Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret - eviltoast

one assessment suggests that ChatGPT, the chatbot created by OpenAI in San Francisco, California, is already consuming the energy of 33,000 homes. It’s estimated that a search driven by generative AI uses four to five times the energy of a conventional web search. Within years, large AI systems are likely to need as much energy as entire nations.

    • FaceDeer@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      Feel free not to, I guess. But again, that wasn’t the point of my comment. You mistook bleistift2’s statement in the opposite way it was intended. ChatGPT’s not intended as a replacement for a search engine so evaluating it on that basis is misleading.

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      9 months ago

      That’s just like… your opinion, man.

      AI is going to be an important tool in the future. Decrying it as bad is similar to folks saying investing in green energy was stupid because without economies of scale they were expensive and inefficient.

      Computers are using more energy. Instead of turning them off, let’s find ways to produce energy less destructively, such as nuclear which would benefit EVs and all energy usage.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        AI is going to be an important tool in the future.

        The future for the people who aren’t dying of thirst due to the lack of water?

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              9 months ago

              Then solar. Wind. Geothermal. Whatever. Energy usage is never, ever going down unless population does and probably not even then. If that silicon isn’t used for AI it’ll be something else. Then what?

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                Ah, you’re one of the ‘we shouldn’t do anything about ecological disasters because something else will come along and make things just as bad anyway’ crowd. I hear that’s the latest right-wing school of thought now that it’s almost impossible to deny climate change is happening.

                • MagicShel@programming.dev
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                  9 months ago

                  What’s your plan, everyone just turn back the wheel of time and homestead and grow potatoes and leave technology behind? Because regressiveness is a lynchpin of right-wing thought, too.

                  I don’t think either of us are served by attacking each other, but we can dance if you want to, we can leave your friends behind, 'cause your friends can’t… Oh sorry I got distracted.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    9 months ago

                    Yes. The only two options are let companies like OpenAI use ridiculous amounts of energy and fresh water or we all live like it’s the 19th century.

                    There are no other options. Certainly not something like, say, stop these AI companies from doing that and if they can’t find a better solution, too bad.