Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities.

Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world.

Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.

Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects.

In other words, policy needs to be designed not to pick sectors or technologies as “winners”, but to pick the willing by providing support that is conditional on companies moving in the right direction. Making disclosure of environmental practices and impacts a condition for government support could ensure greater transparency and accountability.

  • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Sure, uninformed tech hypebois suck in the same way, but the arguments around crypto and AI, especially around energy usage, are fundamentally not the same.

    • bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      7 months ago

      You keep responding to a thing I didn’t say.

      But I will say now that both are very energy intensive/resource draining and the refusal to have a serious conversation about it - as spearheaded by tech bros/AI evangelists like I’ve described - is incredibly frustrating and makes people like me look down on the entire endeavor as a result.

      Intellectually I know there are “responsible” developers and tools being made. But the loudest and most funded are not those people. And we need to consider the impact they have. This includes resource usage.

      Edit: this just appeared on my feed https://www.ft.com/content/ddaac44b-e245-4c8a-bf68-c773cc8f4e63

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Someone posted a shitty article about AI and power usage, someone pointed out that literally every industry uses a ton of power but AI gets clicks, you said AI and Crypto bros are the same.

        If you don’t mean to imply that the counter arguments around AI and Crypto in terms of energy use are the same then write better given the context of the conversation.

        And posting another shitty article that just talks about power usage going up across literally all types of industry, including just normal data centers and manufacturing plants, and then vaguely talking about chatGPT’s power usage compared to Google search to try and make it sound like those things are connected, is not having a serious discussion about it.

        It’s skimming a clickbait headline of a clickbait article and regurgitating the implication in it like it’s a fact.