Right? Why aren’t leftists embracing the environmentally-destructive mechanism the techbro billionaires are using to simultaneously enrich themselves and enslave humanity?
Why aren’t leftists embracing the environmentally-destructive
It’s only as environmentally destructive as the environment in which it operates, if you train your AI in France using Nuclear power it is effectively carbon free training is it not? The biggest limitation on the carbon use of AI appears to be entirely limited to how fast or slow the USA transitions to renewable energy.
If you run your LLM locally on a solar powered device is that not carbon free inference?
the techbro billionaires are using to simultaneously enrich themselves and enslave humanity?
enrich themselves? I thought AI was a massive money losing adventure bubble that was about to pop?
enslave humanity? I thought AI was slop not worth of even being used because apparently all it does is hallucinate answers?
It’s only as environmentally destructive as the environment in which it operates, if you train your AI in France using Nuclear power it is effectively carbon free training is it not? The biggest limitation on the carbon use of AI appears to be entirely limited to how fast or slow the USA transitions to renewable energy.
Distracting hypothetical - ie a red herring. The question is not is it conceivable to build AI in a way that isn’t inherently environmentally destructive. It isn’t being done. Not at scale, nor is there any plans to do so. There’s no intention to reduce reliance on fossil fuels powering datacenters. There isn’t even a suggestion of intention to give lip-service to the problem so fantasizing about it serves no purpose.
enrich themselves? I thought AI was a massive money losing adventure bubble that was about to pop?
These are not mutually exclusive. The golden parachute problem still exists.
enslave humanity? I thought AI was slop not worth of even being used because apparently all it does is hallucinate answers?
That it is worthless doesn’t make it not psychologically destructive. People want things that destroy their lives all the time. Drugs, gambling, AI sex bots, etc. We’ve known for a very long time there’s ways to hijack people’s behaviour and make them behave in ways that violate their values and good sense. The fact that AI slop directly engages in hacking our brains, and filling our heads with junk data and hallucinations is not internally inconsistent.
Construction uses concrete and steel and other natural resources, as well as using gas to run the heavy equipment to build.
Large centers take away natural land that could be used as carbon sinks but instead are concrete heat traps.
There are more hits to the environment, but I’m not going to lay them out. Just looking at one source of possible energy use, which they aren’t actually using since many are in the US and not in France, is stupid.
Also, to your pseudo-intellectual “gotcha” points about thinking AI was a waste so how can billionaires profit: just because it doesn’t make money in the long run doesn’t mean billionaires aren’t making a TON of money in the short run. Long term losses will be born by the public and not private money-holders. And even if AI is mostly useless, billionaires will still lay off employees only to learn that AI was in fact worthless, but the people who lost their jobs will fall further into debt and will be slaves to that debt.
Right? Why aren’t leftists embracing the environmentally-destructive mechanism the techbro billionaires are using to simultaneously enrich themselves and enslave humanity?
It’s only as environmentally destructive as the environment in which it operates, if you train your AI in France using Nuclear power it is effectively carbon free training is it not? The biggest limitation on the carbon use of AI appears to be entirely limited to how fast or slow the USA transitions to renewable energy.
If you run your LLM locally on a solar powered device is that not carbon free inference?
enrich themselves? I thought AI was a massive money losing adventure bubble that was about to pop?
enslave humanity? I thought AI was slop not worth of even being used because apparently all it does is hallucinate answers?
Distracting hypothetical - ie a red herring. The question is not is it conceivable to build AI in a way that isn’t inherently environmentally destructive. It isn’t being done. Not at scale, nor is there any plans to do so. There’s no intention to reduce reliance on fossil fuels powering datacenters. There isn’t even a suggestion of intention to give lip-service to the problem so fantasizing about it serves no purpose.
These are not mutually exclusive. The golden parachute problem still exists.
That it is worthless doesn’t make it not psychologically destructive. People want things that destroy their lives all the time. Drugs, gambling, AI sex bots, etc. We’ve known for a very long time there’s ways to hijack people’s behaviour and make them behave in ways that violate their values and good sense. The fact that AI slop directly engages in hacking our brains, and filling our heads with junk data and hallucinations is not internally inconsistent.
You do realize, don’t you, that there is more to hurting the environment than just energy use, right?
Water use is through the roof, and water is kind of useful for making food and keeping humans alive: https://theconversation.com/data-centers-consume-massive-amounts-of-water-companies-rarely-tell-the-public-exactly-how-much-262901
Construction uses concrete and steel and other natural resources, as well as using gas to run the heavy equipment to build.
Large centers take away natural land that could be used as carbon sinks but instead are concrete heat traps.
There are more hits to the environment, but I’m not going to lay them out. Just looking at one source of possible energy use, which they aren’t actually using since many are in the US and not in France, is stupid.
Also, to your pseudo-intellectual “gotcha” points about thinking AI was a waste so how can billionaires profit: just because it doesn’t make money in the long run doesn’t mean billionaires aren’t making a TON of money in the short run. Long term losses will be born by the public and not private money-holders. And even if AI is mostly useless, billionaires will still lay off employees only to learn that AI was in fact worthless, but the people who lost their jobs will fall further into debt and will be slaves to that debt.