectures. Text queries for very large GPT models actually had a higher energy cost than image gen using a normal number of iterations for Stable Diffusion models actually, which is pretty crazy. Anyhow, you’re looking at per-query energy usage of like 15 seconds microwaving at full power to riding a bike a few blocks. When tallied over the immense number of queries being serviced, it does add up.
  
  That all said, I think energy consumption is a silly thing to attack AI over. Modernize, modularize, and decentralize the grids and convert to non-GHG sources and it doesn’t matter–there are other concerns with AI that are far more pressing (like deskilling effects and inability to control mis- and disinformation).
  
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- Artisian@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Well, most of the carbon footprint for models is in training, which you probably don’t need to do at home.
  
  That said, even with training they are not nearly our leading cause of pollution.
  
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  - REDACTED@infosec.pub ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Article says that training o4 required equalivent amount of energy compared to powering san francisco for 3 days
    
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- Flagstaff@programming.dev ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Basically every tech company is using it… It’s millions of people, not just us…
  
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  - very_well_lost@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Billions. Practically every Google search runs through Gemini now, and Google handles more search queries per day than there are humans on Earth.
    
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maccam912@programming.dev ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
What does it mean to consume water? Like it’s used to cool something and then put back in a river? Or it evaporates? It’s not like it can be used in some irrecoverable way right?

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- morto@piefed.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  if they take the water and doesn't return to the source: there will be less available water in the water body, and it can lead to scarcity. If they take it and return, but at a higher temperature, or along with pollutants, it can impact the life in the water body. If they treat the water before returning, to be closest to the original properties, there will be little impact, but it means using more energy and resources for the treatment
  
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- lime@feddit.nu ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  “using” water tends to mean that it needs to be processed to be usable again. you “use” water by drinking it, or showering, or boiling pasta too.
  
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- Flagstaff@programming.dev ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I think the point is that it evaporates and may return as rain, which is overwhelmingly acid rain or filled with microplastics and needs to be cleaned or purified again.
  
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- kibiz0r@midwest.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  They need to use very pure water, and it evaporates completely, so it must be continually replenished.
  
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  - Hackworth@sh.itjust.works ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Need is a strong word. There are much more efficient ways to cool data centers. They’ve just chosen the most wasteful way because it’s the cheapest (for them).
    
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ReCursing@feddit.uk ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
It’s using energy, we need more renewables. That’s not a problem with AI. Direct your opprobrium where it belongs

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Deceptichum@quokk.au ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Shame to see this clickbait blog misinfo here, but the anti-ai sloppers wont let that stop them.

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- Reygle@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Wth?
  
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  - Deceptichum@quokk.au ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    It’s a shitty biased site with incorrect data, ironically what looks to have been written by an AI.
    
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rimu@piefed.social ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
The emoji usage, heading & bold text pattern makes me certain the article was written using AI.

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jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Generating bullshit that isn’t really that useful.

Remember when the Apple Newton “revolutionized” computing with handwriting recognition?

No, of course not, because the whole thing sucked and vanished outside of old Doonesbury cartoons. LOL

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- corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  My peer used the newton for comp aci class notes.
  
  Then she went on to mastermind the behaviour and tactics of Myth: The Fallen Lords.
  
  It’s tenuous, but I say that’s causal.
  
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FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
As soon as you see water consumption being called an issue you know it’s not to be taken seriously. Water doesn’t just disappear.

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- gens@programming.dev ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Water has to be cleaned. It is renewable, not free. My city has many sources, but most places where they build datacenters do not. It is a real problem
  
  Either way the biggest proble, IMO, is the pressure on the electric grid. If the asshats building the centers would cooperate with others, there would be much less problems.
  
  As for power usage, yea its a lot but still not an insane amount. The image and video generation uses a LOT more then text.
  
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  - very_well_lost@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    
    It is renewable, not free.
    
    “Renewable” also doesn’t mean shit if the resource is being consumed faster than it’s being renewed. Ask the people who used to live on the shores of the Aral Sea how “renewable” their water was.
    
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HubertManne@piefed.social ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This is my main issue with it. I think its useful enough but only if it uses about the same energy as you would use doing whatever without it. Most conversations I had with someone trying to convince me it does not use to much power end up being very much like crypto ones were it keeps on being apples to oranges and the energy consumption seems to much. Im hoping hardware can be made to get the power use lower the way graphics cards did. I want to see querying an llm using about the same as searching for the answer or lower.

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