Do you think AI is mostly generating slop? Only like 5% of AI use is private individuals.

The point is that this is not actually an ecological hazard the way people say it is, and that there are much, much more pressing issues if we’re going to fix the environment. Literally all we would have to do to solve global warming is stop eating meat. You see anywhere near as much about that as you do datacenters? Which cause less than one percent of the environmental issues of meat?

They tend to work much better when you point them at things. Hallucination rates go way, way down when they aren’t pulling from their “memory.” They are, also, like you say, wrong in ways that are noticeable and often “interesting” in the Ibsen way. I also doubt that you could get the same experience for less money. I’d have to go back to college to get the education I’m getting with AI. At least community college. It’s a lot of near-experts at once. And when you point it at expert literature it basically is a senile college professor. But yeah the senile part of that statement is pretty important.

Golf courses use 30x the water that data centers use. Lawns, 100x. Standby mode for appliances costs more energy, by a lot. I wonder how much carbon emissions are offset by people no longer driving to work at call centers and the like.

Out of curiosity do you eat meat? .2% of water is used on data centers. 9.8% is used on beef. For carbon emissions one pound of beef consumed is equivalent to about 640,000 prompts.

AI is an environmental concern but the way people act about it is straight up ridiculous.

Edit: I am very proud of all of the vegans who unplug their appliances who are downvoting me. I, too, am a vegan who unplugs their appliances.

Reddit is currently engaging with this kind of behavior to drive people rightwards.